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The Commerce Collective Podcast
Powering incremental off‑platform media with Instacart’s unique data and audiences
00:25:17
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- [00:00]
A
If you look back even just a few years ago, the world of retail media was often seen as very experimental in almost entirely lower funnel. And what has happened in the last few years in particular, and what is expected to continue to happen in a big way in the coming few years is an explosion in using the data from what is activated, if you will, or what is utilized on the retail media sites and then taking advantage of that data for efficient targeting and measurement outside of the walls of retail media networks. And what happens is when you use that data which is highly predicated upon purchase based behaviors, right, not just maybe interest base or propensity based, that has nothing to do with purchase, you can create some really strong signals in the market for brand advertisers to tap into to drive outcomes.
- [00:49]
B
Welcome back to the E Commerce Collective Podcast. My name is Emma Irwin, your host for this series and today we're talking all about Instacart's off platform strategy. We're going to walk through what we even mean by off platform, starting us all off on the same page and then we'll get into how Instacart specifically thinks about off platform strategy and what that really looks like in action. We'll follow that by touching on partnerships, a critical piece of the off platform puzzle and we'll wrap up talking through a case study that brings all of this to life. Let's get into it by introducing our guest.
- [01:18]
A
First of all, I just want to say thank you Emma, and into the Flywheel team for having me and for the great partnership that we have between Flywheel and instacart. My name is Adam Silverblatt. I, I lead our sales and go to market strategy here at Instacart for our off platform or off site business within the ads organization. And I've been in this role for just under a year here as we build out this capability in this revenue line here at instacart. Prior to Instacart and actually even prior to getting into the retail media and ad tech space about a decade ago, I spent about a decade in cpg, right? So the first decade of my career actually was in the shoes of our clients at a couple big CPG companies and and then I jumped over to the media and ad tech side and have spent the last now almost few years here at Instacart where I've had the great opportunity to really go back to my roots of bringing both CPG day in day out to my life, but also bringing media and ad tech as well, which has been part of my life for the last decade. So it's been a great experience and I'm really excited for what we're building not only here at Instacart, but for our clients and for the market.
- [02:15]
B
My next question for you is how many times a week do you purchase something via Instacart?
- [02:20]
A
So I have a fun fact. I am one of the most frequent shopping or consuming, if you will, employees amongst my cohort of Instacart. Actually, we probably order from Instacart. If I had a guest without looking at my phone and in the app, my house would probably order us from Instacart at least a handful of times a week. We are not just a shop weekly on Instacart family. We are a use Instacart all the time family for all the fill ins as well. So we are a frequent user of the service and we, we glean a lot of value of it out of it.
- [02:50]
B
Eat, breathe, sleep. Instacart I love.
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A
That's right. That's right.
- [02:53]
B
My last fun question for you is can you remember the exact last thing or like one thing from an order from your last round?
- [03:01]
A
Yeah, I would say one of the things that's almost always in my basket, if you will, and probably was in my last order is Justin's Peanut butter. We are a big peanut butter household here and we love that brand. I think between my son and I, we go through a jar of peanut butter probably every two to three days.
- [03:17]
B
That's impressive. That's a lot of. That's the. It's protein.
- [03:21]
A
They say you need protein, high fatty protein. And I like to tell people if you had to have one food for the rest of your life, what would it be? And mine is always peanut butter. The versatility, the protein, et cetera. So yeah, I'm with you.
- [03:33]
B
I like it. And you can go crunchy, you can go smooth. It serves really whatever kind of snack needs you have. Love it.
- [03:39]
A
That's right.
- [03:41]
B
Okay, now that we've analyzed peanut butter, I suppose we should talk about off platform advertising. I asked Adam to level set with the audience and maybe also me. I don't know what we mean by off platform.
- [03:52]
A
Thanks for that question. And it has evolved quite a bit. You know, if you look back even just a few years ago, the world of retail media was often seen as very experimental in almost entirely lower funnel. So sponsored advertising on an owned and operated site of a retailer or a marketplace, display advertising, etc. But all within the site, you know that a retailer or marketplace owns and operates what has happened in the last few years in particular. And what is expected to continue to happen in a big way in the coming few years is an explosion in using the data from what is activated, if you will, or what is utilized on the retail media sites and then taking advantage of that data for efficient targeting and measurement outside of the walls of retail media networks. And what happens is when you use that data which is highly predicated upon purchase based behaviors, right, not just maybe interest base or propensity based, that has nothing to do with purchase, you can create some really strong signals in the market for brand advertisers to tap into to drive outcomes in the other media environments in which they already buy media, but to make that media work harder, smarter, faster. And I think what's really interesting is that as I started this answer about how retail media was often viewed as a lower funnel vehicle, because this data now can be utilized outside of the retail media owned and operated site, it's actually being infused into mid to upper funnel buys to make those work harder. And so that's how we've gotten to the place where we are and I think what brands are starting, starting to see as more and more retail media networks are coming to the fold, it's a lot of options. So fragmentation and a lot of proliferation is the challenge in front of us right now for brands in particular and agency buyers. There are over 250, 50 retail media networks in North America alone that we are aware of. And so for a brand themselves, they have a lot of choice and we can talk about that, you know, later, as you see fit. That's not always a great thing, but the great thing about all this data is that it is really, really strong signal based on real purchase behavior that can now great tool to use not just on site for lower funnel objectives, but both on and off site for mid to upper funnel objectives as well.
- [05:57]
B
Now that we are all on the same page, let's talk about how Instacart is building its off platform strategy and capabilities. As the head of off platform strategy, what does Adam's day to day look like? What is he working toward?
- [06:09]
A
So I guess overall our vision is to bring full funnel commerce solutions to media like Full Stop. That is our very succinct vision and we've been going at this for a couple years now. And so we want to make sure that we empower brands to be able to tap into the breadth and depth of data that we have access to from the billions and billions of dollars of purchase that we see every year. And so for us, we think about that in a few key ways. We want to help brands be really smart and efficient with who they reach and how they reach them. We want to help them be really efficient and smart with how do they measure the success of that. We want to aid brands in how they ultimately drive outcomes across their business. And so we do that in sort of three key buckets. The first is really about bringing our first party data to the media platforms where these brands participate and where they buy their media with first party audiences. So if you, if you're a brand in the diaper space and you want to go after high propensity buyers of the category based on historical and recent purchase behavior, we can do that, right? And so we're doing that, you know, in many categories. But that's the first piece is really that first party audience, very high fidelity. It's 100% logged in user base. People, we think, although I would say we know, do not give fake addresses for where their groceries are delivered or where their household items are delivered typically. And so the fidelity of that data is really, really key. As you think about targeting. The second piece is really something that I think is really cool. Like I shared with you at the onset, I've been in or touching the CPG business for almost a couple decades now to just date myself a little bit. My gray hairs are a little discolored here on the Zoom or on the chat, but it is true. But there's been a discussion for those two decades at least, Omnichannel, right. In bringing commerce to media. I don't think ever before until now has that been so real. And so for us, what does that mean? We are bringing solutions that are, that are commerce solutions into the media environment. So for example, we partner with the likes of a Roku or we partner with a trade desk, or we've announced recent partnerships with Pinterest and TikTok. In all of those experiences, we want to not only be able to help them reach high fidelity audiences that have a high propensity to take action against, you know, that brand or product that is advertised, but we want to drive those consumers back to the platform, bring the commerce solution. And so we're seeing some really incredible, you know, signals for the first time, I think, in a way that brands have long dreamt of. And so if you are a user or you're a consumer and you're watching Roku, for example, and you see an ad that is powered with our audiences and our signal and you scan a QR code, you can land directly on a product page and you can get that product, which by the way is we are location and inventory, where as a platform, you can get that product delivered to your doorstep without ever leaving your couch in under 60 minutes. And I think that kind of experience in driving not only the right reach and efficiency for the brands and agencies, but also then closing the loop for consumers without again having to leave their couch is an amazing experience. And then the third bucket, you know, outside of audiences and accelerating, you know, how we bring commerce to media is really around co branding with Instacart. And so we see a lot of value for brands when they kind of join us, if you will, alongside our own advertising in bringing those brands with us when we advertise in the social environment or in other environments. And we bring the power of our brand and the power of their brands and ultimately drive users back to our site to purchase those brands. And so those are the three areas that we're maniacally focused on continuing to drive value added for our brands and agency partners. You know, we continue to expand kind of who we work with in terms of partnerships. But at the end of the day, those are the value propositions and the way that we want to show up for brands to really drive the market forward.
- [09:45]
B
Can you tell me what makes Instacart's first party data unique versus maybe other? Don't know if I use the word platform or retailer in this sentence, but like what makes your first party data or even those signals unique?
- [09:56]
A
Yeah, so there's a few things and I love to talk about this given that I spent a lot of time in the audience space actually and you know, my edtech background. So number one, and I think the most important thing is the high fidelity of our audience. So I mentioned this earlier, but it is worth rementioning. A lot of data that is collected in other environments is often maybe from a loyalty card or from information that is maybe not as high fidelity, because I'll use myself as an example and I often ask clients and partners who are in a room, how many people signed up for your loyalty card at an address when you lived at an address that you no longer live at and you never went back and updated it. And almost 100% of people I'm guilty of it will raise their hand. And so if you think about what fuels the data for Instacart, it is highly, highly recent and accurate because of what we do for consumers. We deliver groceries, we deliver household items. And so because of that, a consumer is giving Us the real information when it comes to the things that we collect, which is, you know, addresses, is, is a key piece. So that's number one. The second piece is all about being a single point of entry for the buyer to a broad swath of retailers. I mentioned earlier about this ads ecosystem that we're building with 1800 retailers plus and we can reach, I think well over you know, 95, 90, 98% of North America from the retailers from which we deliver. And so to be a single point of entry for a media buyer, I think has never been as valuable as it is now. When you think about the retail media space, I'm going to go back to the idea of fragmentation and proliferation. Having to choose from 250 retail media networks as a media buyer is a massive, massive challenge. And understanding the differentiators is even more challenging. And so it is incumbent upon all of us on our side, on the retail media network side, is to hold ourselves accountable, to make it simple and make it stand out. And so having that singular point of entry to all of those classes of trade is really, really key because you can really think about how do I reach all these different kinds of consumers and purchase behaviors. And then the third piece about our data that I think is probably the most valuable, if I may say, although they're all I love all my children the same is that we have an incredibly incremental and unique audience relative to brick and mortar in most categories. And so we typically see that 79 to 90% of our consumers are incremental in the categories on Instacart to what, what is bought in store? What do I mean by that? So 7 out of 10 plus times or 7 to 9 plus 7 to 9 times out of 10 usually or 7, 7 to 9 times out of 10. Those consumers who are buying category A on Instacart in the same 90 day period are not buying category A in brick and mortar. And when you're a brand and you're getting pitched from all these retail media networks, you're an agency and you have to decide on behalf of a brand who to choose based on all these pitches. You want to make sure that you're not double for the same audience, right? So it is extremely important to think about how do I find those incremental households to drive household penetration without double paying or without paying for an audience here, which I'm also paying for over here. So we've seen time and time again via public case studies, we've shared and some of the work we've done with third parties that we tend to have an audience, in many cases off platform, that 90, 90% plus of that audience oftentimes cannot be reached with other first party data sets that are retail, brick and mortar based. And so our big value proposition in in that P, if you will, is all about incremental inefficient reach. And so we want to help drive cost efficiencies while driving household penetration for brands. And that's a really key pillar. And then if you tie all those three together, the one thing that we've been really leaned in is bringing closed loop measurement in a way that we think is really valuable, but also simple for brands to use and agencies to use as well in activating that in flight. So that's really the value proposition across our audiences and how we can then infuse measurement to determine the value of those set audiences while in flight.
- [13:48]
B
Now that we have an understanding of what we mean by off platform, how Instacart approaches off platform, how their data and signals are unique compared to others in the market, and how brands should overall think about the potential here I'm going to pivot us into talking about partnerships because at the end of the day, in order for ads that drive back to Instacart to surface to shoppers in places that aren't native Instacart, there need to be partnerships between Instacart and these other places, right? In the past few months we've seen Instacart partner with the trade desk, Pinterest, TikTok, etc.
- [14:18]
A
Yeah, I mean, we try to take a scalpel approach versus a spray and pray approach and be very thoughtful and methodical. But at the end of the day, it starts with brands in their demand, where do they want to invest. And that's all based on consumer attention and consumer demand. And so if we think about that as the backdrop and the backbone we want to focus on cool. Where will brands and consumers glean the most value? And then where can we then add the most value on top of that, where can we bring the incremental audiences that will be really valuable, valuable for those brands? Where can we bring the measurement solutions that will be really valuable? And so that's how we think about choosing the said platforms first and foremost. And then secondarily after that, we are going about this very differently, I would say, versus what a lot of other providers are doing. And so we believe that it is incumbent upon us as a retail media network, when we go off site, to be accountable for delivering unique and incremental outcomes, as I've already stated, in the way that we think to do that most efficiently is to put buyer simplicity at the core. What do I mean by that? So what we've announced with some of those partners and what we're doing with some of those partners that you just lived to TikTok and Pinterest and Trade Desk is the ability for a brand to buy how they buy today, the way they like to buy, when they buy, where they buy. But to add our audiences, to glean the incremental value versus saying hey, when you use our data and our measurement, you have to buy a separate campaign over here that is not in interacting with your campaign on the other side, which is self serving. And so we are embedding in the likes of the Trade Desk, for example, our product catalog of grocery selection, if you will, into the Trade Desk product catalog so that a brand can go, or agency buyer can go and build that audience self serve without us having to get involved. They can layer it onto their existing campaign with the same brand safety settings, the same reach and frequency settings, which is super important for a brand without having to create yet another campaign. And then because they're doing that, they can think about media efficiencies in a much different way. Because if you're managing reach and frequency in one campaign versus two, you could argue that there's likely going to be more wasted media in most cases. And so for us, it's all about how do we put buyer simplicity at the core. And also there's labor involved with setting up multiple campaigns. So that is not how we're thinking about it. And then the second piece to this is about how can we bring those measurement solutions into those partnerships and platforms so that we can actually help a brand optimize inflight, not just see a metric at the end of the campaign and maybe months later, later, weeks later. And we've seen this with some great partners where we are providing the tooling because again, we think it's coming upon us to be accountable to say, hey, in flight you can use in a self serve manner again the way you buy today, but turn on the measurement to see how are the results. What, what results are you yielding on our platform and how can you optimize inflight? And so that's how we think about it. We want to go where the brand demand is, where the consumer attention is, and then provide the bespoke and unique tooling so that brands can still buy the way they want to buy. In most cases, the other thing and I'll just, I'll just share this too that we want to be able to do in addition to things like self service, is be able to bring brands along with us, as I mentioned before with co branding. And that's really about driving like full funnel campaigns where you're not just doing bottom of the funnel or top of the funnel, but you're actually really leaned into doing full funnel where maybe you're advertising with us in an upper funnel way in another platform, but you are driving back to the platform with us as well to drive incremental growth. So that's, that's how we're thinking about it in terms of our partnerships.
- [17:42]
B
I'd love to dig into, bring a lot of this really to life in a very tangible way. There's a really cool case study between this is Instacart McCormick, the trade desk and Flywheel. Can you tell me a little bit about this case study?
- [17:55]
A
Yeah, I would love to and thanks for giving the opportunity to share this one. So McCormick, who's a great client of ours and I know you know Flywheel as well, and Flywheel, who's a great partner of ours in the trade desk is as well, all had a piece in this. And so basically what happened is in this use case is it was Cinco de Mayo of 2025, so this past May, and McCormick was looking to promote their dry recipe mix seasoning at a very relevant timeframe obviously for taco seasoning. And you know, was all leading up to Cinco de Mayo. And so they were doing a big push in the market to drive purchase of it and drive awareness consideration and then purchase of it. And so what they ended up doing is leveraging our first party audiences within the trade desk. And before they leveraged it, some of the things they think about is incremental reach, as I alluded to before. And so one of the things we found with them is when we worked together with our audiences and they layered it on against their other first party audiences and other audiences that they looked at, there was only 7% overlap or said differently, had they not used our audiences in that buy, they would have missed 93% of the Instacart audience. And again, going back to how do I find the little bits of household penetration that was first and foremost. So then they also enabled the ability for a consumer to click on the ad and shop now at Instacart, go right to the product page and load it in their cart and buy it. And so that was the ad experience. And on the background they actually used and activated our conversion API or our measurement tool which is in flight measurement optimization in the trade desk. And what they saw is by using in flight optimization, they saw some, some really cool results. Not only did they see things like increased roas on the SKU that was advertised or a really highly successful new to brand metrics and things like that, they also saw nearly a 25% reduction in CPMs by using the optimization. And so again, as I think about the value proposition, not only is it about reaching incremental folks, but it's also using the tooling to make your media dollars work harder and smarter by reducing those CPMs. And at the end of the campaign, they were super happy with the results so much that they were willing to do the case study because all these different metrics were able to be tapped into because of the buyer simplicity and the tooling and the unique reach that I shared before all coming together within the trade desk.
- [20:07]
B
It's like an amazing combination of like everything you could ever ask for in a case study. I'm kind of curious like as you look ahead, what trends or innovations are you most excited about in off platform retail media? And actually I hate trends. That was a stupid word to use. What, what are you most excited about in terms of your space?
- [20:24]
A
So I'm going to actually skip over AI because I feel like that gets talked about a lot. I am excited for how AI will make all of the under the hood things work more efficiently, like how buyer buys and the signals they can get. But I'm actually really excited for a couple other things too that I want to talk about, the first of which is we're going to see, I think in the retail media space going from the fragmentation that I've alluded to a couple times now to a consolidation. And this has happened before in the ad tech space. Media tech space, right. We went from, you know, traditional to digital. We went from buying from ad networks to programmatic right to consolidated buying. And so with retail media, I think for brands and agencies in particular, I'm super excited to see how we are being asked on the retail media side to be more accountable, to drive incrementality, because I do believe that's going to lead to very smart consolidation. And being that we have a unique ads ecosystem with a unique audience, I think that positions us very well, but also positions the brands really well to have more efficiencies. So that's the first piece that excites me a lot from buying mechanism and economic standpoint. On the other side, what I'm super jazzed about is the evolution of consumer behavior. So I talked a little bit about before how we're starting to see people actually take advantage of the commerce solutions that we're bringing to the media space. But it's still very nascent and early, you know, for people to be watching on the big screen a show that they love and click or get a QR code and go through that experience. That is so cool. But I think we are such early days and early innings and I think you'll see, you know, a lot more optionality for consumers now to continue to be wherever they are, doing whatever they want to do and not only spending time in the fragmented way across different media channels that they've been doing for the last several years now, but being able to just click and buy and have it be there, you know, without disrupting the consumer experience. And I think that's just going to continue to accelerate on the adoption of consumer side. And I'm super jazzed for the potential
- [22:10]
B
there for any brands that are listening, which is the majority of the audience. What's your top advice for getting started or going deeper with off platform on Instacart?
- [22:20]
A
Yeah, I would say two key pieces. Number one, be open to the fact that this is, you know, a really interesting time to take advantage of RMN data beyond what you're accustomed to. Right. So you know, we're starting to see not just commerce teams but also national media buying teams understand the value and the need to tap into first party data. But we're early days there and I think for a lot of large mid to large size CPGs in particular that can be complex because of the way budgeting happens. But I think my, my piece of advice there is like focus on the outcome and what's going to drive the best results and then let the budget owners, you know, figure out who can contribute versus everything being too siloed. And we're starting to see that happen and where that is happening, that's where those brands are moving ahead faster I think in driving results in their, in their off platform buys. So that's number one and then number two and, and I, I mean this wholeheartedly is hold us accountable in the retail media space. Make sure that you are interrogating the RMM partners if you're a brand or agency to demonstrate incremental reach, to demonstrate efficient reach, to demonstrate why it's worth using their data and paying for one network over the other. We have put accountability at the core of everything we think about an off platform. And I think every retail media network should and needs to. But we also need brands to push all of us. You know, there's a lot of RMNs out there that will say, you know, we're, we're delivering high roas and incremental efficiencies and all that. And then you look at the brand's results at the end of a quarter on a public earnings call, and there's no way that every vehicle they're using is delivering crazy amounts of positive roas. There has to be a reckoning where we are looked at as who is truly delivering incremental audiences and reach and value. And I would say continue to push us really hard on that.
- [24:01]
B
I love it. Okay, my very last question for you is this is something we ask everyone, but what is something that lives on your digital wish list and it doesn't have to be within, it could be on. I doubt it's within Instacart, but something that just lives in a cart forever and ever and you won't actually purchase it and why?
- [24:20]
A
Interesting. Well, maybe like a smart home system that I think a lot about. Like, I want fully wire my house with smart home systems. So I'm constantly looking online for that kind of stuff and loading my cart with it. And then I'm like, ah, there's too much optionality. I got to do more research.
- [24:36]
B
Yeah.
- [24:37]
A
So probably something like that for me personally, you know, I'm sure there's plenty of other options within the food space too, but really for me, it's that I love it.
- [24:44]
B
That's a good answer. It's not going to be cheap. And it's like, oh, there's so many options and each one of them does so many specific things that it's hard to compare.
- [24:53]
A
Exactly.
- [24:57]
B
And that wraps up another episode of the Commerce Collective podcast. Thank you to Adam and Instacart for the time and insights. And I've linked the mentioned case study in the episode description. If you want to learn more or are even curious about seeing what we can do for your brand, I've been your host, Emma Irwin, and we'll see you next time.