12 Fast Food Marketing Strategies (With Real Examples)

Fast food marketing is the mix of promotions, pricing, and ordering channels a quick-service restaurant uses to win a first order and turn it into repeat orders.

Big chains rely on three levers: value (combo meals and limited-time offers), convenience (their own app and online ordering), and frequency (loyalty rewards and direct messages). An independent fast food restaurant can pull the same levers on a small budget.

Below are 12 fast food marketing strategies, each with a real example and the metric that shows whether it's working.

1. Take orders on your own website to keep the commission

Third-party delivery apps are good at finding new customers but expensive for repeat ones. DoorDash's delivery commission is 15%, 25%, or 30% per order, depending on the plan, so a $25 order can cost you $3.75–$7.50 before food and labor.

A commission-free online ordering system on your own website lets regulars order directly and gives you their contact details for future promotions. Add your ordering link to your Google Business Profile, receipts, and packaging so customers find it without a marketplace.

Real example: El Burro Burger, a burger restaurant in a town of 16,000 people, launched online ordering, refreshed its website, added an app, and offered 10% off the first online order. Its online orders grew from 24 in April to 226 in October.

Metric to track: share of orders placed through your own channels.

2. Build combo meals and a simple value ladder

Combos are the core fast food offer: one quick decision for the customer, a bigger ticket for you. Build them as a ladder instead of a single deal (an entry item, a standard combo, and an upgraded combo) so every customer can easily trade up.

Illustrative example: burger $8.49 → burger, fries, and drink $11.99 → large combo with dessert $13.99. Put the discount on high-margin items like fries and fountain drinks, not the burger.

Add a family bundle for four to win group and office orders, and offer it for pickup to avoid delivery commissions.

Metric to track: average order value.

3. Let customers customize orders and add extras

Build-your-own options (an extra patty, a sauce choice, a gluten-free bun) let customers fit the menu to their taste and turn every order into a chance to sell an add-on.

Online, show add-ons on the item screen ("Add bacon," "Make it a meal"), where the decision happens, not at checkout.

At the counter, train staff in two or three suggestive selling techniques, such as recommending one specific side instead of asking "Anything else?"

Metric to track: add-on attach rate (the share of orders with at least one paid extra).

4. Offer app-only deals to drive repeat orders

A branded restaurant mobile app puts your logo on the customer's home screen and lets you send push notifications without paying a marketplace. Give people a reason to install it: a deal that exists only in the app, such as a free side with the first app order or a weekly app-only combo.

The payoff is frequency. In UpMenu's analysis of 1,337 restaurants, customers ordered 41% more often three months after installing a restaurant's app, 65% more after six months, and 87% more after a year. Revenue from those customers rose 129% after a year.

Real example: Burger King's Whopper Detour (December 2018) used geofencing to unlock a one-cent Whopper in its app within 600 feet of McDonald's locations. It drove more than 1 million downloads within days and 1.5 million overall (Marketing Dive).

Metric to track: orders per customer.

5. Launch a loyalty program customers actually use

A loyalty program gives customers a reason to pick you again instead of the closest drive-thru. In UpMenu's study of 69 restaurants, the year after launching a loyalty program brought 16.5% more orders and 21.7% more revenue than the year before.

Keep the first reward within reach: in the same study, only 11% of members ever redeemed their points, so a reward that takes ten visits to earn is one most people never see. Simple streaks, such as a free drink for three orders in seven days, build the habit faster. For formats you can copy, see these restaurant reward program examples.

Metric to track: repeat-customer rate.

6. Win back one-time customers with SMS and Email

Most of your customer list has ordered once and never returned. In UpMenu's analysis of 1,709 restaurants, nearly 60% of customers ordered only once, while loyal customers (10+ orders) were worth about 14 times more per year.

Use SMS for time-sensitive offers (a lunch deal today, an LTO that ends Sunday) and email for menu news, sending both only to customers who opted in. The same analysis estimates that one SMS to about 950 subscribers brings roughly €1,500 in sales.

Metric to track: orders per campaign.

7. Run limited-time offers (LTOs) to create urgency

A limited-time offer gives regulars a reason to come back now and gives your social channels something new to post. Tie LTOs to the calendar (a seasonal burger, a game-day bundle, a holiday dessert) and keep each one to a fixed window so the urgency is real. Use ingredients you already stock, and announce each LTO to app users and SMS subscribers first. Get more LTO marketing tips.

Real example: McDonald's Grimace Birthday Meal (summer 2023), built around a limited purple shake, passed 3 billion views on TikTok in a quarter when McDonald's U.S. comparable sales grew 10.3% (Restaurant Dive).

Metric to track: LTO share of sales during the offer window.

8. Fill slow hours with off-peak deals (happy hour)

Most fast food restaurants have dead hours, usually mid-afternoon and late evening. An off-peak deal (half-price drinks, a snack bundle, double loyalty points) moves some demand into those hours without discounting your lunch rush. Find your two slowest hours in your sales report and run one deal there for four weeks.

Real example: Sonic Drive-In built a daily Happy Hour around half-price drinks and slushes from 2 to 4 p.m. (Sonic press release, 2012).

Metric to track: sales per hour in the off-peak window.

9. Run social media contests that create content for you

Contests trade a small prize for reach: every entry that tags a friend or shares a photo shows your food to people who don't follow you yet. Simple formats work best for fast food: "Name our new burger," "Tag who you'd share this bucket with," or a monthly photo contest with a free-meal prize.

Ask entrants to use your hashtag so you can repost the best photos (with permission) for weeks.

Metric to track: entries and new followers per contest.

10. Partner with local creators for account takeovers

A local food creator's audience already trusts their taste, so a one-day takeover of your Instagram Stories or an honest review can introduce you to thousands of locals. Micro-creators in your city usually fit an independent budget better than celebrities, and a unique promo code shows how many orders each partnership brings.

Real example: McDonald's Travis Scott Meal (September 2020) didn't need a new recipe. It bundled a Quarter Pounder with bacon, fries with BBQ sauce, and a Sprite for $6, and some restaurants temporarily ran out of ingredients within eight days (CNBC via NBC New York). Local version: a "famous order" named after a creator or local coach.

Metric to track: promo-code redemptions per creator.

11. Host a food challenge people want to film

Eating and spicy-food challenges are made for short-form video: a clear goal, a timer, and a wall of fame for winners. Each attempt is free content that participants post to their own followers.

Set rules that keep it safe and profitable: a portion size you can price well, a fee that covers food cost if the challenger fails, and a photo spot for winners.

Metric to track: sales and tagged posts on challenge days.

12. Pop up at local events to win first-time customers

Concerts, games, and street fairs put you in front of hungry people who haven't tried your food.

Bring a short menu of your two or three fastest-to-make best-sellers, and use the event to collect future customers, not just sales: put a QR code on every bag that opens your online menu with a first-order discount.

Metric to track: sales per event and online orders from attendees within 30 days.

The fast food marketing mix: where each strategy fits

The marketing mix is the classic checklist for planning restaurant marketing: the 4 Ps (product, price, place, promotion), extended to 7 Ps for service businesses with people, process, and physical evidence. Use the table to spot the P you're neglecting, then put your picks into a restaurant marketing plan.

If you'd rather have someone run these campaigns for you, UpMenu's restaurant marketing agency can set them up.