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Case study · Franchisee recruitment

The franchisee applicant budgeted at €33 comes in at €8

A Spanish bakery franchise chain with more than 200 outlets hands us its digital growth: bringing in serious candidates to open a store, and giving the whole network a backbone for pricing, training, and support.

8 €
real cost per franchisee applicant, versus the €33 forecast in the plan
613
franchisee applications received in the documented series
238
network stores connected to the intranet we built
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01 · The starting point

A network growing faster than its tools

The chain opens dozens of stores a year, and every opening starts the same way: finding the person willing to set it up. The sector's usual channels, franchise portals and trade fairs, bring in applications at a cost the campaign plan itself pegs at €33 per contact.

Meanwhile, headquarters handles each store by email: regional pricing, recipes, equipment manuals, notices. And dozens of franchisees open their own Facebook pages, each with its own photos, tone, and spelling.

Where things stood
  • Applications forecast at €33 per contact in the campaign plan
  • Pricing, recipes, and manuals traveling by email to each store
  • 36 Facebook pages opened by franchisees, outside brand control
  • Paid franchise portals as the main recruitment channel
02 · The strategy

Buy the exact intent and put the house in order

01 Bid on people who already want to open a bakery The campaign concentrates the budget on the searches of people already picturing the business: the "open a bakery" and "start a bakery" ad groups convert up to 35% of their clicks into applications.
02 An intranet as the network's backbone Regional pricing, recipe book, equipment manuals, an online training school, and technical support, in a single login per store. 238 outlets connected to the same source.
03 One brand voice on social media A census of the 36 pages opened by franchisees and a protocol agreed with headquarters to consolidate them into the official page, with material ready so every store gets featured on it.
03 · The numbers

The campaign, month by month

The full series from launch, weak month included. Each application is a completed franchise-request form.

  • 613 franchisee applications in the documented series
  • 183 applications in the first full month, versus the 50 the plan forecast
  • Cost per applicant between €7.77 and €13.97 depending on the month, against the €33 budgeted
MonthApplicationsConversion rateCost per applicant
Month 1 (launch)667.43%€7.78
Month 21845.84%€7.77
Month 31785.71%€8.41
Month 41023.75%€13.97
Month 5 (half-month)835.49%€9.46

Applications and costs from the advertising platform · monthly project reports

04 · What the reports don't show

The bad month gets shown too

The comfortable number would be to keep only the months at €7.77. The full series includes a month where the cost per applicant nearly doubled on the same spend: people looking to start a business also go on vacation, and that seasonality goes into the report in the same detail as the records.

The monthly report also leaves a warning in writing: the campaigns lose 30% of their impressions because the daily budget runs out. With the cost per applicant in front of you, deciding whether to scale stops being a matter of opinion and becomes a table.

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