Instacart is North America's top online grocery delivery platform, offering same-day delivery from over 25,000 retail stores.

Instacart Advertising, which launched in May 2020, is a self-serve advertising platform enabling brands to increase sales and gain new customers.

Instacart offers a few advertising options, however the primary self-serve offering is "Sponsored Product" ads. Sponsored products are easily distinguishable from organic listings by the "Sponsored" banner attached to sponsored item.

Instacart is a 2nd price, CPC auction meaning your brand will never pay more than one cent above the second highest bid.

Ad placements are determined by keyword bidding. Advertisers set a distinct bid price for each individual, exact-match keyword. The greater your CPC (cost-per-click) bid price is, the greater chance your brand has at appearing higher up on the search results page.

There are five main non-search ad placements: on the Home page, within general department / aisle pages, on item detail pages for similar products, in the "Your Items" section for repeat buyers, post checkout as "last minute additions".

All non-search placements are controlled by one bid price within an ad group. There is currently no way to target individual non-search placements. Learn more about Instacart Ad Inventory and Ad Types here.

Advertising on Instacart is the best way to increase visibility and gain incremental, new-to-brand sales on Instacart.

Instacart advertising is still fairly new when compared to more mature marketplaces like Amazon. CPCs for high-volume flagship terms are low, while the lifetime value of customers is exponential.

It is estimated that after a customer's 10th purchase on Instacart, around 25% of items are purchased directly from the "Your Items" section. "Your Items" contains all items previously purchase by a user. This means once you gain a new customer, the opportunity for repeat buys is very high.

Instacart advertising is available to any brand selling products through an associated U.S. retailer offering delivery on the Instacart platform. This currently includes over 350 retailers across North America.

Instacart partners include many large retailers including Albertsons, ALDI, Costco, CVS, Kroger, Loblaw, Publix, Sam's Club, Sprouts, Wegmans, and more. (See full list here).

If your brand is selling at any of these retailers, your products are already available for sale on Instacart's marketplace. This means you can launch Instacart ads at any time.

Get started by requesting an Instacart ad account here, then check out our article on How to Connect your Instacart account here to connect your account to Perpetua.

Article last updated January, 2022. If you find this information to be out of date, please contact hello@perpetua.io.