The Single Most Effective Way to Drive Sales of Your Products on Instacart

In this article we look at some fresh data on the effectiveness of paid search advertising on the Instacart Marketplace, including some specific data on how products in the top 3 placements perform compared to both organic search and other placements in the search results page.

Featured Product is one of our most popular ad products. With it, advertisers can bid to target relevant consumers, based on the search terms they enter while on the Instacart marketplace.

This has the benefit of putting ads for products in front of targeted consumers who, based on their searches, are looking for those products, right at the point of purchase. Consumers are increasingly engaging with these placements. Take the end of 2020 as an example — we had the same number of paid clicks on one day in the fourth quarter as we did in all of 2019.

The Importance of Staying On
While the dramatic increase in paid clicks means a greater opportunity for advertisers — more clicks on ads means a greater number of opportunities to convert to sales — it also means the rate at which ad campaigns utilize their budgets has increased, since we use a cost-per-click (CPC) model.

Ensuring campaigns aren’t missing out on impressions because their budgets are running out, or don’t have a high enough daily target, becomes vital. Advertisers can go to ads.instacart.com to find out if their campaigns are missing out on any impressions.

If campaigns ‘go dark’ — meaning they miss out on some impressions because of budget constraints — their ads fall out of the best placements, making it much less likely for consumers to click on them. This reduces the chance of winning future auctions — even after the budget has been restored — and can negatively impact your ad performance for an extended period of time.

The Importance of Priority Placements
To maximize the business impact and media performance, ads need to win auctions for one of the top 3 paid search ad placements. That requires strong bids and ample budgets.

But why the focus on the top 3 paid search ad placements?

• Ads in the top 3 placements of paid search on Instacart generate 90% of clicks on all paid placement in search results. They also account for nearly 40% of all clicks on the results, including clicks on organic search results.
• Click through rate (CTR) is ~20% higher for the top 3 placements of paid search compared to the next top 3 slots of organic search results, and 550% higher than the next 3 paid search placements.

Put simply, being in these ad slots is the single most effective way to drive sales of your products.

Are you already advertising on the Instacart Marketplace and want to ensure your ads have the best chance of winning one of the coveted top 3 placements? Make sure to follow these suggested tips —

Advertise with us to get in front of consumers when they’re searching for products like yours on the Instacart Marketplace. For more information and to get started, visit ads.instacart.com.

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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.