Unlikely Connections: What One Pizza Chain Got Right About Going Local

There’s something oddly revealing about pizza.

You can learn a lot from who’s ordering it, when, how often, and even which toppings win the local popularity contest (pepperoni remains undefeated, by the way).

So when a national QSR brand came to us with a familiar challenge: “How do we drive more store-level sales without wasting spend in the wrong markets?” We started with pizza.

Not literally. But close enough.

A Slice-by-Slice Look at Local Behavior

The brand had been running a broad national campaign across paid social and programmatic. The results were fine. But, fine wasn’t the goal. They were investing heavily across the board, yet foot traffic was stalling in key locations, and loyalty app engagement had plateaued.

The problem? They were treating all locations the same.

But store performance varied wildly across ZIP codes. Some stores were thriving with minimal support. Others, located in competitive areas or serving late-night college crowds, needed more strategic attention. They weren’t just missing conversions. They were missing context.

So we zoomed in.

Using first- and third-party data, we built hyper-local audience segments, layering in everything from loyalty card data and app usage patterns to mobile activity and time-of-day ordering behavior. We mapped media spend directly to store-level performance and identified the micro-regions where consumer intent was high but ad saturation was low.

That’s when the “pizza moment” happened.
Identical impressions. Drastically different outcomes.
It wasn’t about more spend. It was about smarter targeting.

What Changed

• We paused spend in low-performing ZIP codes and reallocated it to high-opportunity zones.
• We adjusted creative to reflect local preferences, promos, and store-specific CTAs.
• We optimized media daily based on store traffic, sales lift, and time-of-day performance.
  

We didn’t just shift dollars. We shifted strategy.

And suddenly, the campaign started behaving less like a national push… and more like a well-orchestrated series of neighborhood plays.

The Bigger Lesson

Hyper-targeting isn’t just about squeezing more value out of your media budget (though that’s a nice bonus). It’s about meeting people where they actually are — geographically, behaviorally, and emotionally.

When you plan with that level of local intelligence, you stop shouting into the void and start speaking directly to your best customers.

Sometimes, that means trading reach for relevance.
Sometimes, it means starting with pizza.

That’s what Unlikely Connections is all about: the unexpected overlaps between data, behavior, and results that turn good campaigns into great ones.

Want to see what your media mix might be missing?

Let’s find your next unlikely connection. Get in touch →