New Circana Case Studies Underscore Instacart’s Incremental Sales

Instacart’s consumer base is complementary to brick-and-mortar as Circana studies found that 75% and 90% of Instacart buyers for studied CPG brands only purchased the studied brands on Instacart and not in-store 

Over the last decade, Instacart has built industry-leading retail enablement technologies, and an advertising platform, that have helped grow the entire grocery industry and empower our partners. Today, we partner with more than 1,500 retailer banners and 5,500 consumer packaged goods (CPG) brands to drive growth and help them reach their objectives. At the same time, we’re helping our partners navigate consumer shopping behaviors online and in-store.

It’s no secret that people grocery shop in different ways for different occasions – sometimes online, sometimes in-store, and sometimes a mix of both. CPG brands need to understand these omnichannel shopping behaviors to create advertising strategies that resonate and deliver strong campaign results. 

We are proud that today Instacart Ads drive high incrementality for our advertisers, who on average, see more than a 15% incremental sales lift – and sometimes twice that.* But we also understand that it’s important for CPGs to understand the incrementality of their audiences across online and in-store performance.

Our first omnichannel sales studies showed that a majority of purchasers on Instacart are not buying those same brands in-store during our analysis time frame. This means that Instacart audiences are highly incremental for brands and complement, rather than cannibalize, in-store sales. 

Circana & Instacart Case Studies

Circana and Instacart collaborated to analyze the nuances of consumer behavior across online and brick-and-mortar shopping. Our objective? To examine whether there’s an overlap between online and in-store sales and whether online purchases truly came from incremental audiences in the analysis time frame. 

Beverage & Snack Brand Study**

We examined the impact of Instacart sales for beverage and snack brands of a CPG company. Circana found that 75% of people who purchased the beverage and snack brands on Instacart did not buy the same brands in-store during the analysis time frame. These consumers shopping in that particular time frame added incremental sales to the CPG’s in-store purchases. We also found that those who purchased the studied brands on Instacart and in-store had a 12% higher in-store purchase amount on the brands per household vs. in-store-only purchasers. This indicates how engaged and valuable omnichannel consumers can be. 

Pasta Sauce Brand Study***

We also explored the performance of pasta sauce brands of a CPG company on Instacart. This study found that 90% of people who purchased the pasta sauce brands on Instacart did not buy the same brands in-store during the analysis time frame and were incremental to the CPG’s in-store buyers. 

These results further demonstrate the incremental value of Instacart — alongside today’s measurement capabilities like A/B testing, incrementality measurement, and more. Through our results with Circana, we’re looking forward to providing CPG brands with even more actionable insights to help them better measure and shape their omnichannel strategies.

These studies are part of our broader efforts to provide additional third-party measurement and validation to help CPG brands make data-driven decisions. Last month, we announced our first advertising accreditation from the Media Rating Council (MRC). Separately, we’re also partnering with third-party verification leaders DoubleVerify (DV) and Integral Ad Science (IAS) on technical integrations for viewability and invalid traffic (IVT) measurement, increasing transparency and confidence that Instacart Ads are being seen by real people. 

For more information, about Instacart Ads and our measurement capabilities, please visit: https://www.instacart.com/company/instacart-ads/ 

*Based on internal tests run across all brand partners using our Sponsored Product ads offering in the year ending December 31, 2023 and individual tests run for select brands or types of brands. There can be no assurance that the outcomes for these tests can be maintained or replicated due to a variety of factors, some of which may not be within Instacart’s control or cannot be anticipated.

**Circana, Shopper Analysis, August 2023

***Circana, Shopper Analysis February 2024, based on Instacart buyer cohort

Instacart

Instacart is the leading grocery technology company in North America, partnering with more than 1,400 national, regional, and local retail banners to deliver from more than 80,000 stores across more than 14,000 cities in North America. To read more Instacart posts, you can browse the company blog or search by keyword using the search bar at the top of the page.