Restaurant marketing FAQs

No one controls Google or your customers. A guarantee usually means ranking for terms nobody searches, or a promise that quietly disappears.

Ask: What’s a realistic timeline, and how will I see progress each month?

If the agency owns your ad account, website, domain or social profiles, leaving means starting again from zero.

Ask: If we part ways, what do I keep? The answer should be everything.

When the fee is a percentage of spend, the agency earns more when you spend more, not when you get more bookings.

Ask: Is ad spend paid straight to Google and Meta from my own account?

A long minimum term protects the agency, not you. Good work should be the reason you stay.

Ask: What’s the minimum term, and what’s the notice period?

The person who wins your business often isn’t the one doing the work once you’ve signed.

Ask: Who exactly will run my account day to day?

Restaurant marketing runs on covers, quiet nights, seasons and local search. It’s a different job from selling products online.

Ask: Can I see named restaurant results, not industry averages?

Reach and followers are easy to inflate and hard to bank. What matters is calls, enquiries and covers.

Ask: Will you track calls, enquiries and cost per result back to each campaign?

Cheap usually means something is missing: the setup, the tracking, the strategy, or the specialist actually doing the work.

Ask: Can I have the full scope in writing, with every extra cost upfront?

It compounds. Ads show early signals within weeks; SEO builds over months and keeps working once it’s earned.

Often it’s the landing page or the booking journey. A good agency checks the whole path, from the first click to the table.

Two quotes for “social media” can mean very different work. Compare the scope, not the headline price.

Marketing amplifies what’s already there. If the food, service or reviews need work first, an honest agency will tell you before taking your money.

Our plans start at £600 a month for Found (local SEO), £1,500 for Booked (SEO plus Google Ads), £4,000 for Full House and £5,000 for Complete, all excluding VAT. Ad spend is paid directly to Google and Meta. Websites and launches are one-off projects.

Monthly fees are paid in advance: the first payment by bank transfer, then direct debit, set up through our secure GoCardless link once you approve your proposal. One-off fees such as a website build are invoiced separately and paid by bank transfer before work starts. If an invoice is more than one month overdue, we pause work. Website hosting is billed to you directly by Webflow.

Found and Booked run month to month with one month’s written notice. Full House, Complete and any plan covering more than one location have a 3-month minimum, then continue month to month. A 3-month minimum may also be agreed on Found or Booked where it is written into your proposal. One-off builds need no ongoing contract after delivery. Prices are reviewed each April, with at least one month’s written notice of any change.

Our management fee covers our work. It does not cover ad spend, which Meta or Google charge directly to your own account. As a general guide, we recommend a minimum of £500 a month in ad spend per platform, per location. For websites, hosting is billed to you by Webflow at their published rates, and domain renewal and email hosting are not included. Optional extras are quoted upfront and never hidden.

Established restaurants typically invest 3–6% of turnover in marketing, including ad spend; a new opening or a growth push often invests up to around 10% in its first year. For paid advertising, we recommend a minimum of £300 in ad spend for initial testing, and £500+ a month per location for sustained results. Your results are proportional to your investment.

No. Our management fee covers strategy, setup, campaign management, creative direction, optimisation and reporting. Ad spend is charged by Google and Meta directly to your account. We manage how it’s spent; we never take a cut of it.

You do. Your domain, hosting, ad accounts, social profiles and customer data stay in your name.

For Local plans, typically 4–6 months or sooner. For City-wide plans, 6–9 months. For National plans, 6–12 months, depending on how competitive your search terms are and the current state of your site. SEO is a long-term investment, and anyone promising Page 1 in 30 days should be questioned.

No, and you should be wary of anyone who does. Guarantees usually mean tactics that break Google’s guidelines and put your site at risk. We use Google-approved methods, show you exactly what we’re doing and report your positions every month.

We work on it as part of our SEO. AI search tools favour restaurants with accurate, consistent information, strong reviews, structured data and clear answers on their website. We build all of those. Nobody can guarantee what an AI tool recommends, and we won’t pretend otherwise. How AI SEO works.

Google personalises your results based on your browsing history. If you’ve visited a competitor’s site several times, Google may show them higher for you, which doesn’t reflect what a new customer sees. For an unbiased check, search in an Incognito window. The positions in your report are measured with specialist tools that simulate unbiased searches.

Link quality matters more than volume. Google penalises sites that use link farms or bulk link schemes, which can actively harm your ranking. We research and hand-pick links that meet our quality and relevance criteria, and reject the rest. The result is a site that ranks more sustainably.

Reports are kept clear rather than overloaded: keyword positions this month and last, organic traffic (page views, engagement, first visits), your existing and new links, and a written update covering results, the plan ahead and any competitor activity.

For Meta advertising, early signals typically show within the first 2–4 weeks, with meaningful optimisation from month 2 once the platform has enough data. For Google Ads, well-structured campaigns can start generating calls and enquiries within the first week for high-demand searches. Results scale with budget and improve as the account matures.

Yes. Ad creative (images, video and copy) is included in our advertising plans. On Full House and Complete, creative comes from your monthly photo and video shoot. Specialist content such as larger productions is quoted separately.

A/B testing runs two or more versions of an ad at the same time to find which performs better: different images, copy, headlines or audiences. Google and Meta use that data to optimise delivery and lower your cost per result. We run it as standard. For Meta tests to be meaningful, we recommend at least £300 in ad spend.

Yes. You have access to your ad accounts so you can see live performance at any time, plus a monthly report on the numbers that matter for your goals: reach, engagement, cost per click, cost per lead and conversions.

Typically 4–6 weeks from the point we receive everything we need from you: logo, images, menu, copy and any preferences. Delays in receiving these are the most common cause of longer timelines. Branded builds, which use a proven template design, are usually quicker.

Branded and Bespoke sites include one booking form and one enquiry form. Intelligent builds connect directly to your booking, ordering, CRM or POS systems. If you already use a system such as SevenRooms, OpenTable, ResDiary or Just Eat, we can link it to the site on any tier. Third-party platform costs are separate from the build fee.

Webflow. It produces fast, clean sites that are easy to manage and strong for SEO. Where a client needs specific integrations or e-commerce, we assess the right platform case by case. We don’t build on Wix or Squarespace.

Hosting is billed to you directly by Webflow at their published rates. Domain renewal and email hosting are separate, and your domain stays in your name. Optional extras: Web management at £45 a month, and the Web Booker annual plan at £250 a year (tech support, enquiry database and contact form).

If you’re on Web management, message us on WhatsApp or email and we’ll take care of it. Basic website updates also come with search on every plan. Bespoke and Intelligent sites include a CMS, so your team can update menus, events and news yourselves without technical knowledge.

Yes. Set up a Webflow account, email us a transfer request and we’ll move the site across. From then on you own and manage it directly. If you’d rather we kept looking after it, that’s covered by Web management.

Yes. A monthly photo and video shoot is included in Full House and Complete, and feeds your ad creative and social media. For weekly short-form trend video on TikTok and Instagram, add the Viral Pack (£1,200 a month) to Booked, Full House or Complete.

No. On Full House and Complete we produce the content ourselves through your monthly shoot and post it on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok: 12 posts and 8 stories a month. The Viral Pack is fully produced by us, from concept to posting. If you have your own photography or footage, we’re happy to use it alongside ours.

For organic social, a consistent increase in reach, engagement and following from month 2 onwards. For social advertising, results depend on budget and objective, but we target a 15%+ engagement rate and work to reduce cost per click over time. Virality is never guaranteed, but we actively design for it.

On Review management, we monitor Google and TripAdvisor daily and respond within 24 hours. Negative reviews come to you first for input; we never reply without knowing the full picture. Fake or inappropriate reviews are flagged for removal. We also build review volume with in-restaurant review cards and a follow-up email to recent diners.

Yes. Social media management on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok is included in Full House and Complete: 12 posts and 8 stories a month from your own monthly shoot.

For weekly trend-led short-form video on TikTok and Instagram, add the Viral Pack (£1,200 a month) to Booked, Full House or Complete.

Yes. Since 2014 we’ve worked only with restaurants and food businesses, from single independents to multi-site groups and franchises. Every plan is built for hospitality, not adapted from a generic agency package.

Across everything we do: research, review analysis, keyword research, ad testing, content drafts and reporting. AI does the heavy lifting; experienced restaurant marketers make every decision and sign off everything you see. It costs you nothing extra. See how we use AI.

We do the heavy lifting, but we work best with some involvement from you. On a monthly plan, we ask for at least a monthly review, by call or in person. For a website build, expect us to be in touch a few times over the build for approvals and feedback. We’re not a set-and-forget agency.

A named consultant is your main point of contact, backed by specialists in paid advertising, SEO, content, web development and design. The consultant who proposes your plan is the one who runs your account. You’re never passed around.

We deliberately limit the number of clients we take on each year, so every account gets proper time, attention and strategic thinking. We are not a volume agency.

Marketing can’t fix a broken business. If there are unresolved issues, such as persistent negative reviews or inconsistent service, advertising will expose them faster, not solve them. Before any paid advertising starts we review your online presence, and if something needs fixing first, we’ll tell you directly.

Timely responses when decisions need making, honest feedback when something doesn’t feel right, and help with the things only you can do: asking customers for reviews, keeping service standards high and flagging issues as they come up. Our best results have come from clients who treated this as a genuine partnership.

We flag it before you have to ask. We identify the cause, take corrective action, and if it isn’t resolved within one further cycle it’s escalated to our lead consultant. You’ll never be left wondering why something isn’t working.

Yes. We are a Google Partner and a Meta Business Partner. These are performance-verified credentials, not badges anyone can buy.