Case Study 03 · The Attribution Story

What we claim.
What we don't.
Why it matters.

Most agency case studies claim everything. This one explicitly states what digital contributed — and what the restaurant's team, product, and brand earned on their own. The honest position still produces a 37× return. And it is far more trustworthy than the alternative.

~€290K
Attributed Revenue
37×
Return on Retainer
€7,800
Annual Cost
The Problem

Every agency claims
100% of the upside.

Restaurant covers go up. The agency points to their work. No one mentions that the market also recovered, the head chef improved, the owner refurbished the dining room, or that a food critic happened to visit. Attribution in restaurants is genuinely hard — which is why almost no one does it honestly.

premium city-centre steakhouse venue grew covers by 7% while the local city-centre market fell 13%. That 20-point gap is real and verifiable from the venue's own OpenTable account. The question is: how much of it belongs to digital marketing specifically, and how much belongs to everything else?

The easy answer is to claim all of it. The honest answer requires a model with three tiers: what we can directly trace from a digital source to a booking, what we can reasonably infer was influenced by digital visibility, and what we explicitly do not claim — because the restaurant's team and product earned it independently of anything we built.

The three-tier model below is that honest answer. It is the basis for the €290K attributed revenue figure. It is also why that figure is credible in a way that a "we drove all of your growth" claim would not be.

~50%
Share of outperformance we
attribute to digital work
Market performance−13%
the venue performance+7%
Outperformance gap20 points
We claim (digital half)~10% covers
Restaurant team earnedthe other half
Incremental covers~5,800
This is a conservative position. The full gap was 20 points. We claim 10. The restaurant's quality, team, and brand name earned the rest — and that is the honest framing.
The Attribution Model

Three tiers.
Three levels of certainty.

Each tier applies a different standard of evidence. Tier one requires a direct traceable path. Tier two requires reasonable inference backed by the infrastructure data. Tier three is explicitly excluded — not because it did not happen, but because we cannot claim it honestly.

Tier 01 · Confirmed
Directly traced
digital bookings
€184,940
Verified revenue
The OpenTable Network channel provides a direct, platform-verified link between a digital touchpoint and a confirmed reservation. Every booking in this channel is traceable to a digital discovery event — no inference required. This is the only tier where we use the word "confirmed."
OT Network channel: 3,699 confirmed covers via OpenTable discovery (diners who found the venue through the platform, not direct booking)
Methodology: 3,699 covers × €50 average spend = €184,940 verified digital revenue
Year-on-year: OT Network covers grew substantially — this channel did not exist at meaningful scale before the engagement
Tier 02 · Probable
Reasonably inferred
digital influence
~€105K
Estimated revenue
These channels cannot be individually traced to a booking but are directly connected to infrastructure we built. A diner who found the venue in a Google map pack search and walked in, or called from the GBP listing, would not appear in OT Network data — but the visibility that produced them was created by the work. We apply a conservative conversion assumption to infrastructure metrics to produce these estimates.
GBP direction requests: 357,000 profile views produced measurable direction requests. Conservative walk-in conversion produces ~1,400 incremental covers
Map pack positions: Top-3 on 4 high-intent terms. Estimated 700 additional covers from search visibility that did not route through OT
Direct GBP calls: Phone bookings from GBP call button — not tracked individually, conservative estimate of 600 covers
Tier 03 · Not Claimed
Explicitly outside
digital attribution
Not ours
Restaurant earned this
The restaurant grew 7% while the market fell 13%. Even if we had done nothing, a restaurant of this quality in this location would have outperformed a declining market by some margin. That margin belongs to the kitchen, the floor team, the brand heritage, the wine list, and years of earned reputation. We do not claim it. That is what makes the 37× figure credible.
Brand recognition effect: the venue is a named brand with existing pull. Some diners would find and book regardless of search visibility
Product quality: Cover retention and repeat visitation driven by the experience, not by how people discovered it initially
Organic market recovery: Some venues in city centre outperformed peers through operational excellence alone, independent of digital work
The Confirmed Funnel

The digital path
we can actually trace.

The OpenTable Network channel is the only one in this case study where a confirmed digital event can be directly connected to a confirmed reservation. Every step in this funnel is platform-verified — no modelling required.

OpenTable Network Channel · Full year
From impression to
confirmed cover
€184,940
Verified channel revenue
Step 01
357K
GBP Impressions
Searches where the venue appeared in Google results or maps
Full year tracked
Step 02
62.5K
Profile Actions
Clicks to website, direction requests, calls, reservation taps
+YoY growth
Step 03
3,699
OT Network Covers
Confirmed reservations from diners who discovered the venue through OpenTable
Verified by platform
Step 04
€184,940
Verified Revenue
3,699 covers × €50 average spend — platform-confirmed, no modelling
Tier 01 · Confirmed
This funnel accounts for Tier 1 of the attribution model only. The additional ~€105K in Tier 2 (map pack walk-ins, GBP calls, direct searches) would extend this funnel further if individual tracking were available — but it is not, which is why those figures are estimated rather than confirmed.
The Honest Calculation

37× return.
Here is exactly how we got there.

No black box. The methodology is stated in full. You can disagree with any assumption — the inputs are all explicit so you can run your own numbers.

The working
Step by step,
assumption by assumption
Outperformance gap (20pt) ÷ 2 We claim half. Restaurant team earned the other half.
10pt
10% of prior-year cover base (~58,000 covers) Incremental covers attributable to digital visibility
~5,800
5,800 covers × €50 average spend Conservative avg — includes à la carte, set menus, drinks
~€290K
Annual retainer cost €650/month × 12 months
€7,800
€290,000 ÷ €7,800 Return on annual retainer
37×
The outcome
37×
Return on the annual retainer.
€290,000 attributed revenue
against €7,800 cost.
The confirmed Tier 1 figure alone — €184,940 via OT Network — is already a 24× return without any modelled estimates.

The full ~€290K figure applies the three-tier model and includes reasonable inference from infrastructure metrics. Both numbers are stated separately so you can apply whichever standard you prefer.
Honest caveat
Attribution in hospitality is never exact. We believe these figures are conservative — the real digital contribution may be higher. But conservative and auditable is more useful than inflated and unverifiable. If you want to interrogate any assumption, the inputs are all stated above.
Why This Approach Matters

Claiming less
builds more trust.

Any prospect who has worked with an agency before has seen the inflated case study. Here is why publishing the honest version is actually the stronger position.

24×
The conservative floor
Even using only Tier 1 confirmed revenue — the €184,940 OT Network figure alone — the return on the annual retainer is 24×. That is the floor, not the ceiling. And it requires no assumptions at all.
0
Competitors who publish this model
No other local SEO agency publishes a three-tier attribution model that explicitly disclaims a portion of the result. That absence is the signal. A prospect who asks for methodology elsewhere will not get it.
Auditable by anyone
Every input in this case study is verifiable. OpenTable data comes from the venue's own account. GBP impressions from Google Search Console. DA and linking domains from third-party tools. Any prospect can check the numbers themselves.
See your numbers

Want to know what
honest attribution looks like
for your venue?

A 15-minute audit call gives you your domain authority, citation score, and map pack coverage against your competitive set. We show you the numbers first — no pitch, no model until you ask for one.

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