The Fat Duck
Heston Blumenthal's 3 michelin star restaurant The Fat Duck
Services
Meta
Google
Sector
Restaurant
Results
Site Traffic +41% YoY
Summary
The Fat Duck, a 3 Michelin-starred restaurant, approached us to help them increase covers and overall awareness of the restaurant for the typically busy festive period in 2024. To achieve their ambitious goals, we used Meta & Google ads to deliver the targeted reach we were aiming for.
Across both platforms we were able to scale the activity in line with results, ensuring that we were delivering cost-efficient bookings within the budgets set out in the brief. As the campaign developed, we broadened the scope of our activity to scale even further and ensure that we had a full set of learnings to take into 2025.
The results speak for themselves and truly reflect the potential of digital ad campaigns, combining high-quality creative, a detailed targeting strategy, and an agile approach.
The Brief
As one of only nine restaurants in the UK to have gained 3 Michelin stars, the Fat Duck is famous for turning the perception of fine dining on its head. The brainchild of Heston Blumenthal, The Fat Duck is more closely related to an immersive theatre than a restaurant.
With such strong brand equity and having never run paid marketing activity before, it was crucial that any campaigns that went live truly reflected The Fat Duck’s qualities and values so as not to damage or cheapen the brand.
Our aims were two-fold, drive covers and increase awareness of The Fat Duck and it’s proximity to London in and amongst their key target audience. For this, we used Google search & Performance Max and Meta conversion and traffic campaigns.
How did we help?
We worked closely with The Fat Duck to set up and optimize their Meta and Google ad accounts, ensuring everything was aligned with industry best practices. This setup also allowed them to take advantage of a generous Google welcome offer, which provided £1200 in free ad credits to boost their campaigns. To ensure accurate tracking and reporting, we implemented a best-in-class tracking system through Google Tag Manager, seamlessly integrating it with their booking platform, SevenRooms, for precise conversion tracking.
To maintain clear communication and collaboration, we developed a watertight approval process, ensuring full alignment between The Fat Duck’s internal team and our own. Additionally, we produced a detailed creative brief to guide their team in creating compelling content. With everything in place, we successfully launched the campaign across both Meta and Google channels, setting a strong foundation for measurable and impactful results.
We began by launching a targeted search campaign to capture high-intent audiences actively seeking luxury dining experiences in the south of England. Recognizing the strong organic traffic driven by The Fat Duck and Heston Blumenthal’s renowned reputation, we implemented extensive negative keyword strategies to ensure the campaign budget focused solely on incremental, high-value traffic. Once the search campaigns were fully optimized and delivering strong results, we introduced a Performance Max campaign for comparison. This strategic addition significantly scaled our performance, driving the cost per cover to record lows and delivering an exceptional return on investment.
Meta
From the outset, we implemented both traffic and conversion campaigns to target our key audience, enabling us to drive cost-efficient covers while significantly expanding the reach of our campaigns to enhance brand awareness. A critical element of this strategy was ensuring impactful creative and precise audience targeting. Collaborating closely with The Fat Duck team, we developed highly effective video and image assets that sparked interest and intrigue. Delivered to the right audience, this synergy between creative and targeting exemplified how various campaign elements can work together to achieve outstanding results. This approach also allowed the campaigns to optimize effectively and exit the Meta learning phase ahead of the anticipated busy period.
The Results
This marketing campaign delivered impressive results across the board. Site traffic grew by 41% year-on-year, showing how successful we were at driving interest and engagement. We also saw a fantastic return on ad spend of 28.5, proving the campaign’s strong profitability. On top of that, the campaign was responsible for 19% of all site traffic, highlighting its significant role in increasing brand visibility and reaching the right audience. Overall, these results reflect the power of a well-executed strategy that combined smart targeting, creative content, and effective audience engagement.
+41%
YoY Site Traffic
28.5
Return on Ad Spend
19%
All site traffic
Taller's work has been really impressive, always singing the agency's praises round the office!
Head of Marketing
A Word From The Team
As you’d expect, we were massively excited to work with The Fat Duck as not many agencies may have the opportunity to work with such a big player in the scene. This campaign could have easily presented some huge challenges with it being a high price point for the average consumer in the middle of a cost of living crisis. Taking this into account and working closely with their internal teams, I’m really happy with how we worked to deliver such a high-impact campaign. The results speak for themselves but it’s even more satisfying knowing how each element of the campaign came together to deliver such an impactful result.
