Restaurants can now pay to make themselves more visible within the Uber Eats app.
The third-party delivery company announced Monday it has added sponsored listings to its marketing features. When a restaurant runs a sponsored listing, it will appear at the top of the app’s home feed, making it more likely to attract scrolling customers. To entice restaurants to try the new feature, the company is offering $25 million in free credits.
The advertising function has shown promising return on investment in early tests, Uber Eats said: Sponsored listings have resulted in thousands of additional impressions for restaurants, and for every $1 spent, restaurants are seeing $5 in revenue.
Payment is based on clicks: Restaurants pay a fee each time a customer clicks into their page via the sponsored listing. They can set a weekly budget as well as choose how much they want to pay for each click, and can also choose to target the listing by location, ordering behavior and dietary preference.
The listings will start appearing in the app this month.
Uber Eats and other third-party delivery companies have been busy rolling out new features for restaurants during the pandemic as dine-in traffic has slowed and restaurants have become more dependent on off-premise channels. While Uber Eats has seen revenues and users surge in the past few months, it has yet to turn a profit.