DoorDash Launches New Ad Platform and Marketing Tools for Restaurants

DoorDash has launched Ads Manager for Enterprise Restaurants, a platform that provides self-serve tools for businesses to engage with customers, run campaigns, and cooperate with partners.

DoorDash plans to provide enterprise restaurant marketers and CPG brands with better ways to connect with its millions of customers and the first-party shopping data it controls with its double shot of new capabilities.

Ads Manager’s suite of features includes:

• Advanced targeting capabilities.
• Marketing insights.
• New promos.
• Marketing capabilities for regional marketing teams and franchisees collaborative.

“From day one, we’ve been working hard to help businesses grow by providing them with tools that are easy to use,” Vassili Samolis, senior director of product management at DoorDash, said in a company press release. “As the marketing platform for the local economy, we’re excited to build solutions for businesses to grow no matter the objective, budget, or challenge and reach local customers, wherever and however they shop. Now, businesses are in full control of how they get the word out. Whether it’s launching and modifying campaigns, tracking performance in near-real-time, or finding strategies to boost growth — it’s all in one platform.”

Through the new platform, which over 150 businesses have used, restaurants can optimize their campaigns by targeting consumers based on daypart and frequency after looking into customer ordering habits, likelihood of spending, and data regarding basket size.

DoorDash has also added new features to its ad platform, which was introduced three years ago, with CPG marketers in mind. The platform has made additional high-visibility placements on the storefront and category pages broadly available, allowing CPG brands to emphasize seasonal moments, launch new products, and amp up promotions.

With campaigns powered by DoorDash’s first-party data, the ad platform now also offers advertisers with offsite media, allowing them to reach consumers across search engines, programmatic displays, and social media channels. Using its offsite capabilities, liquor brands Proper No. Twelve, 1800 and Jose Cuervo have seen incremental brand lift. As per data cited by the brand, offsite ad spending is anticipated to grow by over 27% in the United States in 2025. This is good news for media networks, but not one without its own controversies.

DoorDash’s new advertising capabilities come as its competitors, such as Uber and Instacart, collaborate with technology platforms and agencies to enhance their advertising offerings. GoPuff introduced several new in-app, in-bag, and off-platform advertising capabilities last month to assist brands in connecting with millennial and Gen Z customers.

Advantages of the suite

Some advantages are:

• Targeting can be fine-tuned by time of day, allowing restaurants to plan for peak hours or optimize for downtime during an afternoon lull.
• Frequency targeting enables businesses to better connect with customers based on their purchasing patterns, resulting in a more timely and relevant user experience.
• With daypart targeting, businesses can tailor their targeting based on the time of day and day of the week (such as early morning, breakfast, lunch, afternoon, dinner, and night).
• Better marketing analytics enable businesses to better comprehend the long-term value of customers acquired through advertising by providing them with a comprehensive look at customer ordering patterns, the amount of money they are likely to spend, and the size of their baskets.
• Customer purchase trends show how groups of customers purchased in the last 45 days, 45-90 days, and 90 days up to a year ago, allowing businesses to focus their spending on specific groupings of new or lapsed customers.
• Promos to assist attract new consumers, retain old ones, and increase spending.
• The ability of DMAs and franchisees to implement local marketing tactics.

In Q2, DoorDash’s sales increased 23% year on year to $2.6 billion, above Wall Street projections. The third quarter results will be announced on October 30.