Decoding UAE Restaurant Marketing Strategy
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Decoding UAE Restaurant Marketing Strategy
The UAE has a vibrant fine dining and gourmet culture, and with that comes a lot of competition for the attention of consumers. To Standout from the crowd and attract diners, restaurants are using various marketing strategies to promote their brand.
In this article, we will dive deep into the digital paid Ads marketing strategies used by major UAE restaurants in the month of December 2022. We analyzed the following four restaurants:
Soho Garden DXB
Wagamama UAE
Asia Asia (Pier 7) Dubai
Zafran Dubai
Disclaimer: This data is gathered from public sources and tools available on the internet.
Website Traffic Distribution
We did an in-depth analysis of the traffic of each restaurant is getting on their website and Soho Garden DXB has received the most traffic in the last three months, with Wagamama and Asia-Asia not far behind.
Website Traffic Behavior
Takeaways from Wagamama Website Audience:
- Average user on the Wagamama website is spending 2.33 minutes on the website
- Each Wagamama website user is visiting at least 3.03 pages on the website
- Bounce rate of Wagamama restaurant is 29.8% which is well above the industry standard.
Google Ads Targeting
Strangely, Soho Garden & Asia-Asia are the only ones that were running Google Ads.
Google Ads are an opportunity no business can afford to pass up—after all, it’s intent-based marketing! So if you intend a sushi dinner tonight, you’re likely going to go looking for places that serve sushi in your area on Google (before ending up at any restaurant).
Soho Garden Dubai Ads
Below list of generic keywords will give you an idea of missed opportunities:
Ad detail is as below:
Asia-Asia Google Ads
When it comes to Asia-Asia, they are targeting the brand keywords as well as the Generic keywords like “rooftop Dubai Marina”
Feedback: The traffic share for generic keywords is low (5.59%), but it’s better than nothing, and compared to the rest of our test group at least they are making some effort with these terms. The brand keywords are doing well, but they could be doing even better.
The most important thing to note is that Asia Asia only has 14% of the traffic share for these keywords, which means there is still plenty of room for growth.
Click on the image to enlarge
Social Media Ads
In this section, we will drill-down on the ads run by all 4 outlets in December, 2022. We will share what they’re doing well and how it can be improved.
Zafran Indian Bistro
Zafran Indian Bistro serves up some of the best Indian food around, and it’s a place everybody should try at least once. The food is fresh and flavorful, the service is excellent and the atmosphere is warm.If you’re looking for a great place to get together with friends or family, you should definitely give Zafran Indian Bistro a try.
- Zafran was running 12 ads on Meta (Facebook & Instagram) in Dec. 2022.
- Out of the 12 ads, are in Arabic, and the rest are in English.
- Placement targets for the ads are – Instagram, Send Message, Facebook, and Audience network
Optimization Ideas:
- Zafran is not sending any traffic to its own website, the traffic is going to its food delivery partner (chatfood.io/). In case they want to remarket on the traffic, they are getting from the Ads, it will not be possible to do it, because Zafran restaurant doesn’t hold that data
- If Zafran can start an ad campaign that is targeted specifically towards Indians living in the United Arab Emirates, it will probably attract a more powerful and dedicated audience
- Zafran restaurant website doesn’t have a booking widget on their website, which is a big miss-out
Asia Asia (Pier 7 Dubai)
- All 4 ads are using the same creative and text, it’s best practice to edit each ad as per the platform requirement: for instance, IG stories vs. IG reels
- The Landing page of the Ad (The website page when you click on the “Book Now” button) doesn’t have the UTM parameters, without adding UTM parameters, the business will not know how much traffic the ads are getting, how the people coming through this ads are behaving – which page they enter, from where they drop-off, and most importantly how to show them the ads again in case they don’t book this time.
Soho Garden Palm DXB
Optimization Ideas:
- There’s no dedicated page created for the event, and neither information about it is available on this website. If a person clicks on an Ad, they’re taken to a booking page with no details of what’s happening on that day. Not great!
- There are no UTM parameters added to the Ad URL for Soho Garden Palm Jumeirah, without adding UTM parameters, the business will not know how much traffic the ads are getting, which page they enter, or from where they drop-off.
- Some of the Ads from Soho Garden Palm Jumeirah were without any text or CTA’s, you will be able to find them in the screenshots below
- One of the Ad creatives from Soho Garden Palm Jumeirah, had too much text and was not optimized as per device and platform (Desktop, Mobile)
Click to enlarge the image
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- Soho Garden Ads
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- Soho Garden Ads
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- Soho Garden Ads
Wagamama UAE
We found two below ads from Wagamama UAE account, both ads started in mid of December and Instagram as the chosen placement.
Optimization Ideas:
The Ad text could be better The first Ad, started on 12th Dec, is using the carousel format, the ad creative could be more engaging
- The Ad is running only on the Instagram platform, Facebook and its audience network should also be targeted at audience over 30 years of age
Conclusion
We hope our analysis helped you! Let us know if you have any specific questions or need more information.
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