A direct order keeps 25–35% more of the ticket than a marketplace order. On a $30 check that's $7–10, every single time. So before you spend a cent on Google Ads, get everything you can out of the channels that cost nothing but discipline. Here are 11 tactics, grouped by where they happen. None of them need an ad budget, but every one needs you to actually do it, day after day.
In the bag: convert the orders you already have
1. Every marketplace order leaves your kitchen in your bag, so put a card in it: "Order direct at [yourname].com and get 10% cashback." Keep it to one offer and one QR code. Operators who run inserts consistently see a few percent of their marketplace customers switch over each month, and that number compounds, because the people who switch keep ordering.
2. A sticker on the box is cheaper than an insert and it survives the trip to the trash. Put the QR code on the pizza box lid, right where the first slice comes out.
3. Make the first-order code expire: "DIRECT10, valid 14 days." The deadline is the whole point. An open-ended offer gets saved for a later that never arrives; a code that's about to close gets used this week.
At the counter: your staff is a distribution channel
4. Give staff one line to say at handoff: "Did you know we have our own app? Your second order gets 10% cashback." Restaurants that pay $1 for every confirmed install call it the cheapest customer they've ever bought. A marketplace, by contrast, takes $9 of commission on a single $30 order from that same person.
5. Dine-in guests already chose you, which makes them your warmest audience. Put the app QR code where they're standing around anyway: by the register, on the table, at the pickup shelf.
6. Turn your free Wi-Fi into a download. The landing page people hit before they get online can carry your app link, and you're paying for that connection either way.
That gap is why the counter tactics are worth the small awkwardness. Once someone installs your app, conversion runs as high as 35%; the marketplace feed converts that same person at about 3%, because your restaurant is sitting next to forty others. So the install is the whole game.
Branded app and ordering site, live in about two weeks. We'll show you the install-to-order funnel on real accounts.
On the phone: free traffic you're probably wasting
7. Fix your Google Business Profile ordering link. Search your restaurant's name and Google shows an "Order online" button. If it points at a marketplace, you're handing DoorDash or Uber Eats 25–30% commission on people who looked up you, by name. Send it to your own ordering website instead. It's the highest-value five minutes on this list.
8. Same idea on Instagram. Your bio link should get a hungry follower to checkout in two taps, not dump them on a linktree full of press mentions.
9. Move phone orders into the app. Callers are already direct customers, but the calls eat staff time and breed mistakes. Try: "I'll text you our app link. Order there and the 10% cashback applies on its own." You keep the customer and upgrade the channel at the same time.
In the follow-up: where the compounding happens
10. Use cashback, not discounts. A 10% discount vanishes at checkout. A 10% cashback balance sits in the customer's account and nags them back, and the balances nobody redeems cost you nothing. Set it up once in your marketing tools and it runs on every order.
11. Send push notifications that have a reason to exist. "Friday pizza night, and your cashback covers the drinks," out at 4 p.m. on Friday. Push costs nothing to send, which is exactly why lazy blasts ruin it. Send one or two well-timed messages a week, segmented by order history from your order analytics, and it turns into the cheapest revenue lever you've got. Our AI marketing assistant drafts and schedules these for you, and operators using it report $5,000+/month in generated revenue.
How to know it's working: three numbers, checked weekly
Tactics you don't measure turn into guesswork. Check three numbers every Monday. The one that matters most is your direct share, direct orders over total orders; a point or two of growth a month means the whole thing is compounding. Then there's insert conversion, redemptions of your bag code over inserts sent. Under 1% and you change the offer or the card, not the channel. And your second-order rate, the share of first-time direct customers who come back within 30 days, which is where cashback and push either earn their keep or don't. All three fall straight out of your order data as long as your platform tracks promo codes and customer history. If it can't, you've got a platform problem, not a marketing one.
Give it a fair window, too. Bag inserts convert slowly, and cumulatively: a regular usually needs to see the card three or four times before the switch clicks. The operators who quit after two weeks decide inserts "don't work." The ones who run them for a full quarter walk away with a direct channel.
Do them in order, not all at once
Don't try to launch all 11 this week. Start with #7: five minutes, and the effect is immediate. Then add #1 and #4, the bag inserts and the counter script, which move the most customers per unit of effort. Bring in cashback and push once you've got your first regulars in the system. The full week-by-week migration sequence is in our system for moving delivery-app customers to your own channel.
App, site, cashback, and push — one platform, one dashboard, launch in ~2 weeks.