31/01/2022 By Ghia Marnewick Reading Time: 3 Minutes

Instacart’s marketplace has recently become a great opportunity for many retail brands who are looking to drive traffic and more importantly, boost sales for their business.

The Instacart feature has many benefits that brands can take advantage of and it’s only growing in popularity. With the feature reportedly generating $1.5 billion revenue in 2022 and $35 billion in sales, there’s enough of a reason to get involved.

In this article, we’ll discuss more about the Instacart and how advertisements can be a great way for retailers to generate more sales via this platform.

What is Instacart?

Instacart has quickly become one of the largest and widely used grocery delivery services within the United States. The delivery app is so popular due to its partnerships with most supermarkets as well as local speciality shops and pharmacies that are local to the user’s area. They also partner with membership stores like Costo.

According to JungleTopp, 85% of US households have access to this delivery app. That’s an impressive amount for any app.

The app allows its customers to shop at any of the local grocery stores they’d typically do so via the mobile app or alternatively, on the website. It creates a virtual shopping cart that is later processed and packed by a personal shopper on the day of delivery. Instacart offers same-day delivery within a five-hour window but there’s also an option to order and collect, or to plan an order for delivery in advance.

Why retailers should use Instacart?

Instacart has changed the way people buy groceries, in the same way, that many of the eCommerce fashion and beauty sites have changed the high-street landscape here in the UK.

Retailers should be using Instacart as it’s become an eCommerce solution that avoids a lot of costs in terms of capital and resource investments. These expenditures are made to meet the demands of shoppers in-store and may be better utilised to appeal to the growing popularity of click and collect users. What are the benefits of using Instacart? From cost avoidance, an opportunity to expand a brand’s shopper base and to provide quicker services. There are many reasons to utilise Instacart as a retailer.

Instacart and buyer intent

When it comes to retail brands making use of this delivery app, it’s important to think about the buyer’s intent. Users are at the bottom of the funnel when they search for something on Instacart which means they already know what they’re looking for and just want to make the purchase.

It’s essential that brands look at the buyer’s intent in regards to what they’re searching, whether it’s a broad keyword or something specific.

From here, product modifiers can be created and these will correlate to the core product that the buyer is after. Instacart uses a tool called Elasticsearch to help give customers the right search results.

How does Instacart advertising works?

With 57% of the grocery eCommerce market and order volume up by 500%, advertising on Instacart has never looked more appealing.

How does Instacart advertising works
Image Source: Instacart.com

Instacart has a self-service ad platform that enables brands to reach customers through a variety of advertising campaigns. Using featured products, gives brands and agencies, the opportunity to create and manage product campaigns that will appear directly on the customer’s page as they shop.

So how does it work? Here are some of the basics when it comes to the advertising platform:

Dashboard - The interface used to create and manage campaigns, as well as to generate reports.

Ad inventory - Based on a second-price auction system. The winner ends up paying $.01 more than the second-highest bidder.

Ad format - Featured products that are keyword-based and exact-match only.

Add campaigns - Organised at campaign and product group levels.

Instacart advertising is a great way of marketing your retail business via this platform’s huge customer base.

How retailers can advertise on Instacart

There are multiple ways that retailers can advertise on Instacart. When it comes to creating an Instacart advertising strategy, it’s important to know what types of ads there are. You’ll see a range of Instacart ad examples to utilise if you decide to make use of the platform.

There’s currently one self-service ad type known as Featured Products. This includes Deliver Promotions, Coupons and a Hero Banner.

Instacart Featured Products

The Featured Products is the primary ad format when it comes to the marketplace. These products are selected into campaigns, there’s no minimum budget and it operates on a pay-per-click model. How much does Instacart charge for advertising? It charges anywhere between $0.35-$1.50 per click.

Products shown are based on the availability of it geographically, with influence from stock levels.

Instacart Coupons

Coupons are another good way of helping brands get attention for their products. These are booked with Instacard and once redeemed are no longer available for the following 30 days.

The typical format of these are ‘Save $X on Y quantities of Z’ and it’s pay for redemptions only.

Instacart Delivery Promotions

Delivery promotions are an enterprise-level investment and these require a certain level of inventory and distribution requirements. However, they are effective for selling any of your products, as well as getting rid of expiring stock.

Instacart Hero Banner

Lastly, Instacart Hero Banners are placed at the top of the page. As these are at the top of the page, pretty much all shoppers are likely to see the advertisement. This, like Instacart’s Delivery Promotions, is booked with Instacart directly.

Take advantage of Instacart Ads for your retail business this year

Why and how is the practice of advertising changing? As more platforms like this one pop up, offering a more personalised and hassle-free service, marketers and advertisers need to up their game in the same respect.

Instacart Ads are a great way to promote your products as a retailer and to utilise the advertising opportunities that this growing and highly popular platform have available.

Even though shopping in-store is required, the need for shopping online is constantly growing. Who knows what the retail landscape might look like in just a few years?

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