How Habit turned value-seekers to incremental sales: Ad campaign 2026
- 2 days ago
- 3 min read
Key Takeaways:
The Gotta Habit Meal Deals' share of total Habit sales in test markets rose 18.6% versus pre-campaign baseline, statistically significant at 99% confidence.
Control markets with no media support showed no comparable lift, pointing to the campaign as a driver of the sales increase.
Meta and Google Performance Max both delivered customer acquisition costs well below benchmark, indicating real customer growth from the plan's core channels.
Habit Burger & Grill reported 7% system sales growth and 5% same-store sales growth in Q1 2026, one of its strongest quarters in recent years.
The Challenge: Balance value with price
In 2026, deal-seeking visits account for close to a third of all restaurant traffic - among the highest rates tracked in decades! Habit Burger & Grill felt that pressure directly. The brand needed a value offer strong enough to compete on price and built to protect the "Fresh Like That" positioning it had just introduced.
Our media team built the ad campaign behind Habit's Q1 2026 Gotta Habit Meal Deals, a tiered $6, $8, and $10 bundle offer that ran across 15 states, spanning established California markets and newer expansion territory. We set out to prove something specific: that an ad campaign could move sales in a five-week window, in a category that was largely stuck.
The Strategy: Measuring for causation
We designed the campaign around a controlled incrementality study, running live inside the media flight itself. Sales performance in five key test markets running Gotta Habit Meal Deals was measured against comparable regions receiving no media support at all.
That structure let us attribute any lift directly to the campaign. A full-funnel channel mix, balancing upper-funnel reach with lower-funnel conversion, supported the test while keeping the plan focused on long-term brand health and short-term sales simultaneously.
The Results: Ad campaign proves its own value
In just 5 weeks, the Gotta Habit Meal Deal's share of total Habit sales in test markets rose 18.6% above pre-campaign baseline, at 99% statistical significance. Meanwhile:
Control markets with no media investment showed no comparable trend, which points to the campaign itself as a driver of that lift.
Efficiency held up alongside the top-line number. Meta drove customer acquisition at a cost 77% below benchmark in California, while Google PMAX delivered a cost-per-click 65% below benchmark. Both signal real downstream customer growth from the plan's core channels.
Our creative testing surfaced a genuine surprise: Music enthusiasts, an audience outside Habit's traditional fast-casual targeting, posted the strongest view-through rate of any segment tested, 8% above benchmark. That finding is now shaping how we think about audience expansion for Habit beyond the category's usual playbook.
And the impact extended past the test markets:
Habit's parent company, Yum! Brands, reported that the Habit division grew system sales 7% and same-store sales 5% in Q1 2026, one of the brand's strongest quarters in years!
Why it matters
Most fast casual brands running a deal can point to redemption counts or a short-term traffic bump. Fewer can show what an ad campaign actually contributed versus what would have happened anyway. Building a controlled test into a live, full-funnel ad campaign gave Habit a repeatable framework for evaluating future value plays against real, measured lift.
About the Director
Named Ad Age Media Planner of the Year in 2023, Georgia Schreiner brings 15 years of experience in marketing & advertising to her role as Media Director at Exverus by Brainlabs. She began her career at Havas Media Group in Chicago before relocating to Colorado and rising through the ranks of automotive marketing. In addition to her Advertising degree from University of Illinois, Georgia holds certifications from The Trade Desk Edge Academy, Google Ads Search, Meta Media Professionals, Amazon Sponsored Ads, and Insperity Leadership Training.
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