How display ads strengthen the path to purchase

The grocery shopping journey on Instacart isn't linear. Consumers come to Instacart to search for what they need, but they also come to explore and discover new brands and products. Some might be doing a weekly stock-up, browsing aisles and open to what catches their eye. Others might be restocking familiar favorites, spending most of their time in their "buy it again" list. The path looks different every time and every surface along the way is a potential discovery moment for your brand.

That's where display ads come in. Most brands start with sponsored product ads, and for good reason. They're built to capture high-intent search behavior and convert shoppers who already know what they want. But that only reaches part of the audience. Display ads extend your presence earlier in the journey, connecting you with consumers while they're still exploring and before they've committed to a decision. With rich, visual creative formats, display ads give brands the canvas to tell a story, communicate values, and show up in a way that sponsored product ads simply aren't designed to do.

The data reflects what we see in shopping behavior every day: Instacart is a discovery platform and display ads are how brands can meet their next customer. 

Display ads grow your customer base

Adding display ads to your marketing mix on Instacart doesn’t just increase visibility, it helps you reach incremental audiences. Recent analysis¹ highlights the benefits of adding display ads to your marketing mix on Instacart. While most brands run sponsored product ad campaigns to maximize their sales on Instacart, our analysis shows the incremental value display ads unlock— 

• Display ads helped brands reach 2.2x as many consumers compared to sponsored product ads alone

• 38% of display clicks come from consumers not previously reached by sponsored product ads

• 35% of new-to-brand attributed sales were driven by consumers not previously reached by sponsored product ads

When we look at the formats with direct add-to-cart functionality, shoppable display and shoppable video ads, the new customer acquisition story gets even stronger. In fact, shoppable display ads drove 44% NTB sales, with shoppable video ads driving 48% NTB sales making both formats effective tools for growing your customer base on Instacart. 

Instacart display ads outperform industry averages

Display advertising across the open web averages a 0.46% CTR, according to several 2025 benchmarks. Retail media display specifically averages around 0.39% CTR, per eMarketer data. Instacart display ads meaningfully outperform both, with shoppable display and shoppable video ads both achieving a CTR of 1.3% and recipe ads exceeding even those formats with a CTR of 1.75%.²

Formats built for your objective

Not every campaign has the same goal. The right display format depends on what you’re trying to accomplish and we have objectives for every business size. 

Maximizing reach and awareness: display banners can deliver the broadest reach and are best suited for new product launches, seasonal pushes, or categories where scale and sustained awareness is the primary KPI.

Drive contextual discovery out-of-aisle: Inspiration ads, like recipe ads and occasion ads, embed brands in moments when they can maximize out-of-aisle discovery. Based on historical campaign data, recipe ads have delivered approximately 78% out-of-aisle impressions and occasion ads have reached approximately 90% out-of-aisle customers.

Driving mid-funnel conversion: shoppable display and shoppable video ads tend to generate strong CTRs with direct add-to-cart paths. These formats help drive sales from NTB consumers. An analysis showed that 44% of sales driven by shoppable display ads were NTB sales while from shoppable video ads drove 48% NTB sales. These formats are helping brands acquire new customers.  

Build a full-funnel strategy

Sponsored product and display ads aren’t competing priorities but rather complementary ones. Display ads build awareness and consideration reaching consumers earlier in the shopping journey while sponsored product captures that demand at the bottom of the funnel. 

As consumer behavior on Instacart becomes increasingly exploration-driven, display advertising provides the scale, visibility, and incremental reach required to influence early-stage decision-making. The brands seeing the strongest results aren’t choosing between the two but are instead running both with intention using display ads to grow their audience and sponsored product to convert. 

^{1 Based on Instacart Ads internal data, Q3 2025 and 2025 YTD.} 

^{2 Insights based on aggregated performance based on 2025 YTD data}

^{Individual results may vary.  Prior results do not guarantee future outcomes.} 

^{Looking to advertise with Instacart? Get started here.}