Marketing
01 December 2022
This Week in Retail Media: Instacart Promotions, BJ's network launches
Check out the latest marketplace advertising capabilities rolling out for brands.

Check out the latest marketplace advertising capabilities rolling out for brands.
The retail media landscape is continuing to grow, as more marketplaces stand up networks and add new advertising capabilities for brands seeking to reach consumers while they shop. This week, Instacart is adding new self-serve promotions, while BJ’s is launching the industry's newest retail media network.
Check out more details:
Instacart announced new ad capabilities that are designed to help brands offer more savings to consumers across its grocery marketplace.
Instacart Promotions will provide self-service access to all brands so that they can launch new deal structures, promotions, and incentives with their Instacart Ad campaigns. Currently available in open beta through Instacart Ads manager, this allows emerging and established brands alike to expand their offerings across the marketplace.
The result is that consumers will see more promotions, coupons and deals that are “tailored to them” across the marketplace, Instacart said. The new “savings experience” is set to appear directly on product item cards and before checkout.
Initially, Instacart Promotions will provide two structures for promotions:
Going forward, Instacart plans to add Free Gifts and Buy One, Get One structures, as well. These will help brands run "free sample" programs that help to attract new customers and serve personalized discounts to different customer segments, such as "new to brand" or "new to category."
“With the average cost of groceries going up, we're proud to unlock more ways for consumers to save money and connect with their favorite brands and retailers via Instacart," said Ali Miller, VP of ads product at Instacart, in a statement. "With the launch of our new Instacart Promotions, all of our brand partners now have the ability to set up coupons and promotions that can drive meaningful business results while also passing on more savings opportunities to consumers.”
Instacart said Athletic Brewing, General Mills, Sola Company, and Wells Enterprises (maker of Halo Top) are already pairing Instacart Promotions with ad formats such as Sponsored Product and Display.
"As we look ahead to Dry January, we're adding more coupons to our campaigns so consumers can discover our brews and save as they shop on the Instacart Marketplace," said Dermot Woods, omnichannel marketplace manager at Athletic Brewing.
This is the latest in a series of ad upgrades from Instacart this year, as the company builds out retail media capabilities that bolster its marketplace. CEO Fidji Simo said earlier this year that advertising is the fastest growing part of the business, and boasts high margins compared to grocery delivery.
In recent months, Instacart has:
Instacart Promotions. (Courtesy photo)
BJ’s Wholesale Club just became the latest grocery business to launch a retail media program. The club on Thursday announced the launch of BJ’s Media Edge, which was created with Microsoft PromoteIQ. BJ’s said it wants to provide brands and advertisers with increased capabilities to leverage first party data to reach its 6.5 million members.
“This new program builds upon our existing digital marketing offerings with a customizable solution for brand partners to influence our members at every stage of their purchase journey, all while driving measurable returns,” said Monica Schwartz, EVP and Chief Digital Officer at BJ’s Wholesale Club, in a statement.
The program offers an interface where brands can buy onsite and offsite media, reach members on BJ’s properties and target audience members to influence purchase behavior. Additional offerings include social media extensions and real-time analytics. Closed loop measurement reporting capabilities are also in development.
The record-breaking year saw 21% growth over 2021, according to Comscore.
Digital commerce crossed a key milestone in 2022, according to a new report.
The news: U.S. spend on digital commerce exceeded $1 trillion for the first time in 2022, according to a new report from media measurement firm Comscore. The record-breaking year saw 21% year-over-year growth, according to the 2023 State of Digital Commerce Report. The report measured spending across desktop and mobile devices.
Forecasts come true: This appears to confirm projections from a variety of analysts that ecommerce would reach $1 trillion in 2022.
Pull-forward sticks? The new data also adds evidence that ecommerce continues to have an upward growth trajectory, even as 2022 saw a pullback from the runaway growth of the two peak-pandemic years.
It shows there remains a chance that some of the pandemic gains may also prove to be sticky. Digital commerce was at $705.4 billion during the pandemic’s first year of 2020. A year later, it reached $904.3 billion. Now, it crossed the trillion-dollar mark.
“That level of growth previously took four years to achieve. Consumers are clearly doubling down on what works best for them--seamless, convenient, online purchasing across many different verticals and product types,” said Comscore’s Ian Essling, senior director of survey insights at Comscore, in a statement.
Mobile rising: Mobile phones are continuing to drive growth of digital commerce. During the key holiday period of Q4, dollars spent on mobile devices grew 26%, while desktop grew 14%. Now, mobile’s share of commerce is mobile’s share of total digital commerce is approaching 40%.
More key stats: