What are Sponsored Listings?
Sponsored Listings are paid, labeled placements that give your restaurant premium visibility in ezCater Marketplace search. You only pay when a shopper clicks your ad and places an order within 28 days, making this a performance‑based way to grow catering sales.
Overview
Sponsored Listings help you:
Show up in prime slots in Marketplace search results
Reach high‑intent business buyers when they are actively picking a caterer
Pay on a pay‑per‑order basis, not per impression or click
Key mechanics:
Your listing can appear in clearly labeled “Sponsored” positions across search
If a customer clicks your Sponsored Listing and places an order within 28 days, that order is attributed to the campaign
A Sponsored Listings fee is then applied to that order and withheld from your payout
Eligibility
Sponsored Listings are currently available only in specific states including:
AZ, CO, DC, KS, MD, NM, OK, TX, VA, WV
If you do not see Sponsored Listings in your Marketing tab, your state or brand may not be eligible yet. Contact Partner Success with questions about availability.
Getting started with Sponsored Listings
Creating a new campaign
Login to the Partner Portal (web)
Navigate to Marketing → Sponsored Listings
Click New campaign
Follow the steps below for campaign creation
Choose locations
Set the locations that will be participating in your ad campaign
Choose target audience
Here you can select from three different customer targets:
new - never placed an order at this location
existing - placed an order at this location in the last 90 days
lapsed - placed an order at this location more than 90 days in past
Set your budget
Select a dollar amount to spend per week while your campaign is active:
$250 per week (recommended)
$500 per week
Custom
Choose the duration of your campaign, either:
Defined start and end date
Run the campaign indefinitely, until you choose to pause
Choose your spending strategy
Automatic (recommended)
Optimize bids based on budget, market and campaign duration
Manual
Set the maximum amount you'd like to spend per order
Review and set live
Confirm that your campaigns information is correct
Click Submit when you're ready to set your campaign live
Once live, your listing will begin participating in the Sponsored Listings auction for relevant Marketplace searches in your area.
Adjusting and editing campaigns
At any time, you can:
Edit budgets to increase or decrease your spend
Pause or stop a campaign if you want to temporarily pull back
Resume campaigns that were previously paused
To adjust your campaign:
Navigate to the "Campaigns" table from the Sponsored Listings menu
Find the campaign that you'd like to adjust
Click the menu button under the Actions column to:
Edit campaign
Pause campaign
Resume campaign
Tracking performance and creating reports
View your campaign performance
Navigate to Marketing → Sponsored Listings
Here you'll see:
Drop-down menus:
View a specific campaign of all campaigns
Choose to view Last 7 days, Last 30 days or choose a Custom date range
Performance reporting showing "Sales from ads"
Graph shows Sales and Menu Views over time
Amount spent on ads
Conversion rate
Return on ad spend (ROAS)
Customer breakdown (new, existing, lapsed)
Campaign breakdown
Campaign status
Target audience
Budget
Views/clicks
Conversion rate
Ad spend
Ad sales
Number of orders
ROAS
Actions
edit, pause or resume a campaign
Creating a performance report
Sponsored Listings Campaign Performance Report
From the Partner Portal, navigate to Marketing → Sponsored Listings
Click "Download CSV" to export all of your campaign data from the selected date range
Download a sample performance report here
Attributed orders report
From your Partner Portal, navigate to Marketing → Sponsored Listings
In the Campaign Breakdown table:
Find a specific campaign and go to the "Orders" column
Click the number under this column to open the attributed orders report
This report shows the following for the selected date range:
Total ad spend
Average cost per order
# of orders from ads
Sales from ads
Order table showing order data, customer status, store and order total
Actions available:
Use the drop-down menus to update date range and store selection
Click "Download" to export the attributed order report to a spreadsheet
Click "view payout details" to view the corresponding payment for the orders shown
Use reporting for:
Sharing performance with finance, franchisees, or internal stakeholders
Analyzing campaigns across multiple locations
Comparing Sponsored Listings results against your overall ezCater performance
Payment and reconciliation
Sponsored Listings fees are withheld from payouts for orders attributed to your campaigns.
How charges work
Pay per order, not per click
You're only charged if a customer clicks your listing and places an order within 28 days
Charges are assessed on order submission
The chargeable event is when the customer places the order (submission date), not when it's fulfilled
Timing of deduction
Charges are deducted from the first withholding after the order is placed
Charges may appear in a different payout period than the fulfillment date
Default payment method is withholding
Fees are deducted from your ezCater payout, similar to a commission
Cancellations and rejections
Because charges occur at submission after an ad click, cancellations, rejections or reschedules do not reverse the fee
Where to see Sponsored Listings charges
Financials tab
From the Partner Portal, navigate to the Financials tab and select a payment
Scroll down to the order list
Click "Marketing activity" to view Sponsored Listings spends in this billing cycle
Here you'll see:
Campaign name
Store name
# of orders
Average cost per order
Total charges
Payment order report
Create a payment order report
Open the second tab labeled "Ad Spend Data"
This shows you:
Order and campaign information
number of orders for each charge
Charge cost
Download sample "Ad Spend Data" here
Attributed orders reporting
When viewing a campaign, navigate to the Campaign Breakdown table
Find a specific campaign and go to the "Orders" column
Click the number under this column to open the attributed orders report
Here you can see a list of all orders from the campaign in the selected date range showing:
Total ad spend
Average cost per order
Total sales from this ad
Breakdown of each order including:
submission/event date
order status
customer type
order total
Click "Download" to export the attributed orders data to a spreadsheet for reporting and analysis
Marketing Activity
Navigate to Marketing → Activity to see all of your spends in chronological order
Taxes on Sponsored Listings
In certain jurisdictions, a "data processing" tax applies to Sponsored Listings fees. Where applicable, this will show in your payment breakdown and order reports; ezCater collects and remits this tax.
For any questions please reach out to our Tax Team
Reconciliation best practices
For reconciling your Sponsored Listings spend, we recommend the following steps each payout cycle:
Navigate to the Financials tab in your Partner Portal and select the payout you're reconciling
Create a payment order report and view the second tab labeled "Ad Spend Data"
Cross-reference with your Sponsored Listings Performance Report
If a charge doesn't align with the orders in this payout, check the next/previous payout's orders
Confirm that any applicable tax on Sponsored Listings is included as shown in the payment breakdown and payment order report
For any questions or clarification needed, reach out to Partner Success