Case Study · The Money Page · Return on Investment

Skip the
methodology.
Here's the money.

~€310,000 in attributed revenue. A fixed monthly retainer. 43× back. Break-even: fewer than one evening's worth of additional covers per month. This page is the investment case, numbers only, nothing else.

€312K
Attributed revenue
43×
Return on investment
6,252
Attributed covers
The Accounting

Every number
that went in.
Every number that came back.

Attribution methodology stated upfront: 50% of cover growth claimed as digitally influenced, at a conservative €50 floor per cover. Both figures deliberately understated. The ledger below uses those conservative inputs throughout.

Line item
Debit · Investment
Credit · Return
Investment
Fixed monthly retainer
GBP management · citation hygiene · rank tracking · reporting
Fixed retainer
Total investment · 12 months
Fixed monthly retainer · annual basis
Fixed retainer
Attributed return · Conservative basis
Cover growth · full year 2025
OpenTable verified · 61,000+ total vs 49,382 prior year
+0 covers
Attribution rate applied
50% of growth claimed as digitally influenced · deliberately conservative
50%
Attributed covers
50% × 12,503 additional covers
0 covers
Spend floor applied per cover
Conservative floor · actual tracked spend: €62.99/cover
€50.00
OpenTable Network discovery
16,600+ covers booked via OpenTable network · partially in attribution above
Included
GBP direction requests · 2025
19,600+ direction requests from 766K profile views · high-intent pre-visit signal
Included
TripAdvisor confirmed bookings
+255% YoY · 213 confirmed bookings vs prior year
Included
Attributed revenue · conservative basis
6,252 covers × €50 floor · all channels combined
Fixed retainer
~€0
The Break-Even

What it took
to justify the
first invoice.

Before any return is considered, there is one question: how many additional covers does this need to generate to pay for itself? The answer reframes the entire investment decision.

Covers needed to break even · per month
0
covers per month
The retainer divided by average spend per cover. That is the entire break-even threshold. One table of two, one quiet Tuesday evening. If the engagement generated nothing else — no rankings, no map pack, no organic growth — a single additional booking per fortnight would have covered the cost.
Break-even threshold
Covers attributed · per month average
0
attributed covers per month
6,252 attributed covers across 12 months. Every month, the engagement generated over 500 additional covers above the break-even threshold. The retainer was covered in the first hours of trading each month. Everything beyond that is margin.
Actual attributed monthly average
above break-even, every single month. The venue needed fewer than one evening's worth of additional covers to justify the engagement. It generated that in the first session of each month. The 521× figure is not the return on investment — it is the return relative to the minimum acceptable threshold. The actual ROI is the 43× shown in the ledger above.
The Revenue Channels

Four pipes.
One funnel.

The 6,252 attributed covers did not arrive through a single source. Four digital channels became active simultaneously and fed into the same reservation outcome. Each is measurable. Each contributed.

OpenTable Network
16,600+
Discovery covers · full year 2025
Implied revenue · ~€830K
Guests who found the venue through OpenTable's network — not direct search, not brand recognition, not a recommendation. Pure platform discovery. These covers did not exist before the citation infrastructure that feeds OT's algorithm was built. Zero managed citations at engagement start. 107 active citations by year end.
Google Business Profile
73,000+ actions
From 766,000 profile views · 2025
Direction requests · 19,600+
19,600+ direction requests represent near-confirmed physical visits. 3,405 calls — the majority conversion-intent. 50,412 website visits from profile. Maps Mobile accounted for 75% of all 766K views — the search surface a guest uses standing on a Dublin street deciding where to eat.
Organic Search
67,046 sessions
Organic · full year 2025 · +32% YoY
New users growth · +25%
72% of all website sessions arrived organically. US visitors grew +54% — the highest per-cover spend demographic. Domain Authority 15 → 44 over the engagement period. Every 1-point DA gain above the competitive set is a structural advantage that compounds monthly without additional spend.
TripAdvisor
+255%
Confirmed bookings YoY
Ad bookings growth · +610%
213 confirmed bookings above prior year. The conversion paradox: impressions fell 39%, bookings rose 255%. A smaller, higher-intent audience converting at a completely different rate. Rank moved from #286 to #186 of 2,878 Dublin restaurants. Profile visitors +114% YoY. Rating held at 4.7★ throughout.
Why Year Two Is Different

The infrastructure
doesn't reset.
It compounds.

Advertising spend stops the moment the invoice stops. What was built here — domain authority, citation network, map pack positions — is permanent. The cost of year two does not restart the clock.

The compounding dynamic
Year one builds the
foundation. Year two
runs on it.

In year one, the retainer paid for the work of building DA 15 → 44, establishing 107 citations, entering 7 Maps Pack positions from zero, and restructuring the GBP profile. Every one of those assets now exists and compounds passively. Year two's retainer pays for maintenance and expansion — on an asset base that already took 12 months and full investment to build. A competitor starting now has a 12-month structural deficit, not a budget deficit.

Year 1
Foundation built from zero. DA 15 → 44. 107 citations. 7 pack positions entered. GBP restructured. All infrastructure costs absorbed.
DA 44 built 107 citations live 7 pack positions
43×
year 1 return
Year 2
Same retainer. No rebuild cost. Infrastructure maintained and expanded. Trust Flow push TF 16 → 30+ targeting generic pack positions. Content velocity added.
DA 44+ maintained TF 16 → 30+ push New pack terms
43×+
floor, likely higher
Year 3
18 months of additional authority compounding on a DA 44+ base. Discovery market share expanding. Non-brand traffic growing from content and TF improvement.
Full pack coverage Discovery organic New site indexed
Growing
no rebuild required
Competitor
Starts now. Faces the same 12-month build. Same DA gap. Same zero pack positions. Same zero citations. Full year one investment with no compounding asset base.
Building DA Building citations No pack presence
12 months
behind
The 43× return is what year one produced on conservative figures. The structural advantage compounds every subsequent year without rebuilding. A competitor who begins the same work today cannot reach DA 44 before late 2027. The pack positions, citations, and authority profile that took 12 months to build cannot be purchased overnight — they are the product of accumulated time and consistent work.
The Methodology

What was claimed.
What could have been
claimed.

Conservative attribution is more credible than optimistic attribution. Here is the specific methodology used — and what the numbers look like at full attribution with actual tracked spend.

Used in this report
The conservative claim.
Attribution rate 50% of cover growth
Spend per cover €50.00 floor
Covers attributed 6,252
Annual investment Fixed monthly retainer
Rationale 50% gives full credit to team, brand, and product
Attributed revenue
~€310,000
43× the annual investment
What the numbers support
The full claim.
Attribution rate 100% of cover growth
Spend per cover €62.99 tracked
Covers attributed 12,503
Annual investment Fixed monthly retainer
Rationale Full attribution — not used, not credible to claim entirely
Full attribution revenue
~€787K
~109× the annual investment — not claimed
The honest position
The conservative figure is used because it is more defensible — not because it is the correct one.
The 43× figure is deliberately low. The actual per-cover spend of €62.99 and the plausible argument for higher than 50% attribution would both push the multiple significantly higher. The conservative case was chosen because it requires no debate. A 43× return needs no qualification. The actual figure is higher — but that is the owner's call to make, not ours to claim.
The Bottom Line

One number.
The one that
matters.

Every figure on this page reduces to a single outcome. Here it is, with full methodology stated.

Revenue return on marketing investment
43×
~€310,000 attributed revenue
Fixed monthly retainer  →  43× revenue return

The methodology: 50% of +12,503 additional covers attributed to digital visibility. €50 conservative floor per cover. Both figures understated. The restaurant's team, product, and brand claimed the other 50%.

Break-even: fewer than one evening's worth of additional covers per month. The venue exceeded that threshold in the first sessions of each month. Every cover beyond that is margin on the engagement cost.

The infrastructure that produced this return — DA 44, 107 citations, 7 pack positions — is permanent. It does not reset at the end of the retainer period. Year two starts from a 43× base.

Get in touch

What would 43×
look like for
your venue?

A 15-minute audit will tell you your current domain authority, citation score, and map pack coverage — and what the realistic return on closing those gaps would be. Whether we work together or not.

15-minute call. ROI estimate included. No commitment.