Taco Bell’s Customer Acquisition Tactics
Over the past couple years, Taco Bell has aggressively invested in their digital presence. In 2020, the brand launched its new “Taco Bell Rewards” loyalty program promising “all the perks” and allowing users to earn 250 points for every $25 spent in their app. In 2021, Taco Bell made additional upgrades to the application, expanding its program and enticing new users through giveaways. Most recently, Taco Bell launched its “Taco Lover’s Pass” in early 2022. This subscription service was available nationwide, and allowed customers to get one taco a day for 30 days from Taco Bell’s “secret menu” for only $10 (plus tax).
Due to the highly competitive nature of the third-party delivery platform space, merchants like Taco Bell often bet on discounts or offers to be the deciding factor for consumers. As QSR brands evolve their advertising, their adoption of discounts and promotions continue to grow. From December of 2021 to March of 2022, the number of unique merchants using discounts increased by 30%, and the number of unique discounts offered grew by 34%.
Merchants Offering Discounts
United States, DoorDash, May 2021 - March 2022
While it’s interesting to see the increased activity in offers, are these tactics really increasing customer acquisition? In addition to first-party loyalty and subscription programs, Taco Bell continues to experiment with item-specific and order total discounts on DoorDash. In the second half of 2021, Taco Bell's top offers by total discount penetration included BOGO offers such as “Buy one Cheesy Gordita Crunch and get one free on orders of $15 or more” and $5 off offers such as “Get $5 off on orders $20 or more at Taco Bell”.
Taco Bell running promotions on 1P and 3P concurrently
YipitData tracked the impact of Taco Bell's promotion across a variety of KPIs during the timeframe of the promotion. While these promotions were running, Taco Bell saw increased gordita purchases and an overall increase in basket size. Additionally, Taco Bell’s total third-party orders increased over 5% between Q3 and Q4 of 2021. Taco Bell was also able to acquire and retain more customers as third-party customers tend to be incremental to the direct channel.
By using an omnichannel strategy, Taco Bell developed a highly effective customer acquisition method to both draw customers into their rewards program and attract new customers on third-party platforms.
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