Franchise Case Study
Pizza Delivery Franchise
Identifying, Validating, and Refining
How We Used Google Ads to Increase Sales in Low-Performing Franchise Locations
This franchise came to us with Google Ads accounts that had zero tracking and were poorly managed. We turned things around quickly.
The Problem
A pizza franchise with 40 U.S. locations came to us knowing that something was wrong with the way their ad accounts were managed. We did a free audit of a couple of their accounts as examples to show them issues within the accounts. There were a lot of problems, including the fact that no tracking had been implemented. The old agency had told the client they were getting sales because they were getting clicks, which isn’t true. The company went back to that agency with our audit but the agency still wasn’t able to perform. So, the franchise started using ARC Creative Co. by giving us their ten lowest-performing stores in hopes that we could turn them around.
Our first step was to create GA4 Analytics accounts for each location so that we could see where revenue was coming in for online orders, and track how many phone calls they were receiving. Our highly experienced web developer was able to implement tracking with custom code on their sites, which were not built to implement tracking code.
Next, our Google Ads team set up new campaigns for every location. When speaking with some of the franchise location owners, we discovered that phone calls were a bigger source of revenue than online sales. Therefore, our main goals were to increase the number of calls, decrease the number of clicks intended for other pizza restaurants, and increase the amount of online sales attained through Google Ads.
The Results
We didn’t have any past data to compare our first month’s results with since there hadn’t been tracking. However, even the first month’s results were the product of meticulous optimizations.
What we could compare was month one’s results with the second month’s results. Our new campaigns increased the number of phone calls and online sales significantly with a small amount of ad spend. Within two months one location (see Location A screenshots) went from receiving calls or online sales from $20.23 per conversion to $11.32. In the first two months of running and optimizing the new campaigns, online sales increased by 116%, and the number of calls increased from 26 to 44 calls. Of those 44 calls tracked, 12 were completed calls over 30 seconds from dialing the number on the website, 23 were completed calls over 30 seconds from calling directly from ads, and there were 9 clicks on the phone number on the website to make a call.
This only continued to improve. In month three, the number of phone calls and online purchases increased. There were 90 total conversions for a similar budget, as compared to 38 in month one and 68 in month two.
As another example, Location B’s cost per phone call or online sale was $36.47 the first month. By month two, that had dropped significantly to only $9.40. In the first month they only generated 18 calls. However, by month two they generated 54 phone calls. Additionally, their online sales from Google Ads increased by 1,649%. Then in month three, the number of phone calls and online purchases continued to increase with the same budget, from 21 total conversions in month one to 81 in month two and 107 in month three.
Note that phone calls are the bigger source of revenue for these franchise locations. So doubling and tripling the number of phone calls was extremely important. Additionally, we were meticulously removing search queries for competitors so that their phone calls would not be by mistake, intended for other pizza places, which was a large concern of ours when we took over the accounts. We didn’t just want results that looked good on paper, they needed to be helpful to the businesses.
Month 1 – Location A Example
Month 2 – Location A Example
Month 3 – Location A Example
Month 1 – Location B Example
Month 2 – Location B Example
Month 3 – Location B Example
The Takeaways
If your agency is telling you tracking and optimizations don’t matter, they aren’t telling the truth. Additionally, if they set and forget the ad campaigns, they are doing you a huge disservice. Every location needs constant attention to get the best results. When ARC Creative Co. is managing accounts in bulk for franchises for a discounted rate, we don’t sacrifice quality for quantity.