Deep Brands’ Deep Indian Kitchen Drives Efficient Growth and Customer Trial Through Instacart Ads Integration with The Trade Desk

Deep Indian Kitchen, a Deep Brands portfolio brand and the #1 frozen Indian food brand in America¹, leveraged Instacart audiences and measurement—available directly in The Trade Desk—to achieve exceptional results in both reach and lower funnel performance. Renowned for bringing restaurant quality Indian experiences into American households, Deep Brands’ Deep Indian Kitchen’s mission is to make authentic, flavor-rich meals accessible in minutes. Their broad portfolio spans frozen entrées, naan, dumplings, and Kati street wraps, all crafted from scratch with freshly ground spices and premium ingredients.

Objective: Overcoming Barriers and Driving Discovery

With a growing appetite for global flavors among U.S. consumers, Deep Brands’ Deep Indian Kitchen saw an opportunity: many consumers remained unfamiliar with the frozen Indian category and needed a seamless introduction. The brand partnered with Instacart Ads to address this discovery challenge and influence consumer decisions as they are discovering products.

“At Deep Brands, we’re committed to making authentic Indian cuisine easily accessible to everyone,” said Twaha Al-Sayeed, Media Manager at Deep Brands. “Instacart enabled us to simplify the path to trial and position our products as convenient, high-quality solutions during everyday grocery shopping.”

The brand’s flagship Chicken Tikka Masala entrée—featuring roasted chicken in a creamy, slow-simmered sauce with cumin basmati rice—took center stage as the hero item for the campaign, showcasing the brand’s dedication to flavor and attracting both new and loyal fans.

Campaign Strategy: Data-Driven Optimizations

Focused on driving a strong return on advertising spend (ROAS) and acquiring new customers, Deep Brands prioritized offsite display ads, particularly static formats, for their efficiency and broad reach. This approach allowed our brand Deep Indian Kitchen to introduce their offerings to net-new audiences while achieving high performance metrics. “We aimed to balance both outcomes—efficient performance and incremental customer acquisition—by reaching new consumers without sacrificing profitability,” Al-Sayeed explained.

The campaign tested several Instacart first-party audiences, with the existing buyers audience segment being most effective for both efficiency and ROAS according to Al-Sayeed. This audience quickly surfaced as a core lower-funnel strategy that consistently delivered reliable returns. The targeting strategy included excluding existing Deep Indian Kitchen purchasers from all audiences to help support new customer acquisition. “Our close partnership with Instacart’s data and audience teams enabled a true test-and-learn approach. It allowed us to refine our targeting for sharper results and improved campaign performance,” added Al-Sayeed.

Another standout feature of the Instacart campaign was in-platform, real-time sales measurement, made possible by the integration of Instacart audiences and measurement with The Trade Desk platform. Immediate insights into conversions and ROAS enabled Deep Indian Kitchen to make swift, informed decisions and optimizations throughout the campaign—scaling successful tactics and swiftly optimizing away from underperformers.

Remarkable Results: Outperforming Historical Performance

The agile optimization approach resulted in CPMs lower than typical retail media investments that their Deep Indian Kitchen brand previously ran, marking a significant gain in efficiency. Deep Indian Kitchen also achieved a ROAS about 2x higher than what is typically seen across their other retail media network and programmatic display buys. These outcomes were delivered while simultaneously driving new customer trial according to Al-Sayeed, underscoring the ability for Instacart Ads to support both efficiency with lower CPMs and growth in acquiring customers.

“Instacart in-platform, real-time sales measurement was a key driver of optimization and efficiency throughout the campaign,” noted Al-Sayeed. “This capability met and exceeded our expectations, particularly in an environment where speed to insight is critical. Compared to similar media buys, this activation outperformed expectations and validated Instacart as a highly competitive channel within our broader media mix. Given the strong results, we were very confident in extending the test into an evergreen tactic,” Al-Sayeed shared.

Anthony Ferragano, Director of Growth Marketing at Deep Brands’ Deep Indian Kitchen, summed up the campaign’s broader significance: “Instacart’s first-party data and integration with The Trade Desk offer a more scalable way for brands to drive growth, making it a strong long-term partner as its new-to-brand and attribution capabilities expand.” For brands seeking a high-ROI, data-driven path to reach new customers within the digital grocery space, Instacart remains a compelling partner.

^{1 SPINS, Total US - MULO + Natural, Total Frozen Indian $ Sales latest 12 weeks ending in 1/25/26}

^{Based on campaign results between Sept - Dec 2025}

^{Prior results do not guarantee future outcomes.}   

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