Instacart Expands Trade Desk Partnership to Enhance Targeting, Measurement
Instacart has expanded its partnership with The Trade Desk to give advertisers self-service capabilities and real-time measurement tools that tie programmatic ad spend to actual grocery purchases.
The goal is to help advertisers improve programmatic campaign performance on the open internet with retail media data.
The collaboration makes Instacart Ads the first U.S. retail media network to integrate its grocery selection with The Trade Desk platform for streamlined self-service use cases, according to a media release from Instacart.
Approved advertisers and agencies can now build first-party audience segments based on product-level data, adjust targeting mid-campaign, add pre-made segments and access real-time sales measurement signals from Instacart — all within the programmatic environment of The Trade Desk’s Kokai platform.
Advertisers already had access to pre-built, purchase-based segments from Instacart in The Trade Desk platform, covering categories such as snacks, beverages, alcohol, healthy products and beauty. The update adds flexibility for brands to create and optimize their own segments without insertion orders, while still using Kokai’s ad tools such as frequency caps, brand safety controls, data privacy compliance and direct publisher pricing.
The integration also provides closed-loop measurement, giving marketers visibility into attributed sales and return on ad spend (ROAS) across open-internet channels such as connected TV (CTV), display, video and audio. These insights are accessible within The Trade Desk platform, enabling real-time campaign adjustments based on performance.
Early Test Partners: Danone, Flywheel
Early testers of the expanded offering include Omnicom’s Flywheel and Danone. Flywheel reported more efficient campaign management and clearer media investment insights, while Danone used the tools to optimize off-site activation of Silk’s video campaign assets.
“Danone leveraged the Instacart beta with The Trade Desk to optimize Silk’s ‘Feel Planty Good’ OLV [online video] campaign assets in real time,” Jennifer Madison, senior manager, plant-based media, Danone, said in the release. “The new functionality from Instacart has made it easier to optimize Silk’s off-site retail audience-powered activation, and provide closed-loop measurement.”
“We jumped at the opportunity to test out the Conversion API between Instacart and The Trade Desk because we knew it would help answer two critical questions we get from brands regularly; is my offsite media working, and can I make it work harder?” added Drew Habeck, senior vice president, media, Flywheel.
Instacart’s Broader Retail Media Strategy
The integration is part of Instacart’s broader effort to make its retail media data accessible across the digital media ecosystem. In addition to its own marketplace and Caper Cart in-store tech, the company now partners with platforms such as Google, Meta, Roku, NBCUniversal and others.
Instacart supports more than 7,000 brands and 1,800 retail partners, positioning its data capabilities as a solution to fragmented retail media strategies.
