Turning digital visibility into real-world orders
Tropical Smoothie Cafe is a 1,600-plus location franchise brand focused on expanding digital ordering as a key driver of off-premise growth. As part of that effort, the brand leaned on delivery through DoorDash as an increasingly important channel for their craveable smoothies and bold, better-for-you food options, especially during slower seasonal periods where customers wanted the tropical vibe without venturing outside.
On DoorDash, Sponsored Listings also provided individual stores with a way to capitalize on high-intent ordering moments. Early campaigns delivered results - customers were searching, and participating stores were showing up - but there was still an opportunity to bring more franchisees into the fold.
"DoorDash is definitely considered a growth lever for us. It's become an important part of how we think about driving digital sales across the system." – Brooke Gordon, Field Marketing and Off-Premise Sales at Tropical Smoothie Cafe
The buy-in barrier
Before adopting a streamlined solution, participation in corporate-recommended Sponsored Listings relied on manual outreach and form-based enrollment. This process created friction and slowed interest; only 2% of eligible stores opted in, limiting reach and reducing overall impact.
It's not that franchisees were opposed to participating. They just needed an easy way to enroll and transparent access to performance data that could give them a deeper understanding of the ingredients required for success.
"Profitability is always top of mind for our franchisees. When we bring them opportunities, we have to back it up with analytics and a strong business case." – Brooke Gordon, Field Marketing and Off-Premise Sales at Tropical Smoothie Cafe
Making things easy for franchisees
To unlock this broader participation, Tropical Smoothie Cafe activated DoorDash Franchise Opt-In Campaigns for Sponsored Listings. Instead of managing campaign recommendations and participant tracking through spreadsheets and email chains, corporate teams could directly use DoorDash Ads Manager to manage communication through each step in the process - enabling a smoother, more efficient collaboration between corporate and franchisees. Clear and consistent messaging from the Leadership Team — echoed across departments — ensured everyone was aligned and gave franchisees the confidence to participate in the campaign.
And the opt-in process became far more intuitive. Stores could see opportunities directly in-platform and join with a single click, while in-platform alerts, email, and push notifications worked in tandem to keep franchisees informed about upcoming campaigns and how to enroll.
"DoorDash made the opt-in process easy. Once franchisees saw how simple it was to participate and how clearly they could track performance, it made a big difference." – Brooke Gordon, Field Marketing and Off-Premise Sales at Tropical Smoothie Cafe
Blending up strong performance
Participation quickly climbed from 2% to 44%, expanding reach across more than 689 locations. This enthusiasm translated into measurable impact: +31% weekly sales lift and an average of $575 in incremental revenue per participating store each week*.
As participation expanded, Franchise Opt-In became a force multiplier. Greater participation across franchise locations drove stronger overall campaign performance, which in turn amplified franchise buy-in and results at the store level - creating shared upside for both corporate and franchisees.
Tropical Smoothie Cafe results* at a glance:
44%
Franchise Opt-In Rate
+31%
Weekly Sales Lift*
6.5X
Return On Ad Spend**
What began as an effort to simplify enrollment has become a repeatable strategy for scaling growth across the franchise system. Building on that momentum, DoorDash Ads continues to support the brand's digital growth ambitions - proving that when franchise collaboration is simple, it creates a seamless path from top-level to bottom-line results.
"We want this to be evergreen - it's not just about one campaign, but building something sustainable that supports long-term growth." – Brooke Gordon, Field Marketing and Off-Premise Sales at Tropical Smoothie Cafe
*Results from 8 week period of DoorDash marketplace sales data during eight week campaign period between Nov 28, 2025 and Jan 8, 2026, compared to preceding 8 weeks. Data from 526 stores (76% of the 689 opted-in stores) where treatment and control groups of stores were selected from a matched subset of stores based on similarity in pre-campaign average sales, ad impressions, promo orders, and sales growth and relies on model assumptions (including parallel trends), so results may not reflect total cafe performance, net profitability, or outcomes across all locations or timeframes. Results are not necessarily representative of typical performance and may vary materially by location, market conditions, and operational execution.
**ROAS refers to total DD marketplace sales attributed to the ad campaign / Total merchant campaign spend (over the 8 week period) for the full 689 stores that participated in the campaign. Results are not necessarily representative of typical performance and may vary materially by location, market conditions, and operational execution.
