If you can’t tell, we are big fans of Instacart and Instacart’s Advertising Tools. We work with brands that need to prove velocity at retail, and this has been the vehicle to make it happen. In the summer we wrote an article called “Instacart is doing everything right for Advertisers” that you can read here.

Basically we were praising Instacart’s ability to take all the best parts of Amazon advertising and apply it to their own platform. This summer they introduced the following features:

• Automatic Campaigns: (an algorithm centric campaign mining relevant prospective keywords)
• Display Ads: (self explanatory)
• Product Image Library: (the direct ability to adjust the imagery and description of your SKUs)
• Brand Pages: (almost an exact version of Amazon’s Storefront)

In the short span of a few months Instacart rolled out the following this past quarter and going into Q1:

Promotions & Discounts:

This is one we at GF&B were impatiently waiting on. All emerging brands now have the ability to promote “stock up and save” + coupon offers.

I envision leveraging this tool in the following situations:

• Creating an easier barrier to entry for prospective consumers, during peak seasons.
  • EXP:  In the next month or so during “Better for you season” (read our article here), high volume consumers will be searching for broad keywords such as “Keto diet”, “healthy snacks”, etc. They are undecided consumers with no commitment to a brand. Give them the incentive to try your product.
• Prove Instant Velocity in new retailers.
  • As I mentioned above, discounts = more fringe/price conscious consumers willing to try new products. Launching in a new retailer? Run a slight promotion or discount to instantly get products in prospective consumers’ carts.
• Help move products with old packaging.
  • Have a SKU getting a packaging facelift? Want to assure all the old product is out the door? Discount it and move it at a faster rate.

Shoppable Video Ads:

This is a straightforward one. Emerging brands now have the ability to leverage the Video ad unit to drive either to a specific SKU listing OR the brand page.

It’s a tremendous opportunity to show off recipes and real people consuming their products in everyday situations.

Unlike the trends of other platforms, we recommend more professional/HQ video vs. something User Generated or that gives that UGC feel.

% of Sales from New Customers:

This is one of our favorite features of Shopify that we can now leverage in Instacart. While we want to assure we are showing up (with branded terms) when consumers are searching directly for our brands, our value really comes from introducing, engaging and converting prospective consumers.

The new % of Sales from New Customers metric is now our 2nd to 3rd most important metric since they rolled the option into our accounts next to sales and ROAS.

Conclusion:

This is a platform that is adapting for the better of advertisers AND consumers constantly. 

Again. The point of these articles are to inspire brands of ALL SIZES to start leveraging this platform to drive higher velocity in-store sales. We personally have an efficient service fee for Instacart advertising. Take advantage of the heightened buying behavior during “Better For You” season.

If you are interested in discussing further email info@gawronskimedia.com OR fill out a form on this page.