Retail media network profile and managed service, United States
Instacart Ads Agency: Expert Instacart and Carrot Ads Management
RMIQ manages Sponsored Products and new-to-brand bidding on Instacart, reporting new-buyer growth and sales efficiency as two separate numbers.
Instacart Ads is the retail media network run by Instacart (Nasdaq: CART). Brands bid to show sponsored products, display banners, shoppable video and recipe ads to grocery shoppers on Instacart, on retailer sites running its Carrot Ads technology and on Caper smart carts in stores.
As an Instacart advertising agency for lean brand teams, RMIQ takes on the keyword-by-keyword upkeep that Instacart's exact-match bidding asks for, one product at a time.
Reach and revenue
Sizing the Instacart retail media network
- $297M Advertising and other revenue, Q2 2026 Up 16% year over year, 2.9% of gross transaction value. Instacart, August 6, 2026.
- 9,000+ Brands advertising Active brands in Q4 2025, up from more than 7,000 a year earlier.
- 310+ Carrot Ads partners Up from 220 in the year to February 2026, Instacart said; still more than 310 on September 22, 2026.
- 2,200+ Retail banners on Instacart Nearly 100,000 stores, Instacart, October 6, 2026.
Retailer sites
Carrot Ads: one campaign, many retailers
Carrot Ads is Instacart's retail media technology for grocers, marketplaces and commerce platforms that want their own ad business. It extends Instacart's ad tech to their storefronts, apps and other owned channels, plus in-store surfaces such as Caper carts.
Brands reach those placements through Instacart Ads. An ecosystem campaign extends to partner sites, and since September 9, 2026, a partner-specific campaign can run on a single partner that supports the chosen format.
- Gopuff announced on September 22, 2026, that it will use Carrot Ads on its storefront.
- Hy-Vee RedMedia announced in September 2025 that it would sell sponsored products on Hy-Vee.com through Carrot Ads.
- Uber Eats: Uber said in April 2025 that US campaigns built in Instacart Ads Manager would extend to Uber Eats sponsored items.
- Sprouts and Thrive Market are among the partners Instacart names as running Carrot Ads.
Placements
Four paid formats and where each one runs
Ads Manager sells four paid formats, priced per click or per thousand impressions, and shoppable display also runs on Caper Cart screens in stores.
Sponsored products
Your product appears as a sponsored tile in search results, on the homepage, in aisles and at checkout. Keyword bids are exact match.
Display ads
Banners on the storefront, in aisles and in search results link to a brand page and target shoppers by keyword or by behavior, such as buying your category from a competitor. A shoppable version adds products to the cart in one click.
Shoppable video ads
A video with add-to-cart built in runs in search results; on retailer storefronts it plays muted once more than half of the ad is on screen.
Inspiration ads: recipes and occasions
A sponsored recipe built around your products shows up in related searches, and shoppers can add its ingredients to their cart; occasion ads group products around a seasonal moment or meal theme.
Shoppable display on Caper Carts
Since April 14, 2025, eligible shoppable display campaigns also run on Caper smart carts. An impression counts once the ad has been on screen for 1 second.
Brand pages are free, and promotions such as spend-and-save run alongside the ads.
Off Instacart, its first-party audiences and measurement are available on platforms such as Google, Meta, Pinterest, The Trade Desk, TikTok and YouTube.
Ads Manager, reserved buys, agencies
Buying routes, budgets and bids on Instacart
Brands buy in Ads Manager, self-serve, or book reserved Order Form products such as homepage banners with Instacart. Agencies work inside a brand's account as agency users, or through Instacart's Ads API, which is licensed to agencies.
Ecosystem or single-partner scope
Each new sponsored product or display campaign runs across the Instacart Ads ecosystem or on one partner's site.
Daily budgets and the monthly cap
A daily budget may spend up to double on a busy day; without a lifetime budget, a month's spend is capped at 30.4 times the daily amount.
Manual or optimized bidding
Manual bidding sets a maximum CPC and keyword bids. Optimized bidding works toward a target ROAS, with a new-to-brand setting that bids higher for shoppers new to your brand.
A second-price auction
Instacart ranks ads on the bid, the product's conversion rate and other signals, and the winner pays $0.01 more than the next-best bid.
Sponsored products
CPC, second price
You set the maximum bid; Ads Manager may suggest a competitive bid per ad group.
Display, video and recipes
CPM, first price
Minimum bids start at a $15 CPM, set once per ad group.
Campaign setup, keyword strategy and bid levels are covered step by step in RMIQ's Instacart Ads guide; CPC, CTR and ROAS levels are on the Instacart Ads benchmarks page.
Attribution
How Instacart splits credit for a sale
A sponsored product sale counts when the purchase comes within 14 days of a click, measured in closed loop from Instacart's order data. Since August 1, 2022, reports have used multi-touch attribution by default, with last touch available for comparison.
Linear, the default
Every ad on the path to the purchase gets an equal share of the credit, although since April 1, 2025, only the clicks share it when a path mixes clicks and views.
Last touch, for comparison
Only the last ad before the purchase gets the credit.
- New-to-brand: new-to-brand sales and their share of all sales are standard columns in sponsored product reports, so new-buyer growth reads as its own number next to ROAS. A new-to-brand buyer has bought none of the brand's products in the past 26 weeks.
- Sales lift tests: Instacart offers incrementality tests that measure the extra revenue a campaign generates.
- MRC accreditation: sponsored products, display, shoppable display and shoppable video metrics are accredited; inspiration ads, reserved display and Caper Carts are excluded.
Common snags
What makes Instacart campaigns hard to run
On Instacart, most of a campaign's upkeep sits in its keyword lists, its review queues and its scope.
Exact match, and no negatives
Sponsored product keywords are exact match only: a bid on "ice cream" misses "icecream" and "ice cream bar". Instacart documents no negative keywords for sponsored products, so waste is cut one keyword bid at a time.
Automation hides the keywords
Optimized bidding chooses keywords and bids toward a target ROAS, and you cannot add or adjust its keywords. ROAS swings more during a learning phase of about 3 to 7 days.
Days of review before launch
Each step has its own review. A brand claim gets a reply within 5 business days, and new products take up to 3 business days to appear. Display-family ad groups are reviewed within 3 business days, brand pages within 72 hours.
More destinations to plan
Sponsored product and display campaigns now choose a scope, campaigns on Gopuff's storefront alone will go through the Instacart team, and Order Form campaigns need their creative 2 weeks before the start date.
Managed service
Instacart ad agency work at RMIQ
Instacart builds agency work into Ads Manager: a brand can add an agency user and choose which campaign, reporting, order form and billing rights it gets. In its Darey Brands and Smash Kitchen case studies, RMIQ took on the full execution and ran each product as its own campaign.
One product, one keyword list
Instacart matches sponsored product keywords exactly, so each product needs its own list of the phrases shoppers type. RMIQ gives every SKU its own campaign, with dedicated keywords, bids and budget, which keeps each product's exact-match list and bid levels separate.
Non-selling keywords, bid down
With no negatives to add, every keyword that sells nothing has to be found and bid down one at a time. RMIQ's keyword audit looks at keywords product by product, and RMIQ says most brands find about 30% of their keywords generate no revenue when viewed that way.
New buyers as their own number
Instacart reports new-to-brand sales in a column of their own, so customer growth can be read apart from ROAS. RMIQ's Darey Brands case study reports it that way: new-to-brand revenue up 2.7x, next to a 75% ROAS increase.
Case studies
What RMIQ's Instacart case studies show
RMIQ's case studies report a 75% ROAS increase in under 2 months for Darey Brands and a 6.7x quarter-over-quarter sales increase for Smash Kitchen on Instacart, in RMIQ's own figures.
Darey Brands
Specialty dairy- ROAS increase in under 2 months: 75%
- Attributed sales from Instacart: 2.5x
- New-to-brand revenue: 2.7x
RMIQ ran Instacart Ads for the Green Valley Lactose Free brand, each SKU as its own AI-optimized campaign. Matt Gorella, Senior Brand Manager at Darey Brands: "In the first 2 months Retail Media IQ more than doubled our revenue on our existing retail media ad spend."
Read the Darey Brands storySmash Kitchen
Challenger CPG- Sales, quarter over quarter: 6.7x
- Revenue from new-to-brand customers: 84%+
Referred by an existing RMIQ client, Smash Kitchen handed RMIQ full execution of its Instacart and Sprouts campaigns, run product by product.
Read the Smash Kitchen story
2026 changes
Four Instacart changes that affect campaigns
September 22, 2026
Gopuff signs on to Carrot Ads
Instacart and Gopuff announced that Gopuff will join the Instacart Marketplace and run Carrot Ads on its own US storefront. Instacart Ads ecosystem campaigns will extend to Gopuff and BevMo! shoppers, and campaigns on Gopuff's storefront alone stay available through the advertiser's Instacart team.
September 9, 2026
Every campaign now picks a scope
New sponsored product, display and shoppable display campaigns choose the whole Instacart Ads ecosystem or one partner's site, and sponsored product reports filter by scope.
August 6, 2026
Ads revenue up 16%
Advertising and other revenue reached $297M in Q2 2026. Instacart also rolled out AI-powered campaign and creative recommendations in Ads Manager to all advertisers and began testing its Grow objective.
June 22, 2026
Immersive Feed pilot
A shoppable 9:16 video feed of meals and recipes entered pilot within inspiration ads. Instacart says recipe ads averaged 43% new-to-brand sales across its Q3 2025 campaigns.
Before you budget
When Instacart fits and what to plan for
Instacart runs your ads wherever your products are sold and in stock, so the first question is distribution.
A good fit when
- Your products are stocked at retailers on Instacart; one campaign reaches shoppers across them and across Carrot Ads partners.
- You want new customers: new-to-brand bidding and competitor-category targeting are built in.
- You want reach beyond search: on average, half of the customers a brand's display ads reached had not been reached by its sponsored products, Instacart reported in February 2026.
Plan for
- Category limits: Instacart denies ads for prescription drugs and weight-loss products.
- Instacart's 25% average incremental sales lift comes from a previously published lift test it cites; test your own products before budgeting around that figure.
Questions brands ask
Instacart advertising agency FAQ
What does an Instacart advertising agency do?
An Instacart advertising agency runs a brand's Instacart Ads campaigns: keyword lists, bids, budgets, scope choices and reporting. Ads Manager has an agency user role for this, with campaign, order form and billing rights the brand grants, and Instacart licenses its Ads API to agencies.
What companies are partnered with Instacart?
Instacart listed 32 Preferred Partners in October 2026, among them agency groups such as Dentsu, Omnicom Media Group and WPP and platforms such as Google, Meta and The Trade Desk. More than 310 retailers and platforms used its Carrot Ads technology in September 2026, Sprouts, Thrive Market and Uber Eats among them.
What is Carrot Ads?
Carrot Ads is Instacart's retail media technology for retailers and commerce platforms, giving them Instacart's ad tech and demand from more than 9,000 CPG brands as of February 2026. Brands reach Carrot Ads placements through Instacart Ads campaigns. Hy-Vee, Sprouts, Thrive Market and Uber Eats are among its partners, and Gopuff announced in September 2026 that it will join them.
Is Instacart a retail media network?
Yes. Instacart sells ad space next to a grocery checkout and measures results with its own purchase data, the defining traits of a retail media network. Its marketplace spans more than 2,200 retail banners (October 2026), and Carrot Ads extends Instacart's ads to more than 310 partners (September 2026).
Do small brands need an agency for Instacart Ads?
Not always. Ads Manager is self-serve, and small brands get the same ad formats as large ones. The work an agency takes on is the upkeep: an exact-match keyword list for each product, bid cuts on keywords that do not sell, and a scope for every new campaign. Optimized bidding automates keywords and bids, at the cost of keyword control.
Related reading
Guides, tools and benchmarks for Instacart
- Instacart Ads guide Guide Formats, auction mechanics, campaign structure and keyword strategy, step by step.
- Instacart keyword tool Free tool Turns a brand name, product types and a short description into keyword ideas for an Instacart campaign.
- Instacart Ads benchmarks Benchmarks CPC, CTR and ROAS levels from campaigns RMIQ manages.
Compare other US networks
Dated sources23 sources
Each source is listed with the date it was published or updated; pages that show no date carry the date they were read.
- Instacart, Second Quarter 2026 Financial Results and prepared remarks, August 6, 2026
- Instacart, Fourth Quarter 2025 Shareholder Letter, February 12, 2026
- Instacart and Gopuff partnership release, September 22, 2026
- Instacart and Skip partnership release, October 6, 2026
- Instacart, Immersive Feed and inspiration ads release, June 22, 2026
- Instacart Docs, Ads Manager changelog, updated September 17, 2026
- Instacart Docs, Creating sponsored product campaigns and Measuring sponsored product performance, updated September 17, 2026
- Instacart Docs, Sponsored product bidding, Managing your account and Media Rating Council accreditation, updated August 12, 2026
- Instacart Docs, Advertising on Instacart, sponsored products, display, shoppable video and inspiration ads, updated August 12, 2026
- Instacart Docs, Ads on Storefront sites, updated August 27, 2026
- Instacart Docs, Shoppable display ads on Caper Carts, Product library, display ad group setup and Pages review, read September and October 2026
- Instacart Docs, Advertising policies, updated August 12, 2026
- Instacart Ads Terms, May 6, 2026 version, and Additional Terms, version of April 9, 2025
- Instacart Ads API documentation and reference, no date shown, read September 22 and 23, 2026
- Instacart, Carrot Ads page, figures as of February 2026, read October 9, 2026
- Instacart, Preferred Partners page, no date shown, read October 9, 2026
- Instacart Ads website: overview, ad products, off-platform, measurement, small business and sign-up pages, no dates shown, read September 2026
- Instacart, Carrot Ads Gain Expanded MRC Accreditation, November 6, 2025
- Instacart, Hy-Vee RedMedia to Launch Instacart Carrot Ads, September 9, 2025
- Uber Newsroom, Uber Advertising taps Instacart Carrot Ads, April 9, 2025
- RMIQ, Darey Brands case study, August 31, 2026; Smash Kitchen case study, February 3, 2026
- RMIQ homepage, no date shown, read September 22 and October 9, 2026
- RMIQ, Instacart keyword tool page, updated June 11, 2026
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