Dive Brief:
- Instacart announced Tuesday that its more than 7,000 brand partners have access to advertising on Caper Carts, allowing them to extend a single ad campaign across Instacart’s online marketplace and in-store displays.
- In a separate Tuesday announcement, Instacart announced a tie-up with Hy-Vee’s in-house retail media network that will allow the grocer to utilize the tech company’s Carrot Ads technology solution.
- Each of these retail media initiatives expands advertisers’ capabilities on Instacart as well as allows grocers and brands to create more personalized shopping experiences for consumers.
Dive Insight:
With the Caper Cart announcement, Instacart’s ad and brand partners will have the ability to reach shoppers via the smart carts starting in April.
New and existing shoppable display campaigns will extend across the Instacart Marketplace and the carts’ digital screens with “no additional work required from brand partners,” according to Instacart. Because Caper Cart ads are “inventory- and aisle-aware,” ad campaigns will only extend to carts when shoppers are in relevant areas of the store and where items are in stock, the announcement noted.
“Brands face the complexity of navigating hundreds of retail media networks, and we want to make that easier. Now, they can create one campaign with Instacart to drive engagement and reach at scale across the Instacart Ads ecosystem,” said Ali Miller, vice president of ads product for Instacart.
The move aims to address one of the most complex problems of the retail media landscape — consolidation. By establishing a “one-stop advertising platform,” as Miller referred to it, brands can more easily tap into different retailers’ retail media networks as well as receive standardized performance and measurement data.
Instacart noted that its brand partners can expect additional ad formats to extend to Caper Carts in the coming months.
Hy-Vee was one of the first regional grocers to launch an in-house retail media network, debuting RedMedia in the back half of 2023. While RedMedia will remain in-house, the network’s partnership with Instacart will allow the grocery company to bolster its advertising capabilities and create more personalized experiences for shoppers across Hy-Vee.com, according to the announcement.
The integration will enable all of Instacart’s 7,000-plus advertising partners to extend their Instacart campaigns to Hy-Vee’s e-commerce platform through expanded ad inventory, per the announcement. In addition, Hy-Vee will have the ability to create more personalized recommendations and encourage product discovery for its customers, Instacart said.
Carrot Ads capabilities on RedMedia will become available to advertisers later this year, the announcement noted.
