GQue Championship BBQ

GQue Championship BBQ is a locally owned barbeque restaurant with two locations in Denver, Colorado. Their mouthwatering dishes are based on the championship-winning recipes of restaurant owner and pitmaster, Jason Ganahl. Since 2015, GQue Championship BBQ has been serving up customers through its restaurants and catering services, selling special rubs and sauces online, and teaching the next generation of BBQ pitmasters through their Youtube channel.

Demand for Colorado BBQ is a thing… right?

The team at GQue came to BUHV with the lofty goal of putting Barbeque on the map in Colorado, a state known more for its love of craft beer and the “rocky mountain high.” With just a single location in the northern suburbs of Denver, the GQue team knew there was an opportunity to build the demand for its food beyond local foot traffic through its catering services. BUHV Designs was tasked with developing an efficient advertising strategy to promote catering services and capture orders at a low cost. With just a few extra orders per week, GQue knew they could be ROI-positive and grow demand for their food.

Feed en Masse, Demand Will Grow

GQue’s run on the championship barbecue circuit built massive notoriety for the brand and its recipes. But, Colorado isn’t known for its barbecue and therefore isn’t top of mind for most restaurant-goers in the Denver area. The initial strategy was to capture the office lunch crowd in nearby business parks and bring the food to them, feeding large groups all at once and let the flavors do the rest. When outdoor temperatures began to rise, we added targeting to reach event coordinators, weddings, and private parties to capture even larger audience segments.

Set-Up

The strategy put in motion by the BUHV Designs team included the creation of ad campaigns with highly focused ad groups, messaged directly at each target audience segment within an 8-mile radius of the restaurant. To maximize R.O.A.S. (return on advertising spend) without discounting product, ad content focused on highlighting quality and customer service vs. promotional offers and discounts. Unique landing pages were created to support each ad group that reflected the service in detail, highlighted menu items and pricing, and included a simple order form that the restaurant could execute on.

Testing and Optimization

Throughout the lifetime of the campaign, incremental adjustments were made to the bidding strategies, aimed at reducing the cost per conversion while capturing as many orders as possible within the $800/month budget. The BUHV team leveraged geographic and demographic dimensions within AdWords to refine audiences and further control ad costs. Frequent A/B tests were run on landing pages to hone in the landing page experience and optimize for lead capture.

Let the Numbers Do the Talking

Over the 20 month span of the campaign, the BUHV team helped capture an average of 11 catering orders per month through paid advertising campaigns alone at an average cost per conversion of $37.20. 228 catering orders have been tracked back to Ad campaigns since the start with an average spend of less than $500 per month. This created a highly positive Return on Ad Spend for GQue and had an observed side effect of creating more in-store business. This growth of the business allowed GQue Championship BBQ to open its second location South of Denver in the late fall of 2018. Since the opening of their new restaurant, conversion rates in the catering ad campaigns continue to track at 8%.