TNOMADS / Services / Retail Media

Retail Media

Instacart — where shoppers
are ready to buy.

The highest-intent grocery advertising platform. More than 2,200 retail banners, nearly 100,000 stores, and closed-loop measurement from search to purchase.

What is Instacart advertising?

Instacart advertising lets CPG brands promote products across Instacart's grocery marketplace, which spans more than 2,200 retail banners and nearly 100,000 stores. Campaigns target logged-in shoppers using deterministic purchase data, with sales measured in a closed loop — a single campaign can reach shoppers across many retailers at once.

Formats: Sponsored Product, Display, VideoPricing: CPC and CPMData: Deterministic, logged-inReach: 2,200+ banners

What is Instacart Advertising?

The highest-intent grocery advertising platform.

Instacart is a grocery technology platform that partners with more than 2,200 retail banners representing nearly 100,000 stores across North America.[2] It reported $1.065 billion in advertising and other revenue for full-year 2025, crossing the billion-dollar mark for the first time, and grew that line 16% year over year in Q1 2026.[1] For CPG grocery brands with distribution beyond a single chain, it is now a primary performance channel rather than a test budget.

What makes Instacart advertising distinctive is its purchase intent signal. Shoppers on Instacart are not browsing — they are actively building a grocery basket, and the platform knows what they have actually bought before rather than inferring it. Agency and vendor analyses consistently report stronger grocery ROAS on Instacart than on comparable platforms, though those figures come from third-party studies rather than Instacart disclosures and should be treated as directional rather than as a benchmark to plan against.

In 2026, Instacart expanded its Ads Manager platform to retail partners — allowing grocery retailers to activate campaigns directly — while off-platform advertising via YouTube, TikTok, Pinterest, and The Trade Desk transforms Instacart from a single-channel network into a full omnichannel retail media ecosystem.

01

Sponsored Products

Keyword and item-targeted placements in Instacart search results and browse. The core performance format — reaches shoppers with active purchase intent at the moment of search.

02

Display & Shoppable Video

Contextual display across the Instacart storefront, plus shoppable video that drives brand storytelling directly within the shopping experience. New "Out-of-Aisle Impressions %" metric (August 2025) measures discovery reach.

03

Carrot Ads (Off-Platform)

Instacart's off-platform ad network activates first-party purchase data across YouTube, TikTok, Pinterest, and The Trade Desk — with closed-loop measurement back to confirmed purchases.

04

Digital Coupons & Promotions

Brand coupons appear directly on item tiles throughout the storefront. Basket-level promotions and curated shopping moment participation drive trial and repeat purchase.

Why Instacart works for CPG

Deterministic data, closed-loop results.

DATA

First-Party Purchase Signals

Every Instacart shopper is logged in and authenticated. This means targeting is deterministic — not modelled. You can reach actual purchasers of competitor brands, lapsed buyers, NTB prospects, and high-frequency category shoppers with precision unavailable on any other grocery-focused platform.

DeterministicLogged-InPurchase History
MEASUREMENT

Closed-Loop Attribution

Instacart closes the loop between ad exposure and confirmed cart addition or purchase — in real time. Sales lift studies, NTB rate tracking, and incremental ROAS measurement are available directly in the Ads Manager without needing a third-party measurement provider.

Sales LiftNTB RateiROASReal-Time
SCALE

Omnichannel Retail Network

Instacart's 2,200+ retail banner relationships mean a campaign on Instacart reaches shoppers at Kroger, Costco, Aldi, Sprouts, Publix, and dozens of other banners simultaneously — with unified reporting and consistent audience targeting across all of them.

KrogerCostcoSproutsMulti-Banner
$1.065BInstacart advertising and other revenue in full-year 2025, crossing $1 billion for the first time [1]
2,200+retail banners representing nearly 100,000 stores reachable through Instacart [2]
+16%year-over-year growth in advertising and other revenue in Q1 2026, reaching $286M [1]
May 2026Instacart expanded Ads Manager so retailers, not just CPG brands, can run self-serve campaigns [1]

The TNOMADS approach

Instacart rewards keyword precision and category timing.

🥦

Category-first keyword strategy

Grocery shoppers search differently than Amazon shoppers. We build keyword frameworks specific to how people search for food, beverage, and household products — including recipe-based, occasion-based, and ingredient-based queries.

📅

Promotional window management

Instacart performance spikes around promotions. We manage bid adjustments and budget pacing around TPR windows, key seasons, and curated high-traffic shopping moments for maximum efficiency.

🔄

Multi-retailer orchestration

We manage Instacart alongside Kroger KPM, Walmart Connect, and Thrive Market — ensuring consistent messaging, non-overlapping audiences, and consolidated reporting across all grocery retail media.

The vocabulary

What are the components of an Instacart advertising programme?

Sponsored Product
Keyword and category-targeted product placements in Instacart search and browse. The core format, bought on CPC, and where most spend and most learning sits.
Display
Banner and shoppable display placements across the Instacart experience, used for brand presence, new product introduction and category disruption rather than pure demand capture.
Shoppable video
Video creative with direct add-to-cart functionality. Suited to products that need explanation, recipe context or usage inspiration before a shopper will try them.
Deterministic data
Instacart targeting is built on actual logged-in purchase behaviour rather than modelled or inferred segments. This is the platform's structural advantage over open-web targeting for grocery.
Carrot Ads
Instacart's white-label advertising technology, letting individual retailers run their own retail media networks on Instacart's infrastructure.
Caper Carts
Instacart's smart shopping carts, extending the platform into physical stores and creating in-aisle advertising and measurement surfaces.
Off-platform activation
Instacart audiences activated on external platforms including social and programmatic channels, with measurement returning to Instacart purchase outcomes.
New-to-brand (NTB)
Purchasers who have not bought your brand within Instacart's lookback window. That window is shorter than Amazon's or Walmart's, so Instacart NTB rates are not comparable across networks.
Basket building
The behaviour that defines the platform. Shoppers assemble a weekly basket rather than making a single-item purchase, which changes how substitution, adjacency and category timing work.
Retailer coverage
Which banners actually stock your product. Advertising into banners without distribution wastes spend, so coverage mapping is a prerequisite rather than an optimisation.

Comparisons

How does this compare to the alternatives?

Instacart vs Amazon for grocery CPG

Both sell groceries. The shopper mindset and the measurement are meaningfully different.

InstacartAmazon
Shopper behaviourWeekly basket assembly across a full grocery listIndividual product search, often replenishment or discovery
Retailer breadth2,200+ banners in a single campaignAmazon's own marketplace and Fresh
DataDeterministic logged-in grocery purchase behaviourDeterministic Amazon purchase and browsing behaviour
Platform maturityImproving fast; reporting less granular than AmazonDeep tooling, APIs and clean room access
Physical extensionCaper Carts and in-store surfacesLimited physical retail footprint
When to use whichFor grocery and household categories with broad retail distribution, Instacart reaches shoppers Amazon cannot — people buying from their local supermarket rather than from Amazon. For brands whose category is genuinely Amazon-first, Instacart is a smaller complement rather than a replacement.

Instacart vs Walmart Connect

Multi-retailer breadth versus single-retailer depth.

InstacartWalmart Connect
Reach modelMany retailers through one platformOne retailer at very large scale
Best forBasket penetration across regional and national grocersShare growth within Walmart specifically
In-storeCaper Carts across partner retailersWalmart's own in-store digital estate
AttributionClosed loop to Instacart purchasesOnline and in-store Walmart purchases
When to use whichThese are complements, not alternatives. Walmart gives you depth in the single largest US grocery retailer; Instacart gives you presence across the rest of the market in one buy. Brands with distribution beyond Walmart that only advertise on Walmart are leaving most of their footprint unsupported.

Sponsored Product vs Display on Instacart

Two formats that fail when they are judged by the same metric.

Sponsored ProductDisplay
JobCapture in-basket search and browse demandCreate awareness and disrupt category habit
PricingCPCTypically CPM
Right KPIROAS and same-SKU returnNew-to-brand rate, reach, category penetration
Typical mistakeBidding on terms where you have no retailer coverageBeing cut for low ROAS when acquisition was the objective
When to use whichSponsored Product should carry efficiency; display should be judged on whether it brought in shoppers who had never bought the brand. Holding both to a single blended ROAS target reliably kills the acquisition half of the programme.

Real results

What does this work look like in practice?

Industry · Consumer Packaged Goods

Improving performance through audience optimisation

2.0ROAS maintained while reallocating
↑Budget allocation improved
↑Investment shifted to higher-performing audiences

Challenge

Behavioural audiences competed for budget, reducing overall campaign efficiency.

Our approach

  • Analysed audience performance
  • Reallocated spend towards higher-performing behavioural segments
  • Launched dedicated product growth campaigns
  • Refined keyword strategy

Results

  • Maintained approximately 2.0 ROAS
  • Improved budget allocation
  • Increased investment in higher-performing audiences

Business impact

Campaign performance improved through smarter budget distribution rather than aggressive bid increases.

Case studies are presented by industry rather than by client name. Figures are drawn from live account analysis. Engagements marked prior agency engagement were delivered by Ana Perez Ibarz in a previous agency role; the work and results are hers, the client relationships were the agency's. TNOMADS does not identify clients or publish client performance data without written consent.

Frequently asked questions

Common questions, answered directly.

Instacart advertising lets brands promote products across Instacart's grocery marketplace using formats including Sponsored Product, display and shoppable video. Targeting uses deterministic logged-in purchase data, and results are measured in a closed loop against actual purchases.
Instacart reported advertising and other revenue of $1.065 billion for full-year 2025, crossing $1 billion for the first time, and $286 million in Q1 2026, up 16% year over year. [1]
Instacart partners with more than 2,200 retail banners representing nearly 100,000 stores, so a single campaign can reach shoppers across many retailers simultaneously. [2]
Brands selling products that go into a grocery, household, pet, beauty or health basket, with distribution across multiple retailers. It is strongest for brands whose retail footprint extends well beyond a single chain.
Brands with thin or inconsistent retailer coverage, unstable stock, or products that do not fit a basket-building context. Advertising into banners that do not stock your product is the most avoidable waste on the platform.
Sponsored Product is bought on CPC through auction; display is typically CPM. There is no published fixed rate. Entry budgets are lower than Amazon in most categories, but the useful floor is set by how much data your campaigns need to optimise.
Sponsored Product placements in search and browse, on-platform display, shoppable video, off-platform audience activation, and in-store surfaces through Caper Carts.
Reported grocery ROAS on Instacart is widely quoted as favourable relative to other networks, but the figures circulating publicly come from agency and vendor analyses rather than Instacart's own disclosures. Treat them as directional. Set targets from your margin and compare your account against its own trend.
Through keywords, categories and audience segments built on deterministic logged-in purchase behaviour. Because Instacart knows what shoppers actually bought rather than inferring it, targeting precision for grocery is structurally strong.
Revenue from shoppers who have not purchased your brand within Instacart's lookback window. That window is shorter than Amazon's or Walmart's, which means Instacart NTB rates will look different and should not be benchmarked across platforms.
Instacart's white-label advertising technology, allowing individual retailers to operate their own retail media networks using Instacart's infrastructure. For brands it means more places to buy the same shopper, which makes coordinated planning more important.
Instacart's smart shopping carts, which extend the platform into physical stores and create in-aisle advertising and measurement surfaces. They connect online shopper data to in-store behaviour in a way most retail media networks cannot.
You can target category and competitor-adjacent search terms and use audience segments built on category purchase behaviour. Conquest activity typically costs more and converts less well than defending your own terms, so it needs a defined acquisition budget rather than being funded from efficiency budget.
Different shopper mindsets. Instacart shoppers are assembling a weekly basket from their local supermarket; Amazon shoppers are usually searching for a specific product. For brands with broad grocery distribution, Instacart reaches people Amazon simply does not.
Usually yes. Walmart gives depth within the largest single US grocer; Instacart gives breadth across the rest of the market. Brands with distribution beyond Walmart that only advertise on Walmart leave most of their footprint unsupported.
Map which banners actually stock each product before launching, and structure campaigns so spend does not flow toward geographies or banners without distribution. This is one of the highest-value pieces of set-up work and one of the most commonly skipped.
Sponsored Product campaigns generally need four to six weeks to produce enough data for confident optimisation. Display and acquisition-focused activity needs longer, because its effect appears as basket penetration and repeat purchase rather than immediate return.
Considerably. Grocery demand is strongly seasonal and event-driven, and category timing has a larger effect on Instacart performance than on general merchandise platforms. Planning around known category peaks usually outperforms always-on flat budgeting.
Yes. Instacart supports activating its audiences on external platforms, with measurement returning to Instacart purchase outcomes. This extends reach while retaining closed-loop measurement, which is unusual among retail media networks.
Campaign, keyword and product-level performance including new-to-brand metrics. Reporting is less granular than Amazon's and there is no clean room equivalent to AMC, so cross-channel analysis has to be assembled rather than queried.
It can be, particularly for emerging brands in crowded grocery categories where Amazon auctions are prohibitively expensive. The prerequisite is distribution — without retailer coverage, no amount of media budget will help.
It is the multi-retailer grocery layer, sitting alongside Walmart Connect, Kroger and DoorDash, and beneath the Amazon line for most CPG brands. See retail media strategy for how the split should be made.

Why TNOMADS

Why run Instacart with TNOMADS?

11+retail media platforms managed, including Instacart at scale
Multiretailer coordination across Instacart, Kroger, Walmart and DoorDash
NTBacquisition measured separately from harvesting, by default
1:1direct access to the consultant running the account

About the author

Who wrote this page?

Ana Perez Ibarz

Senior Retail Media Consultant

Amazon AdsAmazon DSPAmazon Marketing Cloud Walmart ConnectInstacartRetail Media Strategy

Last reviewed 16 August 2026

Ana Perez Ibarz is the founder of TNOMADS Consulting and has spent 13+ years in retail media and performance marketing. She manages live campaign operations across Amazon Ads (Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Display, DSP and Amazon Marketing Cloud), Walmart Connect, Instacart, Kroger Precision Marketing, Target Roundel, Loblaws Advance, DoorDash, Criteo, Google Ads and Meta.

On Instacart, Ana manages live multi-retailer campaign programmes for food and beverage brands, coordinating Instacart alongside Kroger, Albertsons, Whole Foods, Walmart and DoorDash. That includes keyword launch structures by product line, new-to-brand ROAS frameworks and keyword tier analysis tied to distinct objectives.

She works as a subcontracted specialist for agencies as well as directly with brands, and writes on retail media measurement, incrementality and commerce media architecture. Based in Granada, Spain; operating across North America and Europe.

More about Ana and TNOMADS →

Sources

Where do these figures come from?

A note on these sourcesGrocery ROAS figures circulating for Instacart come from agency and vendor analyses rather than from Instacart's own disclosures, and should be treated as directional rather than as a benchmark to plan against. The scale figures on this page are taken from Instacart's investor relations reporting. New-to-brand lookback windows differ between Instacart, Amazon and Walmart, so NTB rates are not comparable across the three.

Related services

What should you read next?

Walmart Connect

Single-retailer depth to complement Instacart's multi-retailer breadth.

Retail Media Strategy

How grocery budget should be split across Instacart, Walmart, Kroger and Amazon.

Amazon PPC

The comparison point most grocery brands benchmark against.

Incrementality

Whether closed-loop attributed grocery sales are genuinely incremental.

Retail Media Audit

Coverage mapping, wasted spend and structure review across retailer platforms.

Google Ads

Upper-funnel demand that feeds grocery basket decisions.

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