Growth guide
Invest in your direct orders
Look at how much you invest in the marketplaces. Move some of that spend into your direct channels, and keep the margin as well as the guest data.
Tim Frostick4 November 20262 min read
Commission, ads to stay visible, and the offers you fund. Add them up and marketplace delivery is often the biggest marketing investment a brand makes. The marketplace keeps the margin, and it keeps the guest.
The delivery P&L
What investing in direct is worth
Commission, ads and promotions, against what the same orders keep direct. Tick what you pay and set each as a share of sales.
Marketplace
Net
-£2.62
-9.5% of gross sales
Direct
Net
£7.50
30% of gross sales
Your marketplace investment a year
£145,200
55% of every marketplace sale, and the guest data stays with the marketplace.
- Marketplace commission£79,200
- Ads investment£13,200
- Promotional spend£52,800
Invest some of it in direct. Keep the margin as well as the data.
Direct keeps 30% of every sale. The marketplace, -9.5%.
- Marketplace spend freed up
- £29,040
- Extra net profit
- £19,440
Plus 1,920 direct orders a year, each with a guest you can reach again.
Why convert guests to direct
You invest heavily in your visibility on the marketplaces. Why aren't you doing the same for your direct channels?
Most brands spend more keeping a marketplace listing visible than they spend marketing their own ordering page. Yet the marketplace order is the one that costs the most and gives back the least.
- You keep the margin. No commission on a direct order. Every guest you convert stops costing you a cut of every basket.
- You keep the guest. Name, email and order history, on a list you own. Reach them again without paying to be seen. What to do with it.
- They order more often. Guests who order through a restaurant's own app order three times as often as those who don't.
- You set the terms. Your prices, your offers, your delivery fees. No ranking to pay for, and no rate rise to absorb.
- You depend less on the apps. Every order you move direct is one less exposed to commission changes and the next algorithm update.
A marketplace guest costs you commission on every order. A direct guest costs you once, to win, and pays back on every order after that.
Invest in your direct channel
You're already investing to win orders. Point some of that budget at your own channels, and spend it the way you already do on the apps:
- Run offers direct Fund the same deals you run on the apps, from free delivery to buy-one-get-one, on your own channel instead.
- Make direct better value Mark up your marketplace menu, or cut your prices direct. With no commission, your direct margin can carry it.
- Make direct exclusive Direct-only offers and products. Give guests a reason they can't get on the apps.
- Bag inserts A QR code and a direct-only offer in every marketplace bag.
- Google Make your own menu the preferred order button.
- Paid ads Send every click to your own ordering page.
- Your own app Push costs nothing to send. App Studio.
Keep the marketplaces for being found. Move the spend that keeps guests there into direct, and keep the margin as well as the data.
Questions operators ask
How much do I really invest in marketplace delivery?
Add your commission, your sponsored listings and the offers you fund. Your marketplace statements have all three. The P&L in this guide totals them for a year.
Should I leave the delivery apps?
No. Keep them for visibility and new guests, and move part of what you spend there into growing your direct orders.
Who owns the guest data?
On a marketplace order, the marketplace does. On a direct order, you do: every guest is added to a customer list you can contact and export, and it stays yours if you leave.
Where should the money go?
Run the offers you'd run on the apps on your own channel. Make direct better value, with higher marketplace prices or lower direct ones, and make it exclusive with direct-only offers and products. Then bag inserts, your Google profile and ads to your own ordering page. Track the orders in your Storekit dashboard.
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Invest in direct.
Keep the margin.
Move some of your marketplace spend into direct. Start with a card in tonight's bags.