In an environment of rising costs and tight margins, every investment has to work harder. Traditional restaurant marketing — ads, loyalty programs, and promotions — often produces uncertain returns. You can see the spend, but not always the incremental profit. 

Upside is different. It’s a performance-based investment that proves its value with every visit.

Upside’s pay-for-performance model

Upside only earns when you do. Restaurants pay a share of incremental profit, not for clicks or impressions. If your partnership with Upside doesn’t generate new, profitable transactions, you don’t pay a cent. That means marketing investments and business outcomes are finally aligned. 

This model gives brands a cost-efficient growth lever that ties directly to traffic and revenue goals. For a brand like Outback Steakhouse, where leadership is focused on simplifying the business and prioritizing everyday value positioning, Upside is a natural fit. It removes guesswork, minimizes waste, and guarantees results.

Measuring incrementality with finance-grade rigor

Upside’s test-vs-control methodology identifies which visits were truly incremental and which would have occurred without Upside. Our data quantifies lift in:

• Guest visits
• Spend per check 
• ROI by user segment 

Each metric is backed by confidence intervals that meet finance-team expectations, so brands can make investment decisions with clarity and trust.

Upside’s dashboards show, at a glance, how performance translates into real business outcomes. You can see:

• Incremental guest counts, frequency, and spend
• Profit flow-through across stores
• ROI broken down to the store, region, or brand level

How it worked for The Rose Group

When Applebee’s franchisee The Rose Group partnered with Upside across its Applebee’s locations, they saw:

• +127% increase in average monthly transaction count
• +5% increase in average transaction size

A MarketDial analysis independently validated those results, adding credibility for finance-driven restaurant leaders looking for proof, not promises.

As The Rose Group CFO Chris Tobia said, “Coming into this analysis, we wanted to see that Upside meaningfully boosted trip frequency and resulted in profitable transactions every time. The test proved both to be true.”

“That gave us a lot of confidence in our partnership. We’re excited to work with Upside to continue growing our business.”

The payoff

For restaurant brands focused on positive same-store traffic, higher guest satisfaction, and intent to return, Upside delivers measurable progress on every front.

Upside drives:

• Incremental visits from new and lapsed diners
• Increased frequency among existing guests
• Verified ROI to satisfy both brands and portfolio groups

See how Upside can deliver measurable, validated performance for Outback

Upside profitably changes customer behavior, and independent, statistically rigorous evaluations repeatedly confirm that impact. For Outback, this means measurable improvements in sales, visit frequency, and intent to return — all validated through test-vs-control analysis. 

Get in touch with our team to learn more about how Upside can support Outback’s goals for sustainable, profitable growth.