International fast food: 25% CTR at $0.12 per click

What the fast food chain came to us with

An international chain set two specific goals: hold position one or two in Google search results and deliver a CTR above 20%.

Both numbers are unusual. A CTR above twenty percent in search is not a market average but an upper bound, reached only when query and ad match precisely. It was clear from the start that the task would be solved through semantics, not bidding.

What the work involved

We connected analytics. Without it you cannot separate a query that brings an order from a query that brings only a click.

We compiled a semantic core around the way people actually search for food. Not "quick service establishment" but specific dishes, times of day, districts and the word delivery. In fast food the query almost always carries the intention to eat now.

We wrote separate ads for each query group. This is where a high CTR comes from: not from a creative headline, but from the person seeing in the ad the very words they typed.

We split the campaigns so it was visible which query group brought orders and which only spent budget. In one pile that is impossible to tell.

We ran the campaigns and optimised them regularly, switching off whatever produced clicks without orders.

What sits behind the numbers

On a budget of $7,500 the campaigns delivered 240,455 reach and 60,032 clicks at $0.12 each. CTR came out at 25% against a target above 20%.

Twenty-five percent means every fourth ad shown received a click. In search that happens when the ad is read not as advertising but as a direct answer to a question.

What transfers to another food business

A word on the budget: $7,500 is enough volume to gather statistics by query group quickly and switch off the excess within the first weeks.

The metrics do not transfer. CTR and cost per click depend on how well known the chain is, on the city, on the competition and on how narrowly the semantics are cut.

The approach transfers. A high CTR in search is work on queries, not on wording: one ad covering a mixed group of queries will always lose to five ads covering five narrow groups, even if each of the five is written worse. And one point specific to food: demand here is tied to time and place. A campaign that behaves identically at eleven in the morning and eleven at night is almost certainly losing money in one of those windows.

Let us look at your case

Leave a request and we will review the demand around your locations and your current campaigns. Free of charge.