Maximizing Brands’ Instacart Ads Performance with the Instacart API & Catalyst’s FUSION

Instacart experienced unprecedented growth in 2020, and its upward trajectory is continuing into 2021. In the first weeks of January alone, the platform has reported its second-highest number of weekly orders (up 270% YoY).  

How do brands tap into this continued growth to effectively and efficiently acquire customers and drive sales?

At Catalyst, we’re helping brands increase their Instacart Ads performance through a more sophisticated approach to data and analytics.

Through the Instacart Ads API and our proprietary reporting and insights tool, FUSION, we’re giving brands a more in-depth and impactful look at their Instacart performance so they can continue to drive sales and crush goals.

The Instacart API

Instacart launched their advertising platform in early 2020 and has done a good job quickly evolving their media offerings and capabilities. They’ve been eager for platform feedback and swift to act. However, as with any nascent advertising platform, there are opportunities for additional functionality. This is particularly true for Instacart’s reporting capabilities.

Currently, it can be difficult to assess the performance of large-scale marketing campaigns within the Instacart Ads UI. When reviewing trending performance, clicks, impressions, spend, CTR, and ROAS can only be viewed one metric at a time, and one campaign at a time. There is not yet an aggregate view for tracking keyword performance, requiring you to sift through each ad group in order to understand performance for specific terms.

And, while there are multiple ad types available, there is not yet a way to clearly differentiate performance, which can create confusion when analyzing ad group performance.

Fortunately, in October 2020 Instacart launched an API that enables advertisers to collect performance data, and make bulk changes to the account with ease. As an early adopter of the API, we jumped on this opportunity to ingest more data and maximize our clients’ success on the platform.

Catalyst FUSION + Instacart API = A Whole New World of Insights & Opportunity 

The Instacart API provides a treasure trove of more granular performance data, but how you visualize and analyze the data is key to unlocking its value.

Using our proprietary reporting and insights platform, FUSION, we’ve partnered with Instacart to develop a suite of measurement tools and dashboards that leverage Instacart’s API, affording our teams unparalleled views of performance and new forms of analysis.

Now not only are we tracking performance at the campaign, product, ad group, and keyword level, but we’re trailblazing new ways to assess ad type performance on the Instacart platform.

Our FUSION and Instacart API integration has also allowed us to incorporate net margins and operating revenue for each product. This enables teams to track the true ROI of our paid campaigns and generates even more efficiencies.

And let’s not forget about communication. Although the primary benefit of this integration is better reporting and strong campaign performance, it also serves an important communication function.

From C-suite executives to data analysts, our Instacart dashboards are tailored for key external stakeholders, spotlighting the data and insights most relevant to their role. Each morning the customized dashboards are populated with the latest sales figures and automatically emailed to key stakeholders to ensure visibility into the latest performance.

What’s Next?

The Instacart API has been a game-changer for Instacart Advertising optimization. And looking forward there’s even more opportunity to utilize the API to maximize results. From batch changes to rule-based bids, and from competitive monitoring and real-time optimization, we’re excited to continue to use the Instacart API to drive stronger campaign performance and better business results for brands and marketers.

More Instacart Advertising Thought-Leadership

Want to learn more about Catalyst’s approach to Instacart Advertising? Check out some of our latest Instacart thought-leadership and offerings, or drop us a line at info@catalystdigital.com

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