Shifting Gears: Drive Traffic to Your Website with Facebook Ads
- eileen strauss
- 3 days ago
- 7 min read
If you've hit a roadblock driving traffic to your online menu, a smart Facebook ad strategy may be what it takes to get your wheels in motion. While radio ads, flyers, and circulars may have worked in the past, in 2025 the most effective way to reach hungry customers is to meet them where they live—Facebook.
Why Facebook Ads Matter for Restaurants in 2025
Most people know Facebook as a social network, used to stay in touch with friends and family online. But Facebook’s enormous database is a treasure trove of information you can use to get up-front and personal with the people you want to reach. Facebook lets you target your advertising to reach your existing customers, attract new ones, and keep them all coming back.
And, in 2025, Facebook remains the largest social media platform, with over 2.3 billion monthly active users. Its powerful targeting options let you reach the right audience at the right time.
Key 2025 Stats to Consider:
Users access Facebook 8 times per day on average.
56% of people use Facebook to get information, not just social updates.
51% of millennials check Facebook every five hours.
78% of consumers discover products on Facebook.
58% access Facebook via mobile devices, making mobile-friendly ads essential.
Boosted Posts vs. Facebook Ads: Which Should You Use?
There are a few different ways to advertise your business on Facebook---boosting posts or creating targeted ad campaigns. It’s important to understand the difference between the two.
Boosted Posts
A boosted Facebook post is simply a regular post that you pay to “boost” so it reaches more of the right people—not just your followers. It’s an easy way to increase visibility, engagement, and traffic, often targeting audiences based on location, interests, or demographics.
Boosted posts appear in your audience’s feed like ads and are simple to set up directly from your Page. Boosting works best when you want more of your current followers to see a post or when a post is already performing well and you want to amplify its reach.
Before Boosting, Ask Yourself:
Does the post have a clear purpose?
Is there a call-to-action linking to your menu?
Does it encourage viewers to become customers, not just like your page?
Facebook Ads
Facebook Ads are created through Facebook’s Ads Manager, giving you advanced targeting options and full creative control. They work best for reaching new customers beyond your current audience, running campaigns that boosting alone can’t achieve, and promoting specific menu items or online ordering using clear call-to-action buttons.
Best when:
Reaching new customers outside your current audience.
Running campaigns boosting alone can’t achieve.
Promoting menu items or online ordering with CTA buttons.
Choosing the Right Facebook Ad Goal
Awareness: Promote your Page or business locally.
Engagement: Boost a post or event.
Website Traffic: Drive clicks to your online menu.
Conversions: Encourage orders or reservations.
Pro Tip: Decide your goal before creating the ad to maximize ROI.
Targeting Your Audience Effectively
Current Customers: Start with people who already know your brand.
Warm Audience: Engage users who interacted with your Page but haven’t ordered.
New Customers: Target by location, demographics, and interests.
Lookalike Audiences: Let Facebook find users similar to your best customers.
Visitors in Your Area: Target tourists, commuters, or nearby employees.
Create Ads From Your Facebook Page
Creating ads directly from your Facebook page is one of the fastest and easiest ways to reach people who matter most to your business. But knowing which ad type to choose can be difficult.
What is the ad's obejctive?
The first thing you’ll need to do is set a goal or objective for your ad. You can choose your goal within the Facebook ad manager. Is your goal to build local awareness; increase engagement; or is your objective to up your number of conversions?
Choose your ad’s goal before you start so that you can create a strategy around that goal, getting you the most return on your investment (ROI).
Who is your target audience?
Facebook lets you target your customer’s location, age, gender, interests, and more. Generally, the more specific you are with your targeting strategy, the better your results will be. Example: working mom with kids, college student during finals week, office workers during lunch.
What materials will you need?
Do you need copy, photography, personas, videos or other resources for your ad?
What is your budget?
Plan how much you are spending and for how long.
Ad Type by Goal
When deciding on what type of ad is right for you, start by thinking about what action you want people to take when they see your ad. Do you want people to engage with your ad (share or comment), like your page, become more aware of your business, or go to your restaurant’s website?
Promote Your Page: To increase awareness of your restaurant
Promote Your Business Locally: To reach people near your restaurant
Boost your Post: If you want to increase engagement
Boost an Event: Generate interest in an upcoming event
Promote Your (Call-for-Action) Button: To encourage people to take a specific action, such as an order from your menu
Get More Website Visitors: To increase visitors to your website or blog, Get More Website Purchases: To encourage people to make a purchase or place an order.
Facebook ads are excellent tools for promoting your restaurant’s catering delivery. Because Facebook allows you to tailor a campaign that narrowly targets a specific audience, the platform’s algorithm lets you create a campaign that reaches users who not only live within your delivery radius but have recently searched for catering menus.
For more information, go to Facebook’s help page.
More things you can do with Facebook Ads
Choose different ad placements: When you boost a post, you'll be able to decide whether or not you want to place your ad on Instagram in addition to Facebook mobile and desktop Feed. With Facebook ads, you can choose placements in Facebook Feed side ads, Messenger ads, Instagram stories, instant articles, and Audience Network.
Use specific ad objectives: Choosing an ad objective helps you to focus on which campaign type best aligns with your current business goals. Boosted posts allow you to focus on website clicks, Page engagement, and local business promotions. Full ads let you choose objectives like store traffic, conversions, and lead generation.
Maintain creative control: Facebook Ads created through Ads Manager let you design an ad that fits your goals.
Use advance targeting capabilities: Boosting lets you target by interests, age, and gender, which helps you reach people who are most likely to be interested in what your restaurant offers. Facebook ads provide more advanced tools to create overlapping audience types, lookalike audiences, etc.
9 Tips for Using Facebook Ads
Start with your current customers
When creating a Facebook ad, you are given a range of options. You can decide who you want to see your ad based on profile information, location, and demographics. Your current customers are the people most interested in a promotional offer or new menu item.
Create a “warm audience” list
The next step is to create a “warm audience” list. This is a list of people who have interacted with either your Facebook page or with content you’ve posted on Facebook but have yet to order from your menu. These potential customers already know who you are and what your restaurant offers, so it’ll be easier to get them to visit.
Target “new” customers
A “new” customer is a person in your local market that still does not know that you exist. When creating a Facebook ad strategy, target people in your local market, using factors like demographics and interests, that would most likely be interested in your restaurant.
Use "Look-Alike" audiences
Facebook provides tools that allow you to analyze your current customers and to create audiences that are similar to your current customers.
Facebook Lookalike Audiences analyzes the demographics and interests of the people in your current audience and then finds people who “look like” them.
Target out-of-towners
Facebook targeting options allow you to target everyone in an area, including people who are visiting. This is perfect for restaurants in tourist areas or for restaurants near where people work.
Facebook uses location data from a person’s mobile phone, allowing your ad to display on the mobile devices of people in your area that meet your targeting criteria.
Target customers interested in online ordering
When running a Facebook ad for online ordering, the best audience is the one including people you know who have visited your online order site, and the hottest audience is the one that includes people that have already placed an online order through your site.
Incorporate more email marketing
Email is a powerful marketing tool and guests appreciate hearing about new items and discounts from their favorite restaurants.
The most effective email marketing messages include coupon offers or discounts, driving the customer to view additional website information or start the online ordering process.
Grow your email marketing list
When running a Facebook ad with a special offer, land the customer on a web page where the customer requests to have the offer emailed to them. Allow customers to opt into your email list after completing the form.
Adding the email opt-ins to your email marketing list allows you to target all of the people that requested the coupon with future email marketing messages, helping to build and nurture your guest relationship.
Advertise across channels
The ad you create on Facebook can easily be shown on Instagram with just one click.
Take Away
Facebook ads are a restaurant’s shortcut to more online orders. By connecting with the right audience at the right time, these ads naturally pull in people who are most likely to engage, turning casual social media scrollers into customers. They’re a streamlined way to boost traffic, showcase menu items, and grow your bottom line.
By Eileen Strauss
