For years, restaurant marketing strategies have focused heavily on loyalty program members—and for good reason. Loyalty programs make it easy to capture rich data, track performance, and personalize outreach. But what about everyone else?
In today’s digital-first dining landscape, loyalty members are only part of the picture. Most guests interact with your brand through online ordering, app browsing, or curbside pickup—without ever joining your loyalty program. And until recently, those interactions were largely invisible.
That’s where Guest Segmentation from PAR Engagement changes the game.
The Problem: A Limited View of Your Guest Base
Most segmentation strategies today are built around loyalty engagement. But focusing only on loyalty members leaves a significant gap in understanding and targeting the broader guest population.
Without the ability to identify or segment guests who haven’t yet joined your program, you risk:
- Missing behavioral patterns that signal high-value customers
- Overlooking repeat orders from unidentified guests
- Losing opportunities to personalize messaging and drive conversion
- Underestimating campaign ROI because you’re only measuring a fraction of your audience
The Solution: Guest Segmentation Built for the Full Guest Journey
In July 2025, Punchh introduced enhanced Guest Segmentation capabilities that capture and build guest profiles from digital ordering behavior—even when a guest hasn’t enrolled in your loyalty program.
With ordering data from platforms like PAR Ordering and Olo, every guest interaction becomes an opportunity to understand, segment, and engage—regardless of loyalty status.
You can now:
- Automatically create guest profiles from digital ordering
- Segment based on visit frequency, location, and recency
- Track guest behavior over time—before and after joining loyalty
- Communicate with guests who’ve opted into marketing
- Export segments to use in external channels like Google and Meta
Segments You Can Build Today
With these expanded capabilities, marketers can start identifying and engaging a broader range of guest behaviors, including:
- First-Time Guests – Guests placing their first online order
- Repeat Guests – Guests with multiple interactions who haven’t yet joined your program
- (Coming Soon) High-Spending Guests, Discount-Driven Guests, and Occasional Visitors
How to Put It Into Action
Here are just a few campaign strategies you can execute with Guest Segmentation
- Re-Engage Repeat Guests Who Haven’t Joined Loyalty
Target frequent digital orderers who haven’t enrolled yet. Let them know what they’re missing—points, rewards, and exclusive offers—and make it easy to sign up.
“You’ve already placed 3 orders—if you were a member, you’d already be halfway to a free reward.”
- Promote New Store Openings
Capture attention early by engaging new guests who order from a recently opened location. Use timely campaigns to introduce your loyalty program and encourage repeat visits.
- Fuel Smarter Paid Media
- Win Back Lapsed Guests
Simple Setup, Big Impact
- Enable webhook integration in Punchh
- Configure your guest creation strategy
- Start collecting data from every digital order
Once live, these interactions populate new guest profiles in the Punchh Platform. If a guest opts into marketing during checkout, you can begin engaging them with personalized messaging immediately.
Best of all, the data works both ways. These segments can power in-platform campaigns and be exported for use across your broader marketing ecosystem.
The Bottom Line
Loyalty programs will always be critical—but they shouldn’t be the only lens you use to understand and engage your guests.
With Guest Segmentation from PAR Engagement, you get a complete view of your guest base, from first-time visitors to power users, with or without a loyalty enrollment.
That means:
- Higher campaign ROI
- More relevant messaging
- Faster loyalty conversion
- Smarter marketing strategies
