TikTok Ads success story · Fast food restaurant chain

How Jack in the Box drove 110K incremental store visits with a one-day TikTok campaign.

Name: Overtop Media Digital Marketing
Address: 933 Louise Ave Suite 101-18, Charlotte, NC, 28204, US
Telephone: (704) 237-0707
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Jack in the Box had a new limited-time sandwich and needed people in its markets to hear about it fast. One day of reserved TikTok reach, short creator videos and targeting limited to cities with its restaurants did the job.

Business: Jack in the Box
Market: United States, cities with Jack in the Box restaurants
Goal: Awareness and store visits for a new limited-time sandwich

Crispy fried chicken sandwich with pickles and lettuce next to a basket of fries

The results.

The CPM result is compared with what TikTok calls its benchmark range, which the page does not define. The store visits are described as incremental; TikTok did not publish the comparison behind them.

110Kincremental store visits
63%more efficient CPM than the TikTok benchmark range
+7.3lift in brand favorability (statistically significant)
1 daycampaign length

Reported in a TikTok case study published October 27, 2023. TikTok did not name the method used to count store visits or the study behind the favorability lift, and did not give the campaign date.

The challenge.

Jack in the Box launched the Spicy Cluck Sandwich as a limited-time offer. A limited-time item has a short life, so awareness has to arrive in days, not months, and it has to reach people who live near a restaurant.

The chain does not operate everywhere, so advertising to the whole country would have paid for people with no Jack in the Box nearby.

New limited-time itemA sandwich launch with a short shelf life.
Creator videosAbout 15 seconds, product and brand up front.
One day of reserved reachReach and Frequency in restaurant markets only.
Visits and favorability110K incremental store visits, +7.3 lift.

What they did.

Reach and Frequency · Creator-made native video · DMA location targeting

Reserved reach for one day: The launch ran as a one-day Reach and Frequency campaign, a reserved buy that fixes in advance how many people see the ad and how often.
Creators the brand already knew: Creators who had worked with the brand before shot the videos natively for TikTok, which kept the tone consistent with earlier content.
Built for the feed: The videos broke the fourth wall in the first seconds, showed the sandwich and the brand early, used sound, ran about 15 seconds and ended with a clear call to try it.
Only where the restaurants are: TikTok’s location targeting by Designated Market Area kept the ads in cities with Jack in the Box restaurants.

Why it worked.

Our read on the decisions behind the numbers, and what any business can take from them.

Reach matched the deadline: A limited-time product needs a lot of people to hear about it at once. Reserving the reach for a single day put the message in front of the market all together.
No wasted geography: Limiting the ads to restaurant markets meant every impression went to someone who could actually drive over and buy.
The first second did the work: Breaking the fourth wall and showing the product early held attention long enough for the offer to land, in a feed where people scroll fast.
Judged on visits, not just views: Store visits and a brand favorability lift tied the campaign to business results. TikTok’s measurement solutions include lift studies for this kind of reading.

How we would run this play for your business.

You do not need a national budget to use the same ideas. This is how Overtop Media Digital Marketing puts them to work in our tiktok ads management.

Launch offers on a short clock: For a new menu item, a seasonal special or a grand opening, we concentrate the budget into the days that matter instead of spreading it thin across a month.
Your kitchen, then local creators: We start with your own footage of the food and the people making it. When you need more, we book the best local food creators directly, with no agency markup, and use stock only to fill gaps.
Only the people who can visit: Our TikTok ads management draws the targeting around your locations, from the Charlotte market down to a few zip codes around a single restaurant.
Count the visits: We set up the store visit, call and order tracking your size allows, and back the launch with Meta ads where your regulars already follow you.