DoorDash names new retail media partners for its self-serve ad platform

DoorDash is expanding its self-serve advertising platform, bringing in marketing tech partners Pacvue and Flywheel, as the grocery delivery app competes with a growing cadre of rivals like Instacart.

On Monday, DoorDash made the announcement about its new ad products as part of the typical flood of marketing updates that come during Advertising Week, which is being held in New York City. A year ago, DoorDash made its first major push into advertising with self-serve ads, which gave brands the ability to manage campaigns and target offers to customers. This week’s update builds on that with the new marketing partners, Pacvue and Flywheel, which are e-commerce marketing platforms that already connect to retailers such as Walmart, Target and Amazon.

In its announcement, DoorDash touted PepsiCo as one of the first brands to integrate with its new ad tech tools. PepsiCo’s in-house ad management platform is plugging into DoorDash’s API, application programming interface, DoorDash said. APIs are software platforms marketers use to target and measure ad campaigns.

DoorDash said it has 25 million-plus monthly active users on its delivery app and that ads have generated $3 billion in incremental sales for the brands on the service, measured from July last year until June. Brands run sponsored listings in search results and other placements, as shoppers browse the app.  “Our goal is to connect every store, and brand within each store, to every local consumer,” Toby Espinosa, VP of DoorDash Ads, said in the announcement.

DoorDash’s ad tech update is one of the signs that retail media is set to be one of the core topics at Advertising Week, which runs through Thursday. For instance, Yahoo and Lowe’s One Roof Media Network announced a partnership last week, ahead of a panel discussion Wednesday at Advertising Week.

DoorDash is pitching brands on its ad platform as a way to boost customer acquisition. On average, 50% of the orders coming from ad exposure were from new customers, DoorDash said. “This was true for Clorox, who ran a recent campaign with us,” DoorDash’s announcement said, “and saw that half of the customers who ordered products from their ads campaign did so for the first time on DoorDash.”