A Guide to Facebook & Instagram Ads for Restaurants in 2025

How to Attract More Diners and Boost Sales with Social Media Advertising

Running a restaurant in the UK in 2025 must sometimes feel like going 12 rounds with prime Mike Tyson. Various macro factors on top of a tough time for consumers means it’s hard out there, there’s really no sugar coating it. You already know this, though hence why you may have found yourself thinking about how you can get more customers sat back down at your tables and enjoying all of your hard work.

In years gone by having great food and service was, in a lot of cases, enough to stand out. Nowadays, unless you’re one of those that just seem to strike gold with location and proposition it’s just not the case. It’s super critical to be where your customers are and that’s on social media. Facebook and Instagram ads are powerful tools to help restaurants attract new diners, increase reservations, and keep regulars coming back for more.

So anyway, in this guide, we’ll walk you through how to create effective ads tailored for restaurants, with practical tips and real-world examples to help you superboost your marketing returns.

Why Should Restaurants Use Facebook & Instagram Ads?

Social media platforms are no longer just for sharing food photos—they’re essential for restaurant marketing. Here’s why:

• Widespread Reach: With over 3 billion active users across Facebook and Instagram, you can promote your restaurant to locals, tourists, and even specific customer segments (know that you get a lot of Chinese tourists? Target visitors with a Chinese language ad…).

  
  

• Precise Targeting: You can target users by location, interests, behaviors, and even dining preferences, ensuring your ads reach the right audience.

  
  

• Cost-Effective: Even with a small daily budget, you can generate significant results, whether you’re aiming for more reservations, takeout orders, or event bookings. This one is real important, you don’t need to chuck thousands at your ads. If you’re set up well you can usually achieve a lot with a little.

  
  

• Visual Appeal: Food is meant to be seen. Both platforms prioritise visual content, making them ideal for showcasing your dishes and atmosphere. People like to know what the vibe is before they book.

Make sure you’re going through the steps below to make your campaigns hit the spot.

1. Setting Clear Advertising Objectives

Before you start creating ads, you need to define your goals. Facebook and Instagram have a tonne on offer and although the obvious one is bookings/covers, you should try and think a bit outside the box before going full send on only one.

Top Objectives for Restaurants:

• Traffic: Directs people to your website, online menu, or reservation page. Generally this is a bit cheaper and maybe better for long term goals rather than quick bookings.

  
  

• Engagement: Boosts likes, comments, and shares to increase visibility and interest. Goes without saying that you want content that is likable…

  
  

• Conversions: Encourages online orders, reservation bookings, or app downloads. The big holy grail of ads and the most common we run for clients. Not always the most effective though depending on the restaurant.

  
  

• Awareness: Just get those ads in front of eyeballs. Generally the cheapest to run but the results are less quantifiable. Not to say you should disregard though, example below.

Example:

For one of our clients, a restaurant in Shoreditch, we ran an awareness ad targeting people within 3 km of their location. They wanted to promote their after work drinks offer of 2 for 1 cocktails. Within 2 weeks we saw a 27% increase in walk ins.

2. Crafting Eye-Catching Ad Creatives

In the restaurant industry, visual appeal is everything. Your ad needs to stop people from scrolling and make them crave your food.

Visual Tips:

• Use high-resolution photos or videos of your actual dishes—no stock images.

  
  

• Highlight signature items or seasonal specials in your visuals.

  
  

• Experiment with carousel ads to show multiple dishes or promotions.

  
  

• Add short, engaging videos (10–15 seconds) of food preparation or customer reactions.

  
  

• UGC is huge now so making reels based on authenticity almost always land well.

  
  

Copywriting Tips:

• Keep your text clear, tempting, and concise.

  
  

• Include a compelling call-to-action (CTA) like “Reserve Now” or “Order Today.”

  
  

• Mention special deals or limited-time offers to create urgency.

  
  

3. Targeting the Right Audience

One of the biggest advantages of Facebook and Instagram ads is the ability to precisely target potential customers. Recent(ish) updates has meant that traditional targetin is losing some relevance but if you are using ‘advantage+’ then you can still overlay suggestions yo your audiences to help guide the algorithm.

Location Targeting:

• Target people within a 3–10 km radius of your restaurant.

  
  

• Think about your customers, where are they? In the Shoreditch bar example I used previously, we used to target Essex a lot as on weekends we saw big crowds travel in for the bottomless brunch.

Interest & Behavior Targeting:

• Target users who frequently visit restaurants or follow food-related pages.

  
  

• Use interests like “foodies,” “dining out,” or “local cuisine.”

  
  

• Leverage behavioral targeting by selecting people who have recently shown interest in restaurant-related content.

  
  

Retargeting & Lookalike Audiences:

• Show ads to people who visited your website but didn’t book a table.

  
  

• Use lookalike audiences to target people similar to your existing customers.

4. Budgeting & Bidding Tips

Even with a small budget, you can get meaningful results if you spend strategically. We always advocate for ‘start small and scale up’ to make sure you’re not wasting spend unnecessarily.

Budgeting Tips:

• If you’re not experienced, start with a daily budget of £5-£10 and increase it based on performance.

  
  

• Keep an eye on your Cost-per-acquisition which in this case would be bookings. You want this as low as possible.

  
  

A/B Testing:

• Test different images, ad copy, and CTAs to see what resonates best with your audience.

  
  

• Allocate more budget to the highest-performing ads and scale down those that just aren’t landing.

5. Tracking & Optimizing Your Ads

This is probably the most important lesson in this article. By a country mile. Please please please make sure your tracking is set up and you understand how it works BEFORE you go live with any activity. Running ads without the correct tracking set up is like driving a car without a speedometer or fuel guage. It’s perfectly possible but will give you a load of anxiety working out if things are working right.

You can do this a few ways so make sure you take the time to learn or get someone who knows what they are doing. I’ve lost count of how many times we have spoken to owners who have tried ads, decided they haven’t worked and then realised it’s because they hadn’t even considered the tracking.

To optimise, you want to just make sure you’re introducing enough creative to start drawing some learnings. It’s hard to do this with only one or two so aim for 3 or 4 then after 2 weeks pause the ones that aren’t working so well

Final Thoughts

Facebook and Instagram ads aren’t essential but they are pretty important, especially if you struggle to control the flow of customers into your restaurant. By leveraging precise targeting, creating visually appealing ads, and scheduling them strategically, you can drive more reservations, increase sales, and keep your restaurant top of mind.

Key Takeaway: Start small, test different ad strategies, and continuously optimise your campaigns. With consistency and creativity, you’ll see real results—filling your tables and boosting your revenue.

Sound like a lot of effort? Let us do it for you. Get in touch and we can get you live and taking bookings in no time.