Freeland Group operates 81 Pizza Hut locations across Illinois, Wisconsin, and Indiana. After nearly three years on the Upside platform, the team has seen the results from sending personalized cash-back promotions in a marketplace that continues to scale. Here, Freeland Group’s Tom Martinez shares how the partnership has played out — and what the results say about staying the course.

Q: What brought Freeland Group to Upside, and what were you hoping to accomplish?

A: “Pizza Hut has strong brand recognition, but that doesn’t automatically translate into visits. We needed a way to reach customers who didn’t have us top-of-mind, people who might choose a competitor simply out of habit. We wanted to change that behavior without discounting our way in.

What stood out about Upside was its approach to profitability. The platform is designed to reach the right customer with the right offer, and at a cost tied to real, incremental results.”

Q: What have the results looked like since you joined the platform?

A: “About half of the customer visits we see through Upside are from new or infrequent guests — people who weren’t already our regulars. That tells us Upside is doing what it’s designed to do: winning trips from customers we wouldn’t have reached otherwise.

We’ve also seen a 1.5x increase in monthly visits from Upside users. People are coming back, and they’re building a habit of choosing us.”

Q: You’ve been on the platform for nearly three years. Have you seen the results change over time?

A: “That’s one of the things that keeps us most confident in this partnership — our results continue to improve. Compared to this time last year, our sales coming from Upside users have nearly doubled.

Part of what drives that is the Upside marketplace itself. As more consumers join the platform, our locations become more visible to a broader, high-intent audience. The longer you’re on Upside, the more you benefit from that growth. This is a partnership that compounds in value.”

Q: What would you say to another restaurant operator considering Upside?

A: “The value of being on this platform increases over time, both because the marketplace keeps growing and because your locations build a track record that Upside’s algorithm can optimize around. You benefit from staying in.

For franchise groups especially, the profit-oriented model matters. Upside’s personalized promotions are designed to be profitable for the retailer, so when we see a transaction come through, we know it was worth it. That kind of confidence is hard to find in most marketing investments.

We came in looking for incremental traffic. What we found was a partner whose goals are tied to ours. That’s rare, and it’s why we’re still here.”