DoorDash’s new partnerships help brands unlock personalization, full-funnel campaigns

DoorDash aims to transform how brands connect with customers through two new partnerships intended to make ads more relevant and shopping more personalized.

By teaming up with The Trade Desk, DoorDash says it helps advertisers reach the right audiences and track their campaigns. Meanwhile, it says its partnership with Ibotta adds personalized deals and discounts, making delivery more affordable and tailored to customers’ needs.

The full funnel: DoorDash has teamed up with The Trade Desk in an effort to help advertisers deliver more relevant campaigns across display, mobile, streaming audio, and connected TV (CTV), as well as achieve closed-loop measurement.

“Our advertisers, both consumer packaged goods (CPG) brands and restaurants, can utilize our data, find display or other Trade Desk inventory across the wider web, and then bring it back to DoorDash in a closed-loop fashion, so they can actually track attribution,” said Toby Espinosa, vice president of DoorDash Ads.

Combining precision targeting with ad inventory across on- and off-site properties enables advertisers to reach specific audiences at specific touchpoints across the customer journey.

• “Maybe for restaurants, it’s all about the app because consumers open it when they’re hungry,” said Espinosa. “But for Lowe’s, they might be interested in mid- or upper-funnel tactics on Pinterest. For larger CPGs with brand recognition, Google may be the way to go.”
• However, restaurants shouldn’t discount upper-funnel channels like social because of how powerful word-of-mouth can be.
• For example, Lafayette, a New York City restaurant, went viral on TikTok and attracted lines around the block for a year, according to Espinosa.

Getting personal: DoorDash’s multiyear deal with rewards platform Ibotta will enable CPG brands to provide consumers with tailored promotions and coupons across grocery, health and beauty, home improvement, alcohol, and other categories.

• DoorDash will grow its US grocery sales 22.9% this year, reaching $8.26 billion, accounting for 13.5% of grocery delivery intermediary sales, according to our October 2024 forecast.
• This places DoorDash second behind Instacart, which will rake in $35.35 billion, or 57.7% of US grocery delivery intermediary sales this year.
• However, DoorDash remains king of restaurant delivery intermediary sales, with sales growing 11.9% this year to reach $64.10 billion, over half (56.1%) of total restaurant delivery intermediary sales in the US.

“Delivery has historically been a more expensive way to shop for groceries,” said Espinosa. “And this is one of the ways we can make it more accessible to our customers.”

• The Ibotta partnership also enables CPG brands to provide a more personalized experience to customers, which is core to the DoorDash platform.
• “Personalization is key to how we address consumers,” said Espinosa. “When you open the app, most of what you see is personalized. This is another evolution of that, adding information about the discount depth and customer savings.”

DoorDash’s goal is to make the ordering and delivery experience “faster, better, and cheaper,” said Espinosa, with the Ibotta partnership fitting squarely into that third category.

• To make delivery faster, DoorDash offers a 30-minute or less delivery option from select retailers, including the company’s own DashMart convenience stores.
• Plus, offering delivery from local, mid-market, and national retailers gives customers a “better” selection of goods, said Espinosa.
• “Diversifying where our products come from is really important” to that strategy, he said.

This was originally featured in the Retail Daily newsletter. For more retail insights, statistics, and trends, subscribe here.