Insights from 68 million guests across 2,000+ restaurant locations reveal how 1:1 marketing drives 400% higher engagement.
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The DataDelivers 2025 Restaurant Guest Engagement Report offers a deep dive into guest behavior across 2,000+ restaurant locations, analyzing purchase data from more than 68 million guests. This report uncovers key trends in consumer dining habits, retention rates, and the effectiveness of various marketing strategies in driving guest retention.
A standout finding reveals the powerful impact of 1:1 marketing on guest retention. Restaurants that implemented personalized marketing strategies saw significantly higher year-over-year retention rates of both guests and sales dollars. In contrast, those relying on broad, non-personalized approaches experienced lower engagement and increased guest churn.
Tracking guest engagement and retention is a significant data challenge for restaurant operators. Measuring data accurately requires the establishment of unique guest identifiers and the connection of purchase data to these identifiers over time. However, many restaurants lack the necessary data management and analytic capabilities within their marketing or IT departments to accomplish this effectively. Consequently, guest tracking often relies solely on loyalty program data, which typically captures only a fraction of a brand’s total guest base.
Relying solely on loyalty data can be misleading. It’s common to find that many loyalty members are inactive, but those that are active are very engaged. As a result, relying on loyalty data alone provides a limited view, primarily highlighting the behavior of a small percentage of highly active guests and potentially skewing perceptions about overall guest engagement levels.
Restaurants entered 2024 at a disadvantage, starting the year with fewer active guests than previous years. Despite maintaining a 17% overall retention rate—the same as the previous year—the total number of active guests continues to shrink annually. Among the 27 million active guests who visited restaurants in 2023, only 4.1 million returned in 2024. This continues the negative trend we saw in last year’s report.
As our analysts dug deeper, a stark differentiation was identified when studying returning guests — personalized 1:1 delivered results in 2024. Guests who received direct, 1:1 marketing were 4 times more likely to return (34% retention rate) compared to just 8% retention among those receiving non-personalized marketing (e.g., general advertising, Meta targeting, or no outreach at all).
The impact is undeniable: less than 1 out of 10 guests returned if they did not receive 1:1 marketing. Even more powerful is the impact this has on sales. In 2024, guests receiving 1:1 marketing delivered 5 times the sales of guests receiving non-personalized marketing.
Restaurant brands can reverse negative retention trends by expanding their use of personalized marketing. For the past two years, guests receiving targeted, data-driven outreach, have been shown to have higher retention rates, better engagement levels, and delivered higher sales. The brands that prioritize this approach will be the ones that win in 2025 and beyond.
Further analysis focused on first-time guests—those appearing in the data for the first time in 2023—to determine their likelihood of returning in 2024. The findings revealed that 26% of guests who received personalized marketing remained engaged, while 92% of those who did not receive targeted outreach never returned.
Of inactive guests who visited in 2022 but didn’t return in 2023, only 2% reengaged in 2024 without 1:1 marketing. However, with 1:1 marketing, 11% returned, a 550% increase in win-back rate.
Between 2022 and 2023, many brands raised menu prices in response to economic pressures. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, restaurant menu prices increased by an average of 8.8% year-over-year, outpacing the overall rate of inflation. The most significant price hikes occurred in 2022, with increases gradually slowing throughout 2023. While these price adjustments contributed to higher top-line sales, they also negatively impacted guest retention.
In the 2024 Guest Engagement Report, DataDelivers found that only 17% of 2022 guests returned in 2023. This means that entering 2024, 41M of the 68M tracked guests were inactive, having not visited in over a year—leaving restaurants with a significantly smaller pool of engaged guests.
“Price increases in 2022 and 2023 began driving guests away, leaving many brands entering 2024 already at a disadvantage. The impact of these increases on guest behavior is evident as the number of engaged guests continues to decline.”
– Deena McKinley, Restaurant Executive
Our experts weighed in on the biggest takeaways from this year’s Engagement Report, highlighting the challenges and opportunities in guest retention.
“Over the last three years, guest retention has declined year-over-year. You could see this as a challenge—or an opportunity.”
— Neil Culbertson
“Only 17% of guests returned in 2024 after visiting in 2023, and without direct one-to-one marketing, that number dropped to just 8%. That means 92% of first-time guests aren’t coming back.”
— Deena McKinley
“Loyalty members represent only a small, hyper-engaged portion of guests. If you’re not tracking all customers, you’re missing the full picture.”
— Deena McKinley
“The good news? Guest retention is an addressable opportunity. Restaurants using one-to-one marketing retained over four times more customers. If there’s one takeaway, it’s this: You must market directly to your guests if you want them to return.”
— Pat Riley
To dive deeper into this conversation, listen to our podcast here.
Based on this report, increasing the number of guests you can market to in a direct, 1:1 manner is critical to growing guest engagement. How can you get more guests engaged?
Collect as much information as possible during the visit.
Always choose to insert the card vs. tapping – it will give you more data and options.
Promote opt-in opportunities consistently such as loyalty sign up.
Employ bounce back offers that require guest contact information, such as email.
Partner with a firm that can harness your data to identify guests beyond your eclub and loyalty programs to increase your ability to do 1:1 marketing to more of your guests.
Current who had at least one transaction in the analytic window (January 2023 – December 2024). For this analysis there were 68 million known guests.
To be considered inactive the guest needed to have at least one transaction in 2022 but none in 2023, these guests would be eligible for win back in 2024. In this analysis, 41 million guests were inactive heading into 2024.
For someone to be considered engaged with a brand they need to have at least one transaction within that calendar year. In order to be retained in 2024 a guest needed to be engaged in 2023 and engaged again in 2024. In this analysis, 27 million guests were engaged in 2023.
Known guests who receive marketing directly to their devices and have purchases connected to their guest profile.
Guests who had a transaction with the same brand in 2023 and 2024.
A known guest who was inactive in 2023 and had a transaction in 2024.
These known guests cannot be attributed to specific marketing efforts. Since individual recipients of general advertising, Meta targeting, or no outreach at all are unknown, their engagement is categorized under the “all other marketing” guest segment.
For more than 20 years, DataDelivers has helped brands market smarter to improve customer experiences. Clients use our data-driven tools to drive acquisition, retention, and lifetime customer value.
We believe we can improve the lives of our clients by providing better understanding and clarity of data.
