Paid search advertising greatly increases your online visibility, in a way that organic marketing efforts simply can’t offer.

This is particularly true for QSR brands looking to capture audiences on a local level.

According to Google, 20% of all searches show local intent. Your organic (SEO) strategy likely optimizes your content for this local intent; however, you can guarantee high visibility and ranking by supplementing your local search campaigns with paid ads.

Many QSR marketers and owners shy away from paid search because of the pay-per-click essence of this strategy. They fear that the costs of these clicks could never pay for themselves.

However, the type of metrics, fast response, and adaptability associated with paid search makes this type of marketing your best bet to enjoy a high ROI.

And if you want to put yourself in position for an even higher ROI, it’s time to take a look at programmatic advertising.

The massive growth of programmatic advertising

Programmatic advertising is on track to make up $14.88 billion of the roughly $58.6 billion in digital advertising this year, according to eMarketer (a nearly $5 billion leap from 2014).

That’s a fairly incredible surge, seeing as many QSR brands have yet to hop on this trend.

Programmatic advertising makes it possible for you to automate the display buying process based on data you accumulate on users’ online behavior or customer profile. In other words, there’s no need to waste time and effort negotiating targeting types, number of impressions and price.

Programmatic advertising takes it over.

Through the use of this automation, you can show highly relevant ads to people at the right time, overwhelmingly increasing the likelihood of a click by a qualified and motivated consumer.

But how can you use this to your advantage as a QSR?

How to reach the right audiences

Our programmatic advertising agency has seen that the key to a successful campaign is the data. Fortunately, there is no shortage of data about your potential customers, including:

• Behavior
• Demographics
• Interests
• Actions taken on your site
• Past purchase activity

You can use each (and all) of these attributes to automate display ads that are personalized to your audiences, depending on where they live or what recent behavior they’ve performed.

For example, if your QSR specializes in desserts (ice creams, for example) you could target audiences that have recently performed searches on “local ice cream shops.”

If you’re a multi-location QSR, programmatic advertising makes it simple to personalize each display ad, based on location. In other words, the ad you craft for your Atlanta location might differ in language from the ad you craft for your Boston location.

You might want to say “Looking to cool down, Hotlanta?” for your Atlanta audiences, while you might want to say “It’s wicked hot outside, isn’t it, Boston?” for your Boston Audiences.

Regardless, programmatic advertising not only makes it easy to adapt your ads, but it also simplifies (and automates) the process of sifting through and harnessing your scores of data and analytics.

Mastering the moments

Successful advertising is all about pushing your ad to the right people at the right moment. That can be difficult to do for QSRs at the corporate level, particularly if you manage multiple locations.

But with programmatic advertising, it’s a breeze to segment your campaigns based on specific moments.

One of the most popular examples involves football season. Football fans are notorious for going online just before the game (or before halftime) to order takeout or delivery. If you time your advertisement perfectly, you can grab the attention of these searchers at their most vulnerable state.

While that’s feasible to do for one location, it’s near impossible to master for multiple locations … unless you use programmatic advertising.

After you develop your football campaign, all you have to do is know when each game (where you have a store location) will be played. Programmatic advertising makes it possible for you to personalize each ad, and time their display individually, in a streamlined and fluid manner.

Programmatic advertising will reshape how your QSR targets its audience

Programmatic advertising essentially helps you handle the day-to-day tasks of ad management so that you can think bigger and focus on strategies. Rather than dedicate resources to certain negotiations, you can determine how best to reach your audiences, no matter how many locations you manage.

You can then implement programmatic advertising to take care of the data-based activities, while you monitor the results to make ongoing changes.

With so many other brands hopping on board, isn’t it time you tested our programmatic advertising for your QSR?