Instacart ad innovation: what brands need to know for 2025

Trade

As we approach the end of the year and, of course, the beginning of planning for 2025, let’s take a moment to review the innovations brought to market by Instacart Ads. Instacart is often difficult in terms of ownership and investment, but it does a great job of providing valuable insights and benchmarks on national performance and distribution, and is a leader in the field with Amazon and Walmart when it comes to building their offerings to meet needs marketers.

Instacart’s advertising platform is constantly evolving and adapting to a first-party (1P) data-centric climate. Instacart Carrot Ads expands its data offerings and measurement tools to drive incremental growth. The food technology leader’s goal is to help expand its reach and acquire new audiences through selected partnerships with other retail media companies. Instacart enables advertisers to reach their target audiences with a full-funnel strategy.

For a comprehensive introduction to the basics of Instacart Ads, the Instacart Tinuiti review covers everything you need to know about advertising on the platform. Let’s take a look at Instacart’s latest innovations and how you can incorporate them into your strategy in the coming year.

A constantly developing advertising platform

With the launch of Retail Powered Media (RPM), Instacart offers advertisers first-party data to enable off-site targeting of advertising solutions. Consumers can click on Google Shopping ads or Meta Catalog ads that lead them to a purchase on Instacart’s website, closing the loop for brands between the platform where customers search and the platform where customers shop. RPM captures searcher intent by pinpointing a specific local retailer and same-day delivery in a single search.

To further expand its data offering, Instacart introduced Instacart Developer (IDP), which allows you to build carts from third-party apps. This publicly available API allows you to digitally leverage third-party services to integrate Instacart functionality into their websites and apps, and over time, allow you to access numerous benefits across food, health, wellness and other spaces.

Also earlier this year, Instacart introduced target ROAS from minimum ROAS for optimized bidding campaigns. Previously, the algorithm steered bids to achieve the highest possible ROAS, never falling below the desired minimum ROAS. This did not always produce the expected results, as the platform favored lower bids in order to participate in the maximum number of auctions. With Target ROAS, advertisers can be more rigorous in setting their goals, which the algorithm will refine for more predictable campaign performance.

Expanding partnerships

So far in 2024, Instacart has partnered with digital partners that will make it easier to reach consumers at the point of purchase. In April, Instacart teamed up with PubMatic to offer advertisers programmatic campaigns powered by Instacarts 1P data. With PubMatic’s inventory of more than 1,700 publisher networks, this partnership will provide detailed buyer data for more precise targeting at the point of purchase. This is another example of e-commerce combining with advertising technology to provide consumers with more personalized advertising.

Shortly thereafter, in May, Instacart announced that it would also partner with Uber to allow customers to order food from Uber Eats through the Instacart app. There will be a new “Restaurant” tab in the application, thanks to which buyers will be able to satisfy all their nutritional needs in one place. Instacart+ members now get not only free grocery delivery, but also free restaurant orders of $35 and more. Uber and Instacart’s goal is to reach new customers and increase sales by streamlining the food delivery process.

YouTube and Instacart started working together in June to help customers through the funnel. The new deal will allow advertisers to target Instacart’s customer base through ads that appear on YouTube. These ads are managed through Instacart advertising via YouTube, which allows advertisers to target customers using first-party data, such as previous brand buyers.

When consumers click on a YouTube ad, they will be redirected to Instacart’s product detail page where they will be offered same-day delivery, which could be an incentive to make a purchase. Instacart’s approach to partnerships allows brands to target advertising through off-platform retail media, powered by retailer customer data, even if it’s not connected to a physical store, website or app.

Recently, Thrive Market, a membership-based, health-conscious online grocer, announced the launch of its retail media network in partnership with Instacart’s Carrot Ads. This partnership enables Thrive Market to leverage Instacart’s advertising technology and sales tools to create and grow its own retail media network across its website and app.

Brands will be able to target specific campaigns to consumers shopping on Thrive Market, helping drive measurable growth. Brands that already run ads on Instacart will automatically have access to Thrive Market inventory for both Sponsored and DSP products. The collaboration between the two increases discoverability by leveraging Carrot ads to reach Thrive Market audiences to increase awareness and increase customer engagement.

Expect continued growth

Tinuiti experts expect Instacart’s advertising business to grow 16.1% this year and continue to expand as it diversifies its offerings.

“Brands can leverage Instacart’s growth and evolving partnerships to expand their marketing strategy. The convenience of Instacart provides a unique opportunity to meet new consumers at a key point in the consumer journey.

Averie LynchSenior Trade Media Innovation and Development Specialist at Tinuiti

If you’re looking for tips on how to grow your business at the speed of innovation on Instacart, contact Tinuiti today.

This post was written by Averie Lynch, senior trade media innovation and development specialist at Tinuiti.