As we enter 2026, restaurants are raising prices to offset inflation-driven costs just as diners are spending less. As guests question whether dining out is worth the cost, many are spreading fewer visits across a broader set of dining options, including convenience stores and grocery retailers.
With limited opportunities to earn a visit, brands can’t afford to pull back on initiatives that keep them top of mind, but they also can’t continue investing in broad campaigns that aren’t delivering returns. So how can restaurants ensure their marketing efforts help them remain a go-to choice for diners?
The answer starts with restaurant marketing technology designed to deliver real-time, segment-level insight, beginning with a customer data platform (CDP). CDPs unify guest data across channels and connect it to marketing and commerce systems, providing a clear view of how diners actually behave and where attainable growth still exists.
In a food retail environment where restaurants, c-stores and grocery brands are all competing for the same occasions, this level of connectivity is essential. It enables smarter segmentation, using connected insights to earn attention, influence behavior and grow loyalty in realistic, measurable ways.
Advertisement
3 Segmentation Strategies to Try in 2026
When customer data is connected across channels, segmentation helps you understand how different diners engage and design experiences that give them a reason to return. Instead of relying on static, one-size-fits-all promotions, brands can deliver relevant offers as decisions are being made.
For example, offers can be triggered during active ordering sessions and adjusted based on context such as time of day, channel, location or cart contents, so incentives appear when they’re most likely to influence choice. Relevance shifts from how often you message diners to how well each interaction aligns with their habits and intent.
These three segmentation strategies can help your restaurant earn loyalty in a low-frequency, high-choice dining landscape:
1. Build granular behavior-based segments. Past behavior — ordering history, favorite items and responses to prior offers — is one of the strongest predictors of what will motivate a diner’s next visit. These actions reveal clear preferences and provide a more reliable foundation than broad demographic profiles.
Preference-based segmentation uses past behaviors to align offers with existing habits. A diner who orders the same chicken sandwich combo meal every visit is more likely to respond to a limited-time upgrade or a familiar add-on than a coupon for a brand new salad item.
When loyalty is tied to demonstrated behavior, promotions feel personalized rather than generic. Item-level rewards, targeted recommendations and early access to relevant menu items shorten the path from offer to action and give diners a reason to return without asking them to change their preferences.
2. Use spend-band segmentation strategically.
Not all diners represent the same growth opportunity. When a weekly regular, a promotion-driven diner and a once-a-year high-ticket guest all receive the same offer, it ignores their different motivations and results in incentives that may feel out of touch with their needs.
Spend-band segmentation groups diners by average order value and frequency, helping brands set growth targets that feel achievable. A guest who typically spends $12 on a solo visit is unlikely to respond to an offer that requires a $30 minimum — it feels out of reach. For a family that regularly spends closer to $25, however, that same threshold is more attainable.
This approach allows brands to deploy the same incentive, like a free side or add-on, while adjusting the spend requirement by segment. The reward stays consistent, but the path to earning it feels realistic based on how each group already orders.
In a low-frequency environment, even modest gains like one additional visit per year can deliver meaningful impact when growth targets reflect how diners behave.
3. Anticipate future orders to stay top of mind.
Relevance depends on timing as much as message. Predictive and contextual segmentation uses signals like time of day, ordering channel and location behavior to anticipate when a guest is most likely to make a meal decision.
A diner who regularly orders takeout on Sunday evenings, for example, represents a consistent decision window. Reaching that guest with timely, relevant options and reminders keeps your brand in consideration before dinner plans are set.
This foresight matters as restaurants compete not only with each other but with convenience stores, forecourts and retail food destinations that excel in time-sensitive, convenience-driven occasions. In fact, according to Tillster’s 2025 Phygital Index report, 24% of diners say they’re visiting c-stores or grocery food destinations more often than they did a year ago. Predictive segmentation helps you intervene in the moments that influence choice, rather than trying to be everywhere all at once.
Build Loyalty Through Smarter Execution
As diners eat out less often while weighing more options, relevance matters more than frequency. Growth depends on precision: knowing which guests to target, what incremental value is possible and when engagement is warranted.
Segmentation, supported by connected customer data and the right technology, turns loyalty from broad-stroke guesswork into sustainable value creation. In 2026, your brand’s success depends on earning a place in diners’ routines by showing up with relevance at the right moments.
Hope Neiman is the Chief Marketing Officer of Tillster, a leading global player in the burgeoning restaurant technology space. Neiman and her team drive outcomes by combining data and technology to expand sales and increase consumer engagement in a measurable way. Through her marketing expertise and brand vision, Tillster grew from a kiosk company into a best-in-class, metric rich engagement and ordering solutions provider for multi-unit national and international restaurant brands.
