“I don’t think it’s widely understood just HOW much traffic there is on Instacart today and how many non-brand queries and new customers there are out there to reach. Because of this, it’s hard to budget for full coverage, so a feature like dayparting can help a brand be visible at key times, especially when competitors are low on budget or inventory later in the day.”
Day parting allows advertisers to better pace their ad spend, ensuring their budget doesn’t run dry ahead of key shopping hours on Instacart. While Instacart hasn’t provided specific peak hours, they have shared that the highest number of sales occur “post-lunch.” Additionally, waiting for the weekend to grocery shop has gone out the window for many shoppers.
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For each client running dayparting campaigns on Instacart, we are measuring the pre-and-post-dayparting implementation impact to the following metrics:
— Elizabeth Marsten, Senior Director of Strategic Marketplace Services at Tinuiti
Let’s explore a few ways that a dayparting schedule on Instacart can help expand your reach without increasing your budget:
- Budgets can be better optimized—and stretched—by focusing on the ad types that best fit the time of day they are delivered
- Ensuring that you have ad spend available during the hours that are most important for your particular products (and when competitors may have run out of budget!)
- Strategically advertising more heavily during high conversion-potential holidays, even if those holidays fall on days that aren’t typically your best performers. In example, if you sell hot dogs, potato chips, or hamburger buns, you’ll likely want to have your ads turned on for the full day on popular holidays for cookouts (ie. Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day)
- Taking advantage of non-holiday specific trends in online grocery shopping, or complementary categories, as they apply to your product lineup. In example, if you’re advertising lip balm and body lotion on Instacart, you may want your ads to run for a higher number of hours than usual when a greater percentage of shoppers are experiencing harsh winter weather. Similarly, you may want to increase visibility for sunscreen and bottled water during a heat spell, or for a beauty product you offer that a popular celebrity was recently photographed using
Who offers dayparting capabilities for Instacart?
Wondering if dayparting on Instacart is a smart fit for your brand? Let’s explore how it works, and why it’s such a crucial component of ensuring your ad dollars are spent wisely.
Not yet active on Instacart, but ready to see how Instacart advertising can help grow your visibility and sales? Contact us today to learn more about our Instacart Acceleration Program, and get your cart rolling smoothly with no squeaky wheels!
- ROAS (return on ad spend)
- Sales
- AOV (average order value)
- CPA (cost per acquisition)
- Average CPC (cost per click)
- Clicks
- Impressions
There are currently just 10 Instacart API partners, with Tinuiti being among the few of that 10 who have built out dayparting capabilities. We are actively testing dayparting on Instacart for a variety of clients across diverse industries to analyze the impact to efficiency metrics and sales.
