Digital Marketing Remains a Key Focus for Restaurants in 2025

Digital marketing positions itself as the primary technology focus for restaurants for the second consecutive year based on the 2025 Restaurant Technology Outlook Report from Restaurant Business and Nation’s Restaurant News. A total of 550 restaurant operators from various segments reported in the survey that 46% plan to allocate their technology funds towards digital marketing tools during the current year.

Digital ordering platforms (38%) lead after POS systems (40%) among the main technology interests followed by back-of-house technologies (34%). The continuing emphasis on attracting more customers through increased foot traffic demonstrates that 46% of this survey group kept their focus the same as last year.

Fast-casual restaurants lead the way in their interest towards digital marketing since they identify this area as their primary tech necessity at a rate of 60%. Both the casual-dining segment and QSR segment followed at 52% and 44% respectively. The efforts to boost repeat drop-ins use digital campaigns together with loyalty programs because of persistent traffic difficulties.

Only 64% of operators remain content with their present marketing instruments. Thirty-six percent of operators exhibited no satisfaction with their current digital marketing systems while thirty-seven percent held a similar opinion about their loyalty programs. A larger number of operators maintained satisfaction with their POS systems (78%) and kitchen display systems (78%) compared to other tools.

The level of dissatisfaction among operators appears to decrease their trust in customer data usage. Thirty-one percent of respondents showed they are likely to utilize their data inefficiently—the response rate has increased since last year when twenty-four percent of people admitted the same issue. The percentage of respondents who demonstrated confidence in maximizing the data potential decreased from 36% in the previous year to just 36% in the present study.

Despite these concerns, restaurant operators still show strong interest in tech investment overall. About thirty-four percent of respondents confirmed they will undoubtedly invest in new technologies during 2025 while another twenty-nine percent indicated potential investment in the same period. The study revealed that most business operators had a positive outlook towards technology investment as they would either likely or definitely make investment decisions.