STATE OF CANADIAN FRANCHISE MARKETING 2025

This report synthesises marketing performance data and operator survey responses from 800+ Canadian franchise locations across 22 brands. Categories represented include QSR, home services, personal services, retail, and fitness. Data was collected between January and March 2025.

The headline finding: Canadian franchise brands that have centralised their marketing technology stack are outperforming decentralised peers by 34% on cost-per-acquisition metrics, while also reporting higher franchisee satisfaction scores.

Average co-op fund contribution rates held steady at 2.8% of gross sales in 2025, consistent with 2024. However, the composition of spend within those funds shifted significantly:

• **Digital channels:** 61% of total marketing budgets (up from 52% in 2023)
• **Traditional media (broadcast, print, OOH):** 24% (down from 31%)
• **Events and local activations:** 9%
• **Production and creative:** 6%

Within digital, Meta platforms captured the largest share at 28% of digital spend, followed by Google at 24%, programmatic at 19%, and emerging channels (connected TV, podcast, digital OOH) at 18%.

Digital maturity varies significantly by franchise category. QSR brands lead adoption, with 78% of locations running geofencing campaigns and 91% participating in centralised digital programs. Home services brands trail significantly, with only 43% running consistent digital programs at the location level.

The gap correlates strongly with franchisee age and technology comfort. Brands that invest in franchisee digital education programs close the adoption gap approximately 40% faster than those relying on head office mandates alone.

Key performance benchmarks for Canadian franchise marketing in 2025:

Top-quartile performance is consistently associated with centralised campaign management, real-time performance visibility at the location level, and structured franchisee coaching programs.

For the third consecutive year, marketing support ranked in the top three drivers of franchisee satisfaction — ahead of operational support in 14 of 22 brands surveyed. The specific drivers of satisfaction differ from what head office teams typically expect:

Franchisees rate transparency over marketing fund allocation as more important than creative quality. They want to know how their co-op contributions are being spent, and they want to see performance data that proves the investment is working.

The second-highest driver is ease of local execution. Franchisees who can launch approved campaigns in under 30 minutes report dramatically higher satisfaction than those navigating complex approval processes.

Three trends will define Canadian franchise marketing over the next 18 months:

AI-assisted campaign optimisation is moving from experiment to standard practice. Brands deploying AI for budget reallocation and creative performance prediction are seeing 18–24% improvements in campaign efficiency.

First-party data strategy is becoming urgent. With third-party cookie deprecation complete in most browsers, franchise brands without owned email and SMS programs are at a structural disadvantage.

Location-based intelligence is the next competitive frontier. Brands that can connect foot-traffic data, competitive location density, and weather-triggered campaign logic will have a meaningful edge in trade-area marketing.