Pubbelly needed a smarter way to grow DoorDash orders across seven South Florida locations. With promotions often unchanged for months and results hard to evaluate, the team used Smart Campaigns to automate and optimize promotions — increasing DoorDash orders within two weeks.
Managing promotions across multiple locations
Pubbelly is a Miami-based restaurant group known for combining Japanese cuisine with Latin-inspired flavors across seven South Florida locations. Recognized by The Infatuation for Miami takeout and delivery and by Eater as one of Miami’s essential sushi restaurants, Pubbelly had built a strong local following. But as delivery demand grew, Operations Manager Miriam Sanchez needed a more efficient way to manage promotions and grow DoorDash orders across restaurants.
Before Smart Campaigns, Pubbelly relied heavily on manually managed promotions, especially Buy 1, Get 1 (BOGO) campaigns. While promotions helped drive orders, it wasn't always clear which offers, items, or discount levels worked best — or when campaigns needed to be refreshed.
As a result, Pubbelly often defaulted to familiar promotions that were easy to run, even if they weren't always the best fit for customer preferences or business goals. Some campaigns stayed live for months at a time while Sanchez balanced marketing needs with day-to-day restaurant operations.
We used to default to BOGOs — choosing a few items and letting them run — but we didn't always have the time to evaluate performance, test different promotions, or adjust campaigns based on what was best for the business.
Using Smart Campaigns to automate and optimize promotions
Smart Campaigns helped Pubbelly move from manually managed BOGO promotions to an automated, flexible strategy that used AI, DoorDash insights, and Pubbelly's own business data to optimize performance.
Instead of showing the same BOGO items to every customer, Smart Campaigns customized promotions based on guest preferences and ordering behavior, helping Pubbelly move beyond a one-size-fits-all approach and increase promo effectiveness.
Sanchez had some initial hesitation about letting automation play a bigger role. But once the team let Smart Campaigns run, the value became clear: Pubbelly could reach customers who might not have ordered otherwise, win over new and inactive guests, and keep existing customers coming back — helping grow its repeat orders and overall DoorDash business.
When we started using Smart Campaigns, I thought, 'wow, this is amazing.' I don't need to spend as much time changing campaigns anymore.
The team also maintained control over key business decisions, including which menu items to use for its BOGO promotions, while Smart Campaigns customized BOGO offers based on what customers were more likely to order — instead of serving the same items to everyone.
For an operations team managing seven locations, that "set it and forget it" simplicity mattered. Sanchez could set up a campaign once, let it keep learning, and spend less time reviewing data or manually updating promotions.
Once we let Smart Campaigns run the BOGOs, they performed better than when we were managing them manually. It adapts based on what guests respond to and what works best for Pubbelly — and I can set it one time and focus on operations.
Increasing DoorDash orders and repeat customers
At select locations that had previously seen declining sales, Pubbelly began seeing results quickly after launching Smart Campaigns. Within two weeks, the team noticed more DoorDash orders coming in, including at newer locations focused on building awareness and momentum.
Within two weeks, we started getting more orders from DoorDash because of Smart Campaigns.
Results at a glance
In the first nine months using Smart Campaigns, Pubbelly generated more than $330K in sales and 4.5K+ customer orders, driving over $4 in sales for every $1 spent.
After launching the latest version of Smart Campaigns with BOGO promotions, Pubbelly saw even stronger performance, including 24%+ net sales growth at stores that had previously seen declining sales.
24%+
net sales growth at select locations
15%
increase in inactive customers re-engaged
6%
increase in new customers
For Pubbelly, the results showed that Smart Campaigns could do more than increase orders. The team was able to win over new and inactive customers, drive repeat orders, and grow DoorDash orders relative to other delivery platforms — leading Pubbelly to shift more promotional investment toward DoorDash.
Before Smart Campaigns, most of our delivery orders came through other platforms. Now, we're receiving more orders through DoorDash.
A more efficient approach to growth
Today, Smart Campaigns gives Pubbelly a more confident way to run promotions on DoorDash. Sanchez spends less time updating campaigns or wondering what’s working, and more time focused on restaurant operations while Smart Campaigns adapts in the background.
For businesses considering automated marketing tools, Sanchez's advice is simple: just try it.
Sometimes it's hard to try new things with AI because people don't know if it's going to work. But honestly, just try it. Smart Campaigns made things easier for us, and we saw results pretty quickly.
Methodology
*Sales, orders, and ROAS reflect aggregate campaign-attributed performance across all Pubbelly Sushi locations over a nine-month period. Net sales growth, new customer acquisition, and customer re-engagement metrics compare performance before and after select locations adopted the latest version of Smart Campaigns.
