How to Structure a Google Ads Account for a Restaurant

Restaurant Google Ads accounts are often set up by generalists who treat a restaurant like any other local service business. The structure they build is technically correct and strategically wrong. A restaurant has fundamentally different conversion objectives depending on who is searching and when, and the account structure needs to reflect that.

Here is the account structure we use and why each decision was made.

The Two Campaign Types a Restaurant Actually Needs

A restaurant typically has 2 distinct demand types that warrant separate campaigns.

Campaign 1: Search, for catering and private events.

Catering and private dining searches are high-intent, high-value, and low-volume. "Function room Adelaide," "catering company Unley," "private dining 20 people Adelaide," these queries come from someone planning an event with real budget and a real decision to make. The conversion path is longer (they will enquire, get a quote, and decide over days) but the value per conversion is high.

This campaign should be structured around catering intent keywords. Match types lean toward exact and phrase. Bidding should be target CPA if you have enough conversion history (15 to 20 conversions per month minimum) or manual CPC with bid adjustments if the account is newer. Landing page is the private dining or catering page, not the homepage.

Campaign 2: Search, for walk-in dining and reservations.

Walk-in and reservation searches are higher volume, lower transaction value, and faster conversion. "Greek restaurant Unley," "dinner Adelaide tonight," "best restaurant inner south Adelaide," these queries are from people deciding where to eat in a shorter window. The conversion path is often same-day.

This campaign uses location-heavy keywords centred on cuisine type, suburb, and occasion. Bidding suits Target Impression Share (for brand visibility on your own name) or Maximise Conversions once the account has data. Landing page is the main site with a prominent reservation CTA.

Do not mix these two campaign types into one campaign. The search intent, conversion path, landing page, and bid strategy are different enough that combined campaigns underperform both objectives.

Ad Group Structure

Within each campaign, ad groups are organised around search intent clusters, not products.

For the catering campaign, ad groups might include:

Private dining (private dining Adelaide, function room inner south, private room restaurant)
Corporate catering (corporate catering Adelaide, office lunch catering, team lunch Adelaide)
Event catering (birthday dinner Adelaide, anniversary dinner group booking)

For the reservations campaign, ad groups might include:

Brand terms (restaurant name, restaurant name + Unley)
Cuisine + location (Greek restaurant Unley, Greek restaurant Adelaide, Adelaide Greek food)
Occasion (special occasion restaurant Adelaide, date night restaurant Adelaide)
Competitor terms (if warranted, carefully)

Each ad group should have 3 ads (responsive search ads with distinct angle variations) and a tightly matched set of keywords. 8 to 15 keywords per ad group is the range where you have enough signal without losing thematic coherence.

Keyword Strategy: Branded vs Non-Branded

This distinction matters more than most restaurant owners realise.

Branded keywords (your restaurant name and close variations) should be in their own ad group. The argument for bidding on your own brand is primarily defensive: stop competitors from showing ads when someone searches for you specifically. The bids are low, the click-through rate is high, and the conversion rate is high because these searches indicate someone who already knows you.

Non-branded keywords are your growth engine. These target people who are looking for a type of restaurant or occasion without having your specific name in mind. This is where most of your ad spend should go and where the account structure decisions matter most.

Competitor keywords require careful handling. Bidding on competitor restaurant names in Adelaide can produce cheap clicks, but conversion rates are lower and impression share on competitor brand terms is contested. We typically test competitor keywords in a controlled budget-capped ad group rather than making them a structural priority.

The Negative Keyword List Every Restaurant Needs

A restaurant account without a strong negative keyword list will bleed money on irrelevant queries. These are the categories that need to be negative-matched from day one.

Employment terms. Add negatives for: jobs, employment, work, hiring, career, apprenticeship, trainee, waiter jobs, chef jobs, and any variations. Job-seeking queries trigger restaurant ads constantly. Nobody booking a table is searching "kitchen hand jobs Unley."

Delivery platform terms. If you are not advertising a delivery service, add negatives for: Uber Eats, DoorDash, Menulog, delivery, order online (unless you have online ordering), take away (if you do not want to target this). Delivery intent converts differently from dine-in intent and should be a separate campaign or excluded entirely depending on your operation.

Recipe and food content terms. Add negatives for: recipe, how to cook, ingredients, homemade, traditional, history of. Food content searches trigger restaurant ads and produce zero commercial conversions.

Free terms. "Free," "cheap," and "discount" searches attract price-sensitive traffic that converts poorly for most mid-market and above restaurants. Evaluate whether to exclude these based on your positioning.

Dietary restriction information searches. "Is Greek food gluten free," "what is moussaka made of," and similar informational queries produce zero conversions. Add broad negatives for informational modifiers.

Build this list before launch, not after you have spent money on irrelevant clicks. Add to it weekly for the first 3 months using the Search Terms report.

Bid Strategy by Objective

Bid strategy should match your campaign maturity and your conversion objective.

New accounts (fewer than 15 conversions per month): Use Maximise Clicks with a maximum CPC cap, or Manual CPC. Smart bidding strategies including Target CPA and Target ROAS need conversion volume to function properly. Without enough data, they either overbid on irrelevant traffic or underbid on good opportunities. Do not use smart bidding until the account has the data to justify it.

Established accounts, reservation objective: Maximise Conversions or Target CPA once you have 30 or more conversions in a 30-day window. Set the target CPA based on your actual conversion value. If a reservation generates an average cover spend of $80 and you are happy spending 20% on acquisition, your Target CPA is $16.

Established accounts, catering or private event enquiries: Target CPA works well here because the conversion value is relatively consistent (a private dining enquiry is worth a similar amount whether it is for 10 or 20 people at the enquiry stage). If your catering enquiries have highly variable conversion value, consider Target ROAS with conversion values assigned.

Brand campaign: Target Impression Share at a 90%+ impression share threshold. You want to show every time someone searches your name. The volume is low and the CPCs are cheap. This is not the place to apply tight CPA targets.

Ongoing Account Hygiene

The account structure you set up at launch degrades if you do not maintain it. 4 maintenance tasks that matter most for restaurants.

Search terms review: weekly for the first 3 months, fortnightly thereafter. Add new negatives from irrelevant queries. Identify new positive keyword opportunities from high-converting queries you had not anticipated.

Bid adjustments by time: Restaurants have obvious demand patterns. Friday and Saturday evenings convert better than Tuesday lunchtimes. Apply positive bid adjustments during peak booking windows and negative adjustments during off-peak periods. Check your conversion data by day of week and hour before setting these.

Seasonal campaign adjustments: Mother's Day, Valentine's Day, and Christmas are the 3 periods where dedicated campaigns or significantly increased budgets on existing campaigns are warranted for most Adelaide restaurants. Build the campaigns 4 weeks before the event, not the week before.

Ad copy refreshes: Responsive search ads should have assets reviewed and updated quarterly. Replace the lowest-performing assets (Google labels them "poor" in the ad strength report) with new variations. Creative fatigue affects search ads too, though more slowly than display.

If you want help building or auditing a restaurant Google Ads account, see what we do for hospitality clients or reach out directly.