Definitive Guide to Instacart's Featured Products Ads

Since the pandemic began, few categories have benefited more than online grocery delivery - with the leader being Instacart.

Earlier this year, Instacart launched their self serve advertising platform, enabling brands to take advantage of this influx in consumer demand.

In this definitive guide, we walk you through how to setup, manage and optimize your Instacart ads.

Brief outline to this guide:

1. About Instacart Ads: Inventory and Ad Types

2. Campaign Structure

3. Bidding Options

4. Keyword Strategies

5. Geography, Regions and Stores

6. Measurement and Reporting

Part 1. Everything you need to know about Instacart Ads

If you advertise on Amazon or Walmart, you're already familiar with the structure of Instacart ads.

Self-Serve Featured Products: Search and Non-Search Placements

Although Instacart offers a few advertising options, the only current self-serve option is their "Featured Product" ads. Featured Products display with a "Featured" banner on them, similar to a Sponsored Product ad on Amazon. There is no custom copy for these ads at this point in time.

There are 2 main classifications for where these ads can appear, Search and Non-Search.

Search

Featured ads will appear within search results, both before the organic results for that search term, and also within the results as the shopper scrolls down the page.

Non-Search

Non-Search ads can appear in many places across the platform. Anytime a customer is viewing products but has not entered a Search term they can be exposed to Non-Search ads.

There are four placements where non-search ads will appear: department, item details, your items, home page. Examples with screenshots are included below.

1. Department (also sometimes referred to as "Aisles").

2. Item Details

3. Your Items

Once a shopper has purchased an item on Instacart, that item will be placed in their "Your Items" aisle on Instacart. By a customer's 10th order on Instacart, 25% of conversions are from the "Your Items" aisle, so Featured ads here can increase your chance for repurchase.

4. Home Page

Similar to selecting an Aisle/Department, Featured ads will appear among the organic results on the home page of a retailer as "You may like"