Instacart Upgrades Ad Buying, Expands Shoppable Videos

Instacart is enhancing its ad-buying experience for brand partners by including objectives when they begin a campaign. Objective options in the Ads Manager include reach, engage or maximize sales, and users will receive tailored recommendations for each format, as well as targeting and bidding options.

In addition to the new ad-buying options, the grocery technology company is rolling out its shoppable video ad function to all of its brand partners. Instacart originally piloted the shoppable videos, which autoplay with sound off and can be between three and 30 seconds long, with 40 brands, including Celsius, Clorox, Hormel, Mondelēz International and That’s It.

“Over the last year, we’ve built multiple new ad formats to enable brands to drive impact on Instacart by deploying a comprehensive suite of ad solutions,” said Ali Miller, VP of ad products at Instacart. “Today marks a significant next step in our ad platform’s evolution by making this new format fully available, alongside a new Ads Manager buying experience that helps brands align their campaign setup with business results that matter. We’re excited to continue to collaborate with our brand partners to unlock more rich media ads across Instacart that help elevate their brands and products and inspire and engage more consumers.”

Instacart’s Ads Manager debuted in 2020 and gained several new products this year, including Pop-Ups, Pages and Shoppable Display. The company also has a sponsored product offering, which allows brands to secure premium digital shelf space to maximize sales and category share.

Late last month, Instacart launched a health initiative that promises to bring product innovations, new partnerships, cutting-edge research and policy advocacy to the health space. It is focusing on three specific areas where the company believes it can make the most impact, including Nutrition Security, Health Made Easy and Food as Medicine.

San Francisco-based Instacart currently partners with more than 900 national, regional and local retail brands to facilitate online shopping, delivery and pickup services from more than 75,000 stores across 13,000-plus cities in North America on the Instacart Marketplace.