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Ep. 127 Katie Daleo, GM of CPG Ads at DoorDash, on Retail Media Innovation and Dish-Level Targeting
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- [00:01]
A
This is Adtech Dot and this is a word from our sponsors. Attention is moving everywhere across platforms, formats and devices. JWX empowers media companies to connect their content with consumers across every platform. JWX transferring content into growth. Learn more at jwx.com marketecture Again, go to jwx.com marketecture welcome to the AdTech Godpod, your window into the world of advertising technology and the people behind it. I'm your host, Ad Tech God. Welcome to the EdTech Godpod, where we speak to the female leaders of our industry. With me today is Katie Dalio, the GM of the CPG ad business at DoorDash. She focuses on connecting CPG brands with doordash consumers. And prior to DoorDash, she actually spent some time@jet.com and also worked at Unilever. Katie's amazing. We had an awesome pre chat. I'm really looking forward to meeting her. Katie, welcome to the ad Tech godpod.
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B
Awesome. Thanks. I'm so happy to be here.
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A
I love it because I'm a DoorDash user and when your name came up, it was really something that I was interested in because I'm not too familiar with your ad business. I'm not too familiar with how you utilize that for these CPG brands you work with. So I'm really looking forward to kind of digging in.
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B
Beautiful.
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A
Okay, do you want to take me back? I'd love to hear how you got into the industry and how you got to the point where you're at today leading on the CPG ads business.
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B
Sure. So, fun fact, I actually joined a company called Right Media in my early 20s, pretty much fresh out of school, which I don't know if you remember it, but it was like the first online ad exchange. We got acquired by Yahoo, but that was sort of my first taste of ad tech. And then I kind of did a 180 and decided that I wanted to sort of do really foundational marketing and I wanted to do that through cpg. So I went to B school. I after B school, I landed at Unilever and I did your sort of traditional brand management roles there. I worked on brands like Klondike, axe hair care, etc. Loved my time there. Really love CPG. I just think it's really tactile. It's really real. The opportunity to like bring this podcast
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C
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- [03:08]
B
small moments to like mass audiences but after about five years there, I realized that I wanted opportunity to either do one of two things. I either wanted to go into retail so I could really understand sort of like the last part of the consumer funnel, or I wanted to go digital because that's where everything was sort of headed eight, nine years ago. And I wanted that experience. It felt like I hit the jackpot when I landed at Jet because I got to do both. It was obviously an E commerce site also really building like a brand. It was really focused on the. The kind of cultivating a unique space in the market. So I was there. I, um, joined right before the Walmart acquisition, but there I served in a variety of marketing roles. I actually kind of started what we called retail media before the acquisition and then I moved into category marketing, launching our online grocery and private label. Then after jet landed at DoorDash. It's kind of all come full circle because I am now working in retail Media supporting CPGs. I always say that I've like grown up in CPG. I've just kind of come at it from different angles and now I'm sort of on the other side of the table.
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A
Just so you know, when you mentioned Right Media, I I laughed because you were like, have you heard of them? So yes, I, I've actually, I actually had Bill Wise on the podcast. I've also had Brian O' Kelly on the podcast. I've also had Ramsey McGrory on the podcast. I think all three of them are alumni. Like the Right Media, I call it the Right Media Mafia runs deep in ad tech. They're all obviously extremely successful entrepreneurs and business owners today. So I love it. Your time working with CPG, specifically at DoorDash. You guys have an incredible depth of data available to you. Not just from mobile app data, but also from, I'm sure, the CPG side of things of what they're looking for. How are you guys doing that today? How does your ad business run? Because I'm just not too familiar with it and how it works.
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B
Yeah, yeah. So we have kind of two sides to our on app ads business where we have a team that supports our restaurant partners and then a team that supports our CPG partners. So we started with restaurant just given sort of timing and maturity of the underlying business and then expanded a year or so later into CPG. At DoorDash we've got the restaurant marketplace and what we call new verticals. And new verticals is everything but restaurants. So think grocery convenience, specialty retail alcohol, and that's basically the marketplace on which we can run ads for our CPG brand partners. And so, you know, it's sort of your expected retail media opportunities. Sponsored products is, you know, where we started. It's sort of the workhorse product, if you will. We've layered on sponsored brands and video. We have homepage, banner, and then I'd say more recently, we're really starting to invest in things that are unique to DoorDash. Kind of to your point on data. An example there would be dish targeting where we can actually take the profiles and the affinity that our consumers show for particular cuisines and allow brands to leverage that against what they know to be true for their consumer.
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A
Okay, so this is a really dumb example. So like if you know that I like to eat steamed broccoli because I order that all the time, could you have a broccoli company target me?
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B
Yes.
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A
Okay, that's pretty amazing. It's like really targeted.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Do you find that the CPG brands are like all over this? Because I would, I would think that if you can get down to the dish level, I love how we're calling it dish level targeting. Dish level targeting that they see a lot of value in that in terms of, you know, reaching their consumers to not only buy food that contains that item, but also at the supermarket and to be able to go and purchase that elsewhere.
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B
Yep. Yeah, we just launched it. It's pretty, it's pretty new. You can imagine it's particularly effective for food brands. Frozen pizza can target, you know, high pizza affinity consumers on doordash. But what we're trying to do is make it easier in a world where, I don't know, for a healthcare company where the affinities may not be as obvious, we're providing the data that lets you know where you over index and so it's hot off the shelf. But we're super excited by the early read on results and excited that we're starting to offer something that's differentiated and unique to doordash from a capability standpoint.
- [07:30]
A
Yeah, it's definitely unique. I mean, I've heard various data points that people look into, but that in particular for me really stands out. Like I can definitely see how brands in particular would love that level of targeting and probably brings a ton of value. When you look into the utilization of all that data and the data and audience insights that you have, how are you guys evaluating it? I'm assuming you guys are using all types of AI solutions, data teams, et cetera. I'm sure it's quite a lengthy process.
- [08:01]
B
Yep, we have a fantastic data science team and then sort of an insights team that is sort of closer to the business and closer to the advertiser and they support all of our launches both in terms of, you know, what is the model by which we're identifying the data and then how do we make it super easy for our brands to to leverage the data and understand how to use it, especially in something like this that isn't a capability that they're used to using on, you know, other retail media networks.
- [08:28]
A
Where do you see things going for the year? Katie We've had a and I say this overall overarching, like a little bit of turbulent 12 months in AD tech. In advertising, we've seen a lot of changes, consolidation in the agency side. A lot of technology solutions are innovating quickly or trying to innovate really quickly. But what are you really bullish on and excited about in the next 12 to 18 months of what's happening in the space?
- [08:53]
B
Yeah, I think a couple of things I know we kind of talked about prior to the call starting, but I always call the ecosystem a bit of a tangled web because there's so many different moving parts and so many different kind of functions within the larger ad ecosystem. I think there's sort of a combination where there needs to be some sort of simplification to make it easy for brands to manage all of these relationships. But you also have to realize that one different cpgs kind of need to be treated differently in terms of meeting them where they are from an org structure, from a priority standpoint, from a capabilities perspective. And so I think it's simplification but with sort of a tailored approach. And then I think it's also really important for CPGs to realize that the consumer behavior on different platforms is very different. On DoorDash, for example, we over index on discovery more than other platforms because we have a lot of new users who are starting to use or shop consumables for the first time on our platform. And so thinking through sort of how measurement looks different, how the consumer path to purchase is different, and what that means in terms of your campaign setup. So it's kind of a weird hybrid of things needing to be more standardized and simplified, but also realizing that in a world where you need to fish, where the fish are like those fish are different on different platforms.
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A
And I'm assuming like a lot of the, the growth that your company has seen or the, you know, the ads division has seen has to do with just simplifying that story and also just attributing conversions to the platform because you do offer like a full funnel opportunity for these brands. Can you just kind of dig into that, what that looks like for an advertiser today and then how you, you would really attribute or measure that?
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B
Yeah, sure. So, you know, by virtue of the fact that the transactions are happening on the doordash marketplace, we offer closed loop measurement for anything that's run on site. And so we have full funnel solutions, everything from when consumers hit the homepage all the way down to coast checkout with our double dash banner, which is also a great way of driving kind of trial and awareness for the restaurant audience with regards to the consumables use case. But we also offer offsite capabilities. We acquired a company called Symbiosis last year which allows brands to leverage like the doordash audience data kind of market off app, bring it on app and get the same level of measurement. And so full funnel has been something that we've been really keen on from the early days and I think we've seen it play out across a lot of categories. I'd say it's been particularly successful on alcohol where there's like a still shockingly kind of an awareness gap amongst consumers that there is an opportunity for delivery as well as.
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A
I didn't even know that.
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B
Yeah. In terms of penetration, alcohol is surprisingly one of the most underpenetrated categories for online purchases.
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A
That's amazing. When you look into kind of the 2026 roadmap and you had mentioned, you know, the web is a tangled web. I love that definition because it definitely tangled. Where do you think we sit today in terms of advertisers and ad tech? Where do you think just the overall industry could perform better or be better? We hear a lot in your app, but in the open web, kind of like the decline of web traffic, the movement to LLMs, consumers want results. They don't necessarily want to sift through 300 results on a search engine. Where do you see things heading overall for the industry?
- [12:23]
B
Yeah, I think it's making decisions as easy as possible. I just read a great anecdote about a small brand that used AI to scrub thousands of reviews and looked at the three and four star reviews to kind of pull out key findings and use that to sort of highlight specific features, run their marketing, et cetera. And so I think consumers still want to discover, they just want the process made more easily. I even think about, like, how I use AI and I'd say I predominantly use it almost as like using it as an aggregator across all of your search sites, as opposed to having to rely on, you know, combing through 24 pages of results. So I think the element and the desire to still sort of be surprised, to be inspired is there. They just want to make it as quick as possible. And so I think you'll see it both be used in the organic experience as well as ads. And what we need to do as marketers is watch what that means from like a path to purchase standpoint, to make sure that we allow brands the opportunity to get in front of the consumer at the right time. And so I think that's going to be top of mind for us as we look at our sort of formats and our inventory of making sure that what we currently have continues to be effective as consumers adjust their patterns.
- [13:39]
A
You know, I was going to ask you what your competitive advantage is because there's so many retail media networks out there, but between the level of targeting that you have, I feel like you've addressed it. So you had mentioned you targeted off app as well. What does that look like for your CPG brands in market? And can you kind of dig into that just a little bit more so I have a better understanding of what you're doing there and what that means when you go, you know, out of your ecosystem and into the open web itself.
- [14:07]
B
Yeah, sure. So through Symbiosis, our brands can set up campaigns leveraging our audience data across pretty much all digital and social platforms. So they can do, you know, Facebook ads, they can do Pinterest, YouTube, etc. And they, you know, have the ability to kind of set up their audience against doordashes and then track the entire sort of funnel all the way to. To clicks and conversions.
- [14:33]
A
Katie, what do you think? I'll set you guys apart in terms of, you know, winning the retail media business. You're obviously doing well, but I'd love to hear what that looks like five years from now. Like what? What do you think the business looks like five years from now? How do you think you'll, you'll win the retail media game. And where do you think there's still like a huge opportunity for you?
- [14:52]
B
Yeah, I think a couple of things. I think that we need to continue being very partner centric. That's something that we take a lot of pride on, is that, you know, we, we take the voice of our customer and we try to provide the capabilities that they're asking for. So along those lines, you know the targeting we mentioned earlier, we now offer retailer targeting where you can set up campaigns to run on a specific store or subset of stores. You know, if you have a activation that's live in brick and mortar and you want to bring that to Life, Life on DoorDash will allow you to do that. So continuing to find ways again to just really meet our partner where they're at. I'd say we spent our first couple of years really making sure we nailed the basics and then are starting to differentiate. So we kind of talked about dish targeting at length. We've also got Double Dash, which is a pretty unique surface on the DoorDash app. And then I think the other kind of pillar is just performance and data. So. So making sure that we continue to get more sophisticated in the metrics we provide, in the guidance we provide partners in terms of like how to interpret the data and how to use it and then the flexibility we give them on how to action. So good example there is, we launched auto bidding last year, which is a feature where brands can set up their campaigns and effectively let our AI models optimize on their behalf. We have something similar on the restaurant side for smart campaigns and we see pretty strong adoption, about 50% of brands. And so yeah, I'd say that's like the other pillar is just continuing to provide data and guidance but realizing that not one size fits all.
- [16:33]
A
Awesome. Katie, I wanted to ask you and we chatted prior, you're obviously senior person working in the tech space, a predominantly male industry. What can you attribute your success to and what are some like major milestones that you're proud of to get you to where you are today?
- [16:49]
B
So I've never felt that here, but it definitely is something like, you know, the early days of marketing when you start and you realize that it's an industry that is like starts out predominantly female and then as you go up the ranks a lot less. So I think for me, I never had, you know, a 20 year plan of I knew I wanted to lead a retail media business but for me I've always had a natural curiosity and I've been very intentional about my moves every time I've made a pivot. And so for me it was, you know, work at cpg, really get grounded in the like core foundations of marketing. I think I really attribute my time to Unilever of like making me super consumer centric, which, you know, makes sense in B2C marketing, but also just makes you really empathetic to stakeholders generally. And then when I was ready for something new, I very consciously chose to go digital because that was where the industry was headed. I wanted to gain those skills there. I got exposed to things like UI design, tech builds, roadmaps, et cetera. And then when I came to doordash, I really wanted to do kind of zero to one and I wanted to hone my go to market chops. And so I think if I've had any success it's just being very intentional about the moves that I make. I'd say other things I'd throw in there. One of our values here is like operate at the lowest level of detail, really get yourself exposed to the lowest level. You know, at doordash that means we go and do dashes so we can understand the like, you know, myriad number of things that need to come together to make a dash successful. I think really sort of operating is critical to being strategic. And then the last one I'd say is just stay curious and know your gaps. I always ask a question when I interview folks of what is your superpower? One, because I think it shows self awareness. But two, everyone's really good at some things and not good at others. And knowing where you're not good is probably more important than knowing where you are because you kind of build a team, build a cross functional environment, you hire for talent that makes up for those gaps. All to make sure that like the sum of the parts is greater than you as an individual.
- [19:03]
A
You know Katie, I am absolutely horrible at pointing out my flaws. I say that with full transparency. My business partners know this too. Like I tell them like, no, I think I can do it, I think I can do it, I think I can figure it out. And even just recently I was speaking to one of them and they're like, look, you're really good at this stuff, but you've really got some gaps over here. And it was almost like disappointment. Like no, I need to pick it up. And I think like even talking to you and even I did a bunch of research on it and, and everybody points out the same thing that like, know what, you're strong at lean in as much as you can, get better and better at it. And it's okay if you have a weakness, but to recognize that weakness and fill the gap on your team with someone who knows it really just makes you stronger. So thank you for saying that. It kind of validates that maybe I was being a little sensitive, but I love that. Katie, I really want to thank you and the team at Doordash for joining me today and it was great meeting you.
- [19:55]
B
Likewise. Thanks so much for having me.
- [19:57]
A
Of course. Thank you. Thanks for tuning in to another episode of the AdTech Godpod, a podcast for the people about the people. Stay connected with me for more insights, trends and interviews in the realm of ad tech. Don't miss out on the latest updates, so follow me on X Instagram and connect with me on LinkedIn. Don't forget ATG Slack community has insights, networking opportunities and jobs. Keep the conversation going and stay at the forefront of adtech innovation.