Background

Caviar is a premium on-demand food delivery service. They are active in 28 key markets within the USA including Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago and New York City.

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Challenge

Demand for food delivery is strongly linked with the weather. Generally, worse weather leads to a higher volume of orders. Caviar’s digital agency 3Q Digital wanted to leverage this insight to gain a competitive advantage for their client. They devised a strategy to test weather targeted ad delivery in several of Caviar’s key markets.

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Objective

The main objective was to drive First Purchases at consistent CPA via localized Google Search campaigns. The aim of the test was to capitalize on bad weather moments - specifically rain - by bidding more aggressively during rainy periods. This tactic would enable Caviar to outrank and outperform their competitors on paid search during these demand spikes, and gain a greater share of the food delivery market.

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Strategy & Execution

3Q Digital initially created weather targeting filters utilizing positive bid modifiers on light rain, and larger positive modifiers on moderate to heavy rain. They found that the light rain was at times driving up CPCs, so they removed the light rain parameters altogether and focused the positive bid adjustments strictly around periods of heavier rainfall.

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Results

Overall 3Q Digital saw a 36% increase in conversion volume when using WeatherAds, along with a 5% increase in CTR and a 3% improvement in average position. They did also notice a slight increase in CPA which was attributed to the inclusion of a light rain / drizzle as a parameter within their targeting. Targeting has since been tightened, with the campaign still ongoing.

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