"Did My Ad Drive a Restaurant Visit?” The New Question for QSR Marketers

For Quick Service Restaurants (QSRs), success isn’t measured by impressions or click-through rates. It’s measured by customers walking through the door. Yet many marketing approaches still rely heavily on digital metrics, leaving a gap between online and offline activity. 

This measurement gap is intensifying due to two key pressures:

Technological change:

AThe deprecation of third-party cookies and increasing privacy regulations are making traditional digital attribution more difficult.

Evolving consumer behavior:

Brand loyalty is not guaranteed. A customer's choice is influenced daily by factors like menu offerings, time of day, and proximity, making it crucial to understand what truly drives their purchasing decisions.

To bridge this gap, QSRs need a deeper understanding of how, when, and why diners visit. That’s why Azira analyzed QSR visitation across McDonald's, Domino’s, Subway, KFC, and Guzman y Gomez. By examining daily, weekly, and hourly trends, audience profiles, and travel behaviors, QSRs can align marketing more closely to customer demand, and these same insights can also empower data leaders to refine site selection, improve store layouts, optimize staffing, and drive greater efficiency across the business.

The findings revealed: 

Weekly Patterns

• Subway, McDonald’s, and KFC see the strongest traffic on Fridays through Sundays, with higher order values and larger groups.
• Visits dip on Tuesdays and Wednesdays before climbing on Thursdays.
• Domino’s maintains steady visitation throughout the week, with a modest lift on Fridays and Saturdays.

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Hourly Trends and Dayparts

• Across all brands, the afternoon (12–3 PM) and evening (4–7 PM) drive the most visits, making them the top revenue periods. 
• Subway and Guzman y Gomez see relatively stronger late morning traffic compared to other brands, indicating breakfast as a potential growth area.
• While nighttime visitation is lower overall, it remains a valuable segment. QSRs can capture more visitors by extending hours or promoting late-night menu options.

Audience Profiles

• Subway is popular among professionals, students, trade workers, and health-conscious audiences.
• McDonald’s and KFC are strong with families and trade workers.
• Students and young adults (Gen Z’s) visit fairly evenly across brands.

Travel Behavior

• Most customers travel about 3–6 miles to their chosen QSR.
• Domino’s and Guzman y Gomez attract customers from slightly longer distances.
• With dense store coverage, McDonald’s benefits from shorter travel distances.

From these insights, we can gather that QSR visitation is shaped by timing, proximity, and context. Predictable visitation patterns create opportunities for precise, targeted campaigns that ensure advertising spend is aligned to real-world customer behavior.

Turning QSR Insights into Action

With Azira, brands can understand their customers, engage them meaningfully, and prove which campaigns drive real results, through: 

• Audience Insights: We first map the real-world behavior of your target customer, identifying their daily routes and habits, like their morning commute or lunchtime routine.
  
  
• Precision Targeting & Omnichannel Activation: Based on these moments, we build precise audiences and activate them with relevant ads across channels, reaching them at the most influential times.
  
  
• Real-Time Measurement: Finally, we close the loop with attribution, proving which moments and messages successfully drove a physical visit, demonstrating the total impact of your campaign.
  
  

For QSR marketers, success is no longer measured in clicks and impressions. The question that matters now is: “Did my ad drive a customer into my restaurant?”

Learn more about Azira's solutions for QSRs here or contact us today.