San Diego Restaurant Week: 153,800 ad interactions at $0.06 each.
How Black X Marketing used Google Search and Performance Max to grow active users 30.8% year over year and send hungry diners straight to participating restaurants.
Active users, up 30.8% YoY
Google Ads impressions
Paid search sessions, up 99.6% YoY
Average cost per interaction
The brief
| Client | San Diego Restaurant Week |
| Location | San Diego, CA · plus cross-border reach into Mexico |
| Campaign window | Jun 1 – Sep 20, 2026 (16 weeks) |
| Budget | $8,725.49 Google Ads spend |
| Goals | Grow event traffic · Send diners to participating restaurants |
| Channels | Google Search · Google Performance Max |
Grow traffic while organic shrank.
San Diego Restaurant Week depends on getting diners to browse participating restaurants and book a table. In 2026, organic search traffic to the event site fell 15% year over year and email traffic dropped sharply.
Paid search had to make up that gap, and the traffic needed to land on restaurant listings, not just the homepage.
Catch diners when they are ready to eat.
Search campaigns captured people actively looking for restaurant deals and things to do in San Diego. Performance Max pushed visual restaurant listings across Google’s network to build discovery. Geotargeting extended reach across the border into Mexico.
$4,973.68 · 2 campaigns
An event-focused Search campaign capturing high-intent Restaurant Week searches, and a web-traffic Search campaign for broader dining and summer-event searches.
$3,751.81 · 1 campaign
A feed-driven Performance Max campaign showing restaurant listings across Search, Display, YouTube and Discover. It drove 116,873 interactions at an 11.07% interaction rate.
Spend by campaign
Paid search became the #1 traffic source.
Google paid search drove 82,000 sessions, up 99.6% year over year and more than double any other channel. Total active users grew 30.8% even as organic search declined, and session starts rose 124.8% over the 16-week period.
Views of the restaurant directory, up 41.1% YoY
Views of individual restaurant listings, up 128.2% YoY
Active users from Mexico after geotargeted expansion
New users, up 33.6% YoY
Total page views, up 12% YoY
Interaction rate on Performance Max
Campaign figures come from Google Ads for June 1 to September 20, 2026. Website traffic and year-over-year changes come from Google Analytics 4, compared with the same period in 2025.
Lessons from the campaign
- Search is where diners decide. High-intent restaurant searches converted into site visits at a fraction of a dollar each, and paid search out-delivered every other channel.
- Send traffic to the listings, not just the homepage. Routing visitors into the directory and individual restaurant pages gave participating venues direct exposure.
- Don’t lean on organic and email alone. With both down year over year, paid search kept the event growing.
Let’s forecast your event traffic.
We plan and run search and Performance Max campaigns that put your event in front of people ready to act.