Chapter 7: FoodPanda Advertisment options
Chapter 7: FoodPanda Advertisment options
Highlights
FoodPanda Advertising
Organic Ads
Pandabox
Featured Ads
Premium Ads
PandaPro
In this chapter you will learn the FoodPanda advertising options.
FoodPanda Advertising
Understanding the FoodPanda Advertising Options.FoodPanda Advertising Options
FoodPanda has multiple advertising options. You might guess that once you are active on FoodPanda you are ready to accept all the orders. However with more vendors joining the food delivery apps getting on top becomes harder.
And if you read in chapter 5 one of the ranking factors is how effective your deals are. If you truly understand their words, all "Deals" are advertising. So if you do not do any advertising you will not be able to rank on top. This is shocking but true. Your Vendor Score? is directly affected by your ads. So knowing this here is essential.
Currently there are 4 options you can select from. Some of them are great and some of these options are so badly done that we do not recommend to use them.
- Panda Box
- Organic Listing
- Premium Listing
- PandaPro (Consumer offers)
FoodPanda advertising options
Dive deep in the 4 options.What is the Organic Listing?
One of the paid options is called Organic Listing. This listing will help you rank higher on FoodPanda but in exchange of paid clicks. This means that everytime someone clicks on your shop link you will be charged, this is known as CPC Model (Cost Per Click).
Panda Box Advertising
Explore the Panda Box Advertising.
Sample Panda Box Ads
What is Panda Box Advertising?
This advertising sounds very interesting. Panda Box is a really clever type of marketing. Or at least it sounds great on paper. It will target people who open their FoodPanda app and instantly get notified with an offer.
This offer is a 15 minute offer, or at least they say it is 15 minutes but in reality it is not. So you get an offer which will disappear within 15 minutes. Once you click on that deal you will be directed to the page and you see the offer with timer.
The problem of Panda Box
However there is a problem with this. If you are like most FoodPanda users you might want to scroll to see what more there is before considering the offer. However that is not possible with this offer. Once you click away or refresh the page this offer dissapears even if the 15 minute deadline has not been reached yet. Which makes this offer confusing. It is a NOW or NEVER deal which we personally do not understand. And many customers usually would like to browse before being "sold".
It has a technical problem
Another problem which happens more often is the technical problem. You see the offer you click on the offer to avail and suddenly FoodPanda is giving an error. To resolve the error FoodPanda must reload the page. Here is the problem, once you reload or refresh the page your so called 15 minute deal is gone! Since you left the page (even if it is not your fault). A big downside and even worse this techinical issue is being paid buy YOU the vendor. Since a customer clicked on the offer. So you are charged but the system has problem.
This type of advertising is commonly used and there is nothing wrong with this if a person who clicks on your offer also push through to buy. However, understanding your number is essential. If not you will loose money without you even knowing it.
How much does it cost?
This type of advertising does not cost you money UPFRONT. So you might say, if it does not work that is perfectly fine. However, if the customers missed out on the deal they will not anymore consider your shop as option. That is already money lost, as it is free "negative marketing".
Here are the mechanics and we tried to get FoodPanda to talk but they are very fuzzy about this. Main reason, the information is not really beneficial for you to know. It is very financially beneficial for FoodPanda but not for your shop. They give you this for free as an option. You can control to accept maximum 15 people a day who would see these "now or never flash" deals. But the percentage they take is huge. Financially not acceptable for a shop owner.

PandaBox Commission Structure
* FoodPanda will still take their 30% or 35% commission. This means that you will have very limited left. See below how to calculate this.
PandaBox Commission Structure
So if you accept this offer you will basically sell your product for a 50% off. Which is fine however FoodPanda is also charging you their commission of 30% (for exclusive) or 35% depending on if you are exclusive on only FoodPanda or not. Are you getting confusing? Well, it was made to confuse you. Do not worries we are here to clarify it. With the calculator below you will instantly know in exact amounts.
PandaBox Calculator
Selling Price (₱) | |
Customer Promo (20%) | ₱ |
PandaBox Fee (30%) | ₱ |
Money Left (Excl. Comm.) | ₱ |
FoodPanda Commission (30%) | ₱ |
Pay Out | ₱ |
Product Cost (₱) | |
Your Profit | ₱ |
What is Organic Listing?
If you understand that being on top in FoodPanda is very beneficial you will quickly understand why Organic Listing is interesting option.
If you are new or you do not have the amount of reviews that your competitor has you might be stuck. Stuck in a sense that people will not find your products by the time they order on FoodPanda. So Organic Listing is a way to solve this issue. FoodPanda wants to help everyone and gives each vendor a chance.
Organic Listing
Organic Listing is a method of paying FoodPanda an amount to get on top or ranked better in FoodPanda. This is very commonly seen on Google Ads where you see the top result is an ad. This model is called a CPC (Cost Per Click) model. This means anytime someone clicks on your link you will pay an advertisement fee. FoodPanda works with a fixed cost of ₱ 17 per click. It does not go lower or higher in price.
CPC Model Calculations
So what does this means? Very simple everytime someone clicks on your ads you will be charged ₱ 17. Is this good or bad? The price itself is fair however you must know how many people will buy after they clicked. We estimated 1 out of 5 people who click your ads will buy. So this means simply it will cost you (5 x ₱ 17) ₱ 85 to get one single sale. If the customer will order only 2 milk teas for a total of ₱ 200 you will not earn much and maybe even lose money.
This type of advertising is commonly used and there is nothing wrong with this if a person who clicks on your offer also push through to buy. However, understanding your number is essential. If not you will loose money without you even knowing it.
Organic Listing Commission Structure
If you are wondering if this is a good option to do, well it is if you have a bigger strategy in mind. More about that later on. However you must know your numbers.
Organic Listing Calculator
Advertising Budget (₱ 5,000 min.) | |
CPC (Cost Per Click) | ₱ 17 |
Monthly Clicks | |
Daily Clicks | |
Estimated 1 out 5 buys | Daily Sales |
Above you will see the estimates of how many people eventually buy after clicking your product offerings. We have estimated it on 1 person out of 5 that buys. This varies as well. We have experiences where sometimes no one bought in a day. Remember FoodPanda does not give answer on this. We have ask multiple times but they do not give clear answer (for an obvious reason).
Calculating Your Ad Cost Per Day
To explain, if 1 out of 5 buys it means you will pay ₱ 17 * 5 clicks equals ₱ 85 in advertising cost to get one customer. We will break it down in daily sales.
This will be important later on
Ad Cost Per Customer | ₱ 85 |
Total Ad Cost ₱ 85 * | ₱ |
Earnings of Organic Listing (Daily)
Now lets go deeper in the numbers assuming that 1 out of 5 buys and your average order value is approx ₱ 250 (which is in our shop the case).
Average Order Value | ₱ 250 |
Daily Sales ₱ 250 * | ₱ |
FoodPanda Commission (30%) | ₱ |
Daily Pay Out | ₱ |
Daily Ad Cost | ₱ |
Daily Pay Out - Daily Ad Cost | ₱ |
Product Cost (₱) | |
Your Profit | ₱ |
Do you understand the numbers?
If you look at the profit number you might be shocked. Our goal is to give awareness one this specific matter. Spending money on FoodPanda is good if and only if you have a proper strategy. You do not want to pay FoodPanda forever in ads. You want to expand your brand so people will find you in the future and order directly from you.
And ofcourse want to just automatically sell on FoodPanda without paying extra in ads. This will work by first "Paying" for the exposure. This is why understanding how to rank on FoodPanda without paying is essential. Later on more on this!
Premium Listing
What is Premium Listing?What is Premium Listing?
The Premium Listing ads is the one that has probably the most value but there is a restriction on it. So what is it exactly? With Premium Listing you are placed on top on FoodPanda in the "Featured" section. FoodPanda allows 5 shops a month to be on top in their preferred region (barangay). This means when a customer login their location with be matched with the matching Premium Listing.
The customer will see the Premium Listing on top first before seeing any of the scrolled items. This type of marketing is very powerful. And personally we tried this and it is very powerful as long you are able to get your region. Since there are only 5 slots available it means that once they are sold out you need to wait until next month.
What does Premium Listing Cost?
Premium Listing has a fixed cost which is a monthly fee of ₱ 15,000. While the money on this item is well spend there are some cons. The results are hard to measure as FoodPanda does not show how many people bought from you by clicking on the Premium Listing ad. This means you have to guestimate the results buy looking at your sales history.
The biggest benefit
The biggest benefit is having a full month top position for a fixed price. Comparing with the Organic Listing which would cost ₱ 17 for every click Premium Listing gives you unlimited clicks.
The biggest downside
The biggest downside is the limited slots of 5 only. Once it is sold out you need to wait your turn. We talked to our account manager and eventually gave us a solution of select a nearby barangay. However this is not really beneficial and this is not recommended. We tested it and the sales were not good at all. The main reason is that customers are allowed to order within a 4 KM radius. Currently FoodPanda is expanding with 5 KM radius (long distance ordering with extra fees). So this means if a customer want to order your products but is outside the radius the customer cannot proceed to confirm ordering. They get a message indicating that this shop is outside service area.
This is currently what is happening. We do get people who are calling our shop if it is possible to deliver. We tend to serve them with our own staff who delivers it to them. But within FoodPanda it is not possible if it is outside of the service radius area. So watch out with doing that. Since you will pay ₱ 15,000 in ads but you will hardly have any sales.
PandaPro (Consumer offers)
What is PandaPro?What is PandaPro?
PandaPro is the only special marketing programme that a vendor cannot choose to join. This is an exclusive offer that you must be selected by meeting specific qualifications. The PandaPro is a subscription based package for customers who uses FoodPanda often. The top users who orden often gets invited to join and get exclusive perks.
For a vendor you must be active a sell often to be able to join this as FoodPanda will approach you, if you want to join it this offer.
What is PandaPro?
PandaPro is a membership club created by foodpanda for its top customers. Subscribers access exclusive benefits & privileges from selected vendor partners across Philippines. It's an exclusive program where we filter out top customers & top vendors from the rest of the pool.

Why join the PandaPro program?
The PandaPro program is a special customer program where restaurants can join. According to FoodPanda this gives you access to the "heavy users". You are getting access to top spending customers and getting your brand loyalty attached to them. Furthermore, your brand will now be part of an exclusive group and you will be able to leverage PandaPro's marketing initiatives.
20% off your whole menu with a minimum order value of ₱ 500.
You must be an active FoodPanda restaurant Partner with many sales and track record. As FoodPanda will approach you for this option once you hit a certain sales threshold. How much that exactly is they do not indicate. However you have to be in the top tiers to qualify.
This looks very interesting and promising but there is no way to measure it. Customers must be member of this by paying a fee. However, it is not clear as of now how a customer can join and how much it cost. If you want to promote you also want to know your reach and here the reach is unclear. We do not know how many active members they have. Which is controversial as marketing measures reach. Now it is a big question mark. This is something that FoodPanda must improve.
How to Rank Without Paying
How to Rank Without PayingSo now you understand the real numbers of paid advertising on FoodPanda. Your account manager will quickly talk about this when you notice you hardly sell on FoodPanda. Their solution and goal of course is you to pay for extra advertising so FoodPanda earns more.
So you are now more aware and you understand the system. FoodPanda advertising can be very good if and only if you have a strategy to get that customer back to visit your shop. Meaning you are building a brand. Next chapter you will understand it.