DoorDash, Pinterest launch new commerce-focused ad tools

DoorDash debuts self-serve tools

DoorDash is primarily known for food delivery, but it has since expanded into delivering goods from other retailers, ranging from groceries to convenience items and even office supplies. It’s a full-blown marketplace that connects more than 25 million monthly active customers to a network of more than 75,000 convenience, grocery and retail stores. As brands and retailers seek to stand out within the app, the company is rolling out more advertising offerings, joining a number of marketplaces building up retail media networks within their apps. Increasingly, these ad offerings are drawing investment from brands seeking to boost the products that are sold from stores through the app.

“We work with all of the top 10 CPG manufacturers in the US, and in just one year, we’ve generated more than $3B in sales for merchants through ads and promotions,” DoorDash said in a news release, citing July 2021-June 2022 figures.

On Monday, the company rolled out new tools for CPG brands that advertise through DoorDash:

DoorDash Ads Manager is a tool that allows brands to activate, manage and measure Sponsored Product Ads. These ads describe product placements displayed by brands within the grocery and convenience marketplace, with preference for prominent locations within the app.

New ad types allow brands to reach consumers on additional surfaces within the app. These include Collections Ads which display products on specifc aisles, Categories Ads that display at the top of category results like snacks or drinks, and Search Ads that appear at the top of search results.

Third-party partnerships will allow brands to access ads through the Pacvue software platform, and the digital commerce agency Flywheel.

An API integration will allow brands to build on DoorDash’s API and manage within their own platforms.

Self-serve sponsored listings are expanding to more countries, with Canada and Australia gaining access. These ads allow small businesses to increase visibility on the platform.

The move comes as delivery marketplaces are bolstering their advertising offerings. To name a few recent developments: Grocery-focused Instacart has been bolstering its offerings, including the addition of shoppable Carts, recipes and ads. Convenience item service Gopuff bolstered offsite advertising capabilities and alcohol delivery platform Drizly launched its own retail media network. This space is evolving fast as platforms recognize the opportunity to harness data and grow revenue that is higher-margin than delivery.

Pinterest’s trends and measure tools

Pinterest is continuing a push into ecommerce, as the visual platform seeks to harness the high intent, inspiration-minded behavior of its users for shopping.

On Monday, it rolled out a pair of new tools for advertisers:

The Pinterest Trends tool will expand from the US, UK and Canada to 30 more countries. This tool is designed to offer insights on when top search teams will reach their peak. Trends can be broken down into trends among their followers in the last 90 days, demographic trends such as age and place, as well as seasonal trends. In turn, this can be used to align creative, targeting, merchandising, content and sales calendars, Pinterest said.

Pinterest API for Conversions is a new tool that allows advertisers to connect their data to Pinterest, and measure targeting and performance. It comes after Apple's 2021 App Tracking Transparency update, which made attribution more difficult to measure among iPhone users. Pinterest said the tool is a “tagless, server-to-server solution” that offers continuous visibility, while allowing for optimization on Pinterest campaigns. A direct integration that requires developer resources is immediately available, and third-party integrations with Shopify and Google Tag Manager will be available in the coming weeks.

As Pinterest looked to gauge the tool’s impact on performance and reliability, the API for Conversions has already been used by hundreds of brands. Pinterest said the most frequent use case is lower funnel actions, like checkouts. Some have also used it for full funnel actions, such as add to cart and page visits. Pairing it with Pinterest Tags, brands seek to increase metrics including cost per action and attributed conversion volume.

"Pinterest is uniquely positioned at the intersection of discovery and commerce, where inspiration meets intent,” said Pinterest Chief Revenue Officer Bill Watkins. “We are investing across our advertising platform to help businesses around the world reach their goals and connect with leaned in consumers at every stage of the campaign lifecycle."