Leading Brands in U.S. Dining & Restaurants: Q1 2024 Analysis

Introduction

As the dining and restaurant industry continues to evolve, leading brands such as McDonald's, Yelp Inc., and Starbucks have maintained their dominance in the U.S. market. This article explores their performance and trends from Q4 2023 to Q1 2024, highlighting the monthly deduplicated audience across their websites and apps. Powered by Sensor Tower's comprehensive data offerings, this analysis provides unparalleled insights into cross-platform user behavior.

McDonald's

McDonald's digital presence is robust, with its websites, happymeal.com and mcdonalds.com, along with the McDonald's app.

• Audience Trends:

  • happymeal.com showed a fluctuating pattern, with visits peaking at around 480K in February 2024.

  • mcdonalds.com experienced a significant increase in March 2024, reaching over 21M visits.

  • The monthly deduplicated audience remained stable, consistently above 40M throughout the quarter.

• App Engagement: The McDonald's app maintained a stable monthly active user base, with users hovering around 20M.

• Ad Spend & Channels: The brand's advertising efforts varied across channels:

  • Monthly ad spend peaked in December 2023 at over $26M, with Facebook and OTT being significant contributors.

  • Impressions were highest in December 2023, exceeding 2.4B.

Yelp Inc.

Yelp's digital ecosystem includes yelp.com and the Yelp: Food, Delivery & Reviews app.

• Audience Trends:

  • yelp.com maintained a strong user base, with visits consistently around 190M in Q1 2024.

  • The monthly deduplicated audience remained steady, averaging above 45M.

• App Engagement: The app saw stable engagement with a monthly active user base around 9M.

• Ad Spend & Channels:

  • Monthly ad spend peaked in January 2024 at approximately $7.5M, primarily through YouTube.

  • Impressions reached a high of over 500M in January 2024.

Starbucks

Starbucks' online presence is marked by starbucks.com and the Starbucks app.

• Audience Trends:

  • starbucks.com experienced a drop in February 2024 but rebounded in March with visits nearing 48M.

  • True monthly audience figures remained stable, averaging around 36M.

• App Engagement: The app's monthly active user base slightly decreased in early 2024 but recovered to over 9M by March.

• Ad Spend & Channels:

  • February 2024 marked the highest monthly ad spend, reaching approximately $25M, with OTT channels leading in impressions.

  • Impressions peaked in February, exceeding 2.2B.

Conclusion

In Q1 2024, McDonald's, Yelp Inc., and Starbucks remained key players in the U.S. dining and restaurant sector. Sensor Tower's data highlights their strategic digital and advertising efforts, underscoring the importance of cross-platform insights. With offerings like Web Insights and Pathmatics, Sensor Tower continues to provide invaluable tools for understanding market dynamics and consumer behavior, offering unique advantages for decision-makers.