How to Use a Happy Hour Promotion on DoorDash

8 min read

What types of DoorDash Promotions are available?

DoorDash Promotions come in three categories:

  • Menu-wide promotions (entire menu)

  • Item-specific promotions (selected items)

  • Time-based promotions (specific hours)

Happy hour discounts can either be menu-wide, or item-specific.

Examples of menu-wide promotions

  • First Order, $0 Delivery Fee

  • Pay Customer's Delivery Fee

  • Discount for New Customers

  • Discount Promotion

  • Discount for Lapsed Customers

  • Free or Discounted Items

  • Happy Hour

  • Lunch Specials

Examples of item-specific promotions

  • Buy One Get One (BOGO)

  • Happy Hour

  • Lunch Specials

What do I need to set up a campaign?

When creating a campaign, you'll need to add specific details, including:

Target Audience

What type of customer you want to reach.

  • Smart targeting: Only target the most valuable customers for your business

  • All Customers: All DoorDash customers within your delivery radius

  • New Customers: Only customers who have never ordered from you

  • Existing Customers: Bought from your business within the last six months

  • Lapsed Customers: Haven't bought from your business within the last six months or longer

Campaign Length

This is the length of time you wish for your campaign to run. If you select “Keep it going”, your campaign will run until you pause or cancel it. By letting it run, you can choose to extend the campaign if you see it’s successful. If you “Choose End Date”, your campaign will end the day you set. We recommend running campaigns for at least 30 days.

Average Weekly Budget

This is the amount you’re comfortable spending, on average, for orders each day across all the stores selected in the campaign. You’ll only pay for orders placed within 7 days of clicking your ad and making a purchase.

You can either set “No cap on average weekly budget”, which allows every eligible customer to redeem the promotion, or can “Set your average weekly budget” to limit the number of customers who can redeem the promotion based on average budget.

Customer Incentive

Depending on the type of campaign (dollar or percent amount off, free delivery), you will get to choose either the percentage or dollar amount discount, along with the minimum subtotal, and max discount amount for the campaign.

Item-specific options

Choose whether you want your promotion to include your entire menu or specific items.

For Happy Hour and Lunch Special promotions, your top 10 items will automatically be selected, but you can remove these items and/or select other items for the promotion. Make sure to pick which menu items you’d like featured in the campaign.

How much do DoorDash Promotions cost?

You're only charged for a promotion when it leads to an order, not for views or clicks.

  1. Cost includes the customer discount (% or $ off) or delivery fee ($4.99) plus the DoorDash Marketing Fee

  2. You can cap or uncapped budgets during setup

How do I set up a campaign?

To set up a campaign:

  1. Log in to the Merchant Portal

  2. Click on the Marketing tab

  3. Tap Run a Campaign

How do I manage and review campaigns?

All campaigns can be reviewed and managed in the Merchant Portal.

  • Go to Merchant Portal and click on Marketing, then select Campaign Reporting

  • Review performance metrics

  • Pause, edit, or end campaigns as needed