DoorDash Ads for CPG brands, from catalog to cart

DoorDash Advertising Agency: Expert DoorDash Ads Management

RMIQ manages DoorDash Sponsored Products bids and checks catalog mapping and local availability first, so your budget goes to items nearby stores carry and keep in stock.

DoorDash Ads is DoorDash's advertising business, where CPG brands bid per click to show Sponsored Products in search, category and store pages of retailers on the DoorDash app. Brands can add Sponsored Brands, managed homepage and banner ads, deals and offsite ads. Self-serve attribution counts the first order within 14 days of a click.

RMIQ, a DoorDash media agency, manages DoorDash advertising for CPG brands in each brand's own Brand Center account, DoorDash's self-serve tool for ads and catalog, starting with which items each store can sell.

Book a demo See when an ad can serve

Orderable or not

Mapped, stocked, nearby: when a DoorDash product ad can serve

DoorDash is "a marketplace of retailers," so a Sponsored Products ad depends on how the item is linked and stocked at each store. A product must be "correctly linked to a retailer listing and available through that retailer" to be eligible for ads, and three conditions decide where it can show.

  1. Linked to a retailer listing in the catalog

    Fixed by brand or retailer

    An item must exist in DoorDash's catalog, sit under the correct brand and be linked to the matching item at one or more retailers; unlinked items cannot be selected at campaign setup.

    • A retailer may leave the item out of the catalog data it sends DoorDash, or send too little data to link it; the brand then confirms with the retailer and sends GTINs or UPCs to its account executive.

  2. Carried at the retailers the campaign targets

    Set in Retailer Targeting (US)

    In Retailer Targeting, the campaign setting that picks the retailers an ad runs at, DoorDash asks advertisers to confirm that each one carries the product: ads "will not serve for products that aren't carried at the retailers you've selected."

  3. In stock at that store when the shopper browses

    Decided by the store's shelf

    DoorDash "only surfaces in-stock items at a given retailer location," so it advises advertising enough products to cover "in-store distribution variances and out-of-stocks."

    • Inventory Insights in Brand Center show out-of-stock trends by product, retailer and store, for eligible US brands.
    • When an item is unavailable, nearly 12% of shoppers choose a competing brand and more than 40% request a refund (US CPG brands, January to June 2026).

DoorDash's own summary: "Strong advertising cannot resolve an out of stock item."

Past the takeout tab

DoorDash Ads beyond takeout: grocery, convenience and retail orders

  • 56M+ Monthly active users, global December 2025; DoorDash 10-K, filed February 18, 2026.
  • 75% US grocery and retail orders placed by DashPass members DashPass is DoorDash's membership program. About 75% in Q2 2026, reported August 5, 2026.
  • 200K+ Retail and grocery stores, global December 2025, published September 11, 2026.
  • 400K+ Advertisers, global Reported June 4, 2026.

From global search to DoubleDash

Sponsored Products and the other DoorDash Ads formats open to CPG brands

Brands get two self-serve formats, three managed ones and offsite ads.

  • Sponsored Products

    • Bought: Self-serve, in Brand Center or an API partner's tool
    • Pays: Cost per click, in an auction

    Item-level ads run on retailer store home and deal pages, category pages, store search, global search and DoubleDash (the screen for adding items after checkout).

  • Sponsored Brands

    • Bought: Self-serve, in Brand Center or an API partner's tool
    • Creative: Logo, message and a product carousel

    Sponsored Brands carry display or video creative on store home, category and store search pages and lead to a customizable landing page.

  • Spotlight

    • Bought: Managed service
    • Placement: The DoorDash homepage

    DoorDash calls Spotlight "a large creative canvas built for static display and short-form video" and reported "2x higher click-through rates than banners in early testing" at its June 4, 2026, launch.

  • Banners and Promotions

    • Bought: Managed service, with a spend minimum
    • Deal types: SKU discounts, buy X get $Y off, basket thresholds

    Banners run on store pages, offer sections, DoubleDash and vertical landing pages. Promotions are advertiser-funded deals, badged on convenience and grocery store pages.

  • Offsite Ads

    • Bought: Self-serve platforms; programmatic run by DoorDash
    • Channels: Meta, Google Shopping, YouTube, Pinterest, TikTok, The Trade Desk

    Offsite Ads take DoorDash's first-party data to search, social, programmatic display, audio and connected TV.

Self-serve, connected or by DoorDash's team

Brand Center, an API connection or a managed buy

Brand Center access comes first: the DoorDash account executive or a colleague already on the brand account adds each first-time user.

  1. Brand Center

    The self-serve home of Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands, beside catalog, inventory and assortment tools. Budgets run daily or for a campaign's lifetime, and campaigns can be paused at any time.

  2. API partners

    Pacvue, Flywheel, Skai and CommerceIQ run the same two formats from their own tools; the account executive arranges the connection.

  3. DoorDash's own team

    DoorDash's team runs Spotlight, Banners and Promotions, programmatic offsite ads on The Trade Desk, and Sales Lift studies.

  4. Auto-bidding and Custom bidding

    Auto-bidding, for US advertisers on daily budgets, sets bids in real time and can target a minimum ROAS. Custom bidding takes a cost-per-click bid for each placement and for chosen keywords.

  • Sponsored Products

    Cost-per-click auction

    Ads are ranked by bid and predicted relevance, and the advertiser never pays more than its maximum cost per click.

  • Banners and Promotions

    Spend minimum, amount unpublished

    Ask the account executive for the figure. DoorDash publishes no minimum for Sponsored Products or Sponsored Brands.

Credit for the clicked item

What DoorDash reports to a brand after the order

Brand Center reports cover paid and organic sales, with key metrics updated hourly.

First order within 14 days

DoorDash credits "sales of relevant items from the first order placed within 14 days of a click." For Sponsored Products only the clicked item counts; for Sponsored Brands, any item in the campaign.

New to the brand

New-to-brand sales come from shoppers with no purchase of the brand in the prior 180 days or 1 year; reports offer both. Brand Halo counts sales across all the brand's products within 14 days of a click.

Lift for select advertisers

Sales Lift studies, launched on March 24, 2026, compare exposed shoppers with a holdout group, for select managed-service advertisers on Sponsored Products.

  • The Alliance for Audited Media certified DoorDash's incrementality measurement for Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands on September 2, 2026; in March 2026, DoorDash said it was "working toward MRC accreditation."
  • Offsite ads report through closed-loop attribution.

Fresh from DoorDash Ads

DoorDash Ads news and new features for brands

  1. September 30, 2026

    A bigger retail marketplace

    • Costco, Barnes & Noble, Gap, Kohl's and SKIMS joined earlier in 2026

    Macy's, The North Face, Vans and others joined; DoorDash says more than half of the NRF Top 100 Retailers now partner with it.

  2. September 23, 2026

    Brand Center takes over from Ads Manager

    • Brands ran Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands in Ads Manager

    Brand Center, "the next evolution of Ads Manager," adds catalog and inventory tools, plus shelf audits and restocking in eligible locations by Dashers, who shop and deliver DoorDash orders.

  3. September 2, 2026

    Lift measured from outside

    • Sales Lift studies, run by DoorDash since March 24

    Circana household lift opened to select advertisers on both self-serve formats, the day DoorDash announced its AAM certification. In one Circana study, a beverage brand saw $0.59 in incremental in-store sales per household and $1.51 in incremental ROAS.

  4. July 2026

    Auto-bidding for sales

    • Auto-bidding optimized for clicks; a minimum ROAS target arrived on June 4

    Auto-bidding now optimizes for sales and works with Retailer Targeting; April 2026 tests showed about 6% more sales per click.

Watch once it's live

Relevance, pacing and unavailable items: what a live DoorDash campaign has to manage

  1. A bid with no promise of delivery

    "Bidding on a keyword doesn't guarantee ad delivery": an ad must clear a relevance threshold to enter the auction.

  2. Daily spend that swings

    Optimized Pacing usually keeps daily spend between about 0.6x and 2x the set daily budget.

  3. Paid clicks, unavailable items

    DoorDash bills per click and publishes no rule on clicks for items that later prove unavailable; its reporting guide names availability among the reasons clicks may not become sales.

Linked, carried, bid

A DoorDash media agency for CPG brands, working in Brand Center

RMIQ's agency page describes the role as setting "keywords, bids and budgets" and working "in the brand's own account where a network allows it." On DoorDash, that account is Brand Center, where admins can add an agency.

Book a demo See the Instacart proof

  • Linked and carried at each retailer

    For each advertised item, RMIQ checks that it is linked to its retailer listings and carried at the targeted retailers, and gives the brand a list of unlinked items to fix with its retailer or syndicator.

  • Bids by placement and keyword

    With Custom bidding, RMIQ sets a cost-per-click bid for each placement and for the keywords that earn their own bid, product by product.

  • Stock steers the budget

    RMIQ reads attributed, new-to-brand and Brand Halo sales next to Inventory Insights, where the brand has them, before moving budget toward a retailer.

  • Managed buys and their minimum

    Banners and Promotions carry a spend minimum DoorDash does not publish; RMIQ weighs it against the brand's Sponsored Products results before recommending a managed buy.

Read across from Instacart

Two CPG brands RMIQ managed on Instacart's delivery app

RMIQ has published no DoorDash result. Like DoorDash, Instacart sells brands' ads on retailers' shelves inside a delivery app, so RMIQ's Instacart work is the evidence here.

  • Smash Kitchen

    Instacart and Sprouts campaigns
    • Instacart sales, quarter over quarter: 6.7x
    • Revenue from new-to-brand customers: More than 84%

    RMIQ took on full, end-to-end execution for Smash Kitchen, running SKU-level campaigns that treat each product as its own growth lever, in RMIQ's words.

    Read the Smash Kitchen story

  • I Eat My Greens

    Instacart; no figures published

      The write-up says working with RMIQ "helped improve ROAS and other campaign KPIs compared with relying solely on automated Instacart campaigns," a comparison that matters on DoorDash, where Auto-bidding is one of two bidding modes.

      Read the I Eat My Greens story

    Who should test it

    Is a brand ready for DoorDash Ads? What to have, what to allow for

    Have in place

    • Your products sit at several retailers on DoorDash and your catalog links to them.
    • You want new buyers: DoorDash reported in June 2026 that first-time customers made up more than 36% of CPG brands' sales.

    Allow time for

    • Up to 30 days before a new product gets suggested keywords, and up to 5 days for catalog fixes to go live.

    Answers for brands

    DoorDash advertising agency FAQ

    Are DoorDash Sponsored Listings and Sponsored Products the same thing?

    No. Sponsored Listings are DoorDash's core ad format for restaurants: the restaurant pays when a customer orders after clicking, and campaigns run in Ads Manager. Sponsored Products are item-level ads for CPG brands, sold per click in Brand Center or through API partners. RMIQ manages Sponsored Products for brands.

    Is DoorDash Ads a retail media network?

    In the sense media buyers use, yes: it sells ads on retailers' digital shelves inside its app, targeted with its own shopper data. DoorDash's own term is "a global commerce media platform." RMIQ files it as the DoorDash retail media network, next to the grocers' retail media networks.

    Does DoorDash work with media agencies?

    Yes. Brand Center admins can add team members or agencies, and DoorDash names four API partners (Pacvue, Flywheel, Skai and CommerceIQ) whose tools connect through the account executive. As a DoorDash media agency, RMIQ offers to work inside the brand's own Brand Center account, setting keywords, bids and budgets.

    Do brands need their own DoorDash store to run Sponsored Products?

    No. Sponsored Products run in the stores of retailers that sell the brand on DoorDash. The item must be in DoorDash's catalog under the correct brand and linked to the matching item at one or more retailers; an item missing from a retailer's catalog data may be ineligible for ads there.

    Are DoorDash ads worth it for CPG brands?

    DoorDash's studies say so. At its March 2026 Sales Lift launch, DoorDash reported that 30 Sponsored Products tests from the first half of 2025 averaged about 30% sales lift, and a Circana study found $1.51 in incremental ROAS for one beverage brand. Both are DoorDash-published.

    What is Symbiosys at DoorDash?

    Symbiosys is a retail media platform company DoorDash bought on May 28, 2025, for $121 million to expand offsite advertising. It now powers offsite and onsite ads for retailers in the Americas, EMEA and APAC, and DoorDash said on June 4, 2026, that media dollars through it had nearly doubled since the purchase.

    Other carts to fill

    Delivery-app and grocery networks next to DoorDash

    Other delivery and grocery networks

    Source list7 sources

    Each source is listed with the date it was published; pages that show no date are marked with the date they were read.

    1. DoorDash Ads Support (help center): Overview of DoorDash Ads, Introduction to Sponsored Products, Introduction to Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Brands creative guidelines, Create a Sponsored Product Campaign, Create and Customize a Sponsored Product Ad Group, Optimize Sponsored Products, Targeting, A Guide to Keyword Targeting, Understanding Key Metrics, Overview of Brand Center Reporting, Getting Started with Brand Center, Manage Account Access, Catalog Manager Overview, Catalog Best Practices, Retailer Catalog Differences, Inventory Insights Overview, Overview of Sponsored Listings, no date shown, read October 17, 2026
    2. DoorDash Ads, Advertising Solutions for CPG Brands, Brand Center and Launch a Sponsored Product Campaign, no date shown, read October 17, 2026
    3. DoorDash Ads resources: How Brand Center Turns Commerce Signals Into Growth, September 11, 2026; How DoorDash Ads and Circana Measure Incremental Retail Media Impact, September 1, 2026; Auto-bidding with Minimum ROAS Gives Brands More Control, July 3, 2026, updated July 2026; 2026 DoorDash Ads Announcements, June 18, 2026; Sales Lift Measurement for CPG Brands, March 24, 2026
    4. DoorDash newsroom: DoorDash Just Made the Mall (in Your Pocket) Bigger, September 30, 2026; DoorDash Introduces Brand Center, September 23, 2026; DoorDash Earns AAM Incrementality Certification, September 2, 2026; DoorDash Ads Becomes a Global Commerce Media Platform (investor relations and Business Wire), June 4, 2026; DoorDash Ads Launches Sales Lift Measurement, March 24, 2026
    5. DoorDash, Inc., Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2025, filed February 18, 2026; second quarter 2026 results, August 5, 2026
    6. Circana, Circana and DoorDash Partner to Validate Incremental Sales for CPG Brands, September 2, 2026
    7. RMIQ, Smash Kitchen case study, February 3, 2026; I Eat My Greens case study, August 28, 2026; case studies listing, homepage and retail media agency page, read October 17, 2026

    Drop your email 

    and we’ll show you how to double your retail media ROAS – no strings attached