Shawarmer x Creativity And Planning

The objective

Enhancing brand visibility and performance with creative and targeted campaigns

Shawarmer, a fast-growing fast food chain in Saudi Arabia, launched a full-funnel TikTok campaign to reduce customer acquisition costs, strengthen brand awareness, and drive app sales as part of its shift from out-of-home (OOH) advertising to a digital-first strategy.

Founded in 1999, Shawarmer has redefined the classic shawarma with bold flavors and modern twists while staying true to its cultural roots. With over 150 locations, it continues to innovate, adapting to evolving tastes while preserving the essence of this beloved street food.

On TikTok, @shawarmersa shares vibrant, fast-paced content that highlights visually satisfying food prep, creative transitions, and engaging sound effects. The brand weaves humor into its content, strengthening customer relationships and building brand love.

The main objective of the campaign was to boost app sales. By building on their existing brand, increasing awareness, and reducing customer acquisition costs - Shawarmer shifted their marketing strategy from predominantly traditional media (OOH campaigns), to digital campaigns that could directly drive traffic to their app.

To meet their goals, the restaurant brand worked with an agency, Creativity and Planning, to leverage a range of TikTok advertising features in a full-funnel approach, targeting a wide audience across all of Saudi Arabia.

The solution

Maximizing Reach and Conversions with Data-Driven Advertising on TikTok

Working with Creativity And Planning, Shawarmer launched a full-funnel campaign utilizing a range of TikTok advertising features, including In-App Promotion, Spark Ads, In-Feed Ads, and App Installs.

Each of these tools played a distinct role in achieving Shawarmer’s goals - boosting app installs and transactions through targeted promotions, improving conversion rates with precise audience retargeting, and driving engagement with culturally relevant, interactive video content.

By retargeting with custom audiences, Shawarmer leveraged TikTok’s audience tools to re-engage past app users and website visitors, increasing conversion rates and reducing acquisition costs.

They also utilized peak-time bidding and 'hunger moments' targeting, ensuring ads appeared during key meal hours when customers were most likely to convert.

Lastly, by building up conversion data over time, machine learning helped refine targeting, improving ROAS and directing ad spend toward high-intent users.

The results

Exceeding multiple objectives with a full-funnel advertising strategy

Shawarmer’s full-funnel approach successfully exceeded multiple objectives - boosting sales, reducing acquisition costs, and strengthening brand awareness and online engagement.

The campaign delivered a 17x increase in ROAS, 40k app installs, and a 27.5% increase in app sales. Additionally, sales grew by 31.85% during the campaign period, reaching 28m unique users (securing an 87% Share of Voice in KSA), while paid media users purchased an average of 2.26 times per month.

Together with Creativity And Planning, Shawarmer not only surpassed its goals but also paved the way for larger business growth. The campaign reinforced Shawarmer’s position as the go-to shawarma brand in KSA, particularly among younger consumers, while increasing digital engagement, online sales, and TikTok-driven brand visibility.

Operationally, the surge in demand from TikTok ads helped scale operations and expand delivery capabilities. The Shawarmer app ranked among the top 10 food & beverage apps four to five times within the year, showcasing sustained digital presence and app adoption. Additionally, Shawarmer was recognized as one of the top 10 destinations for consumer spending in the F&B sector, reflecting its growing consumer trust and engagement.

This campaign demonstrated that TikTok’s full-funnel approach can drive both awareness and conversions when paired with smart targeting and performance-based bidding. Engaging, culturally relevant content outperformed traditional ads, while always-on engagement and peak-time optimization helped sustain customer interest and boost sales. Leveraging first-party data for retargeting proved to be one of the most effective strategies for maximizing conversions.