How Much Should a Restaurant Spend on Marketing?
Ask ten restaurant owners what they spend on marketing and you will get ten different answers, usually followed by “is that too much?” The honest answer is that the right budget depends on how full your tables are and how fast you want to grow. But there are sensible benchmarks, and there are clear signs you are spending in the wrong places. Here is how to think about it.
The Short Answer: 3 to 6 Percent of Revenue
For an established restaurant with steady trade, the widely used benchmark is 3 to 6 percent of gross revenue. A venue turning over 40,000 pounds a month would spend somewhere between 1,200 and 2,400 pounds. That covers everything: ads, agency or freelancer fees, photography, print and your website. Venues that spend meaningfully less than this tend to drift, because in hospitality you are either visible or you are forgotten.
New Openings Need to Spend More
A restaurant nobody has heard of cannot market itself at maintenance levels. In your first year, or when launching a new site, plan for closer to 8 to 12 percent of projected revenue. You are paying to build the things established venues already have: reviews, rankings, a database of past guests and a local reputation. The good news is this is temporary. Once the flywheel is turning, the budget comes back down.
Spend on the Free Things First
Before a pound goes into advertising, the free assets need to be working. Your Google Business Profile should be complete, photographed and gathering reviews every week. Your website should load fast, show your menu and take bookings without friction. Your local SEO should be earning you searches like “restaurants near me” every night of the week. These cost time rather than money, and they multiply the value of every advertising pound you spend later, because ads are only as good as the place they send people.
Where the Paid Budget Should Go
For most venues the highest returning split looks like this: Google Ads to capture people already searching for somewhere to eat tonight, Meta ads to fill quiet services and push events like bottomless brunch or Christmas bookings, and a small reserve for photography, because every channel performs better with appetising images. Search intent first, social second, everything else after. A diner typing “best Sunday roast near me” is worth more than a hundred people scrolling past a boosted post.
The Mistakes That Waste Budget
The money restaurants waste rarely goes on bad channels. It goes on good channels used badly. Boosting Instagram posts with no targeting. Running ads to a homepage instead of a booking page. Paying commission to discount platforms that attract one visit bargain hunters. Spending on followers instead of covers. And the biggest one: not tracking anything, so the same mistakes get repeated every month. If you cannot say what a booking costs you, you are not marketing, you are donating.
When to Spend More and When to Pull Back
Spend more when something is working and you can prove it, when a new competitor opens nearby, and in the weeks before your key seasons, because Christmas bookings are won in October. Pull back on any channel that cannot show you covers after three months of proper testing. The budget is not a fixed bill to be endured. It is a dial, and the numbers should tell you which way to turn it.
How We Make Budgets Work Harder at Intrinsic
At Intrinsic Marketing we work exclusively with restaurants, so we know what a cover is worth and what it should cost to win one. We put the free foundations in place first, then spend on the searches that fill tables, and we report in bookings, not impressions. It is how we grew Temper Soho’s search clicks by 425% and put Ted’s Grooming Room on page 1. If you want to know exactly what your budget should be and where it should go, book a free 15 minute strategy call and we will map it out with you.
