DoorDash Partners with LiveRamp and Launches Advanced Ad Formats to Upgrade Its Commerce Media Platform

Quick Look

• DoorDash is expanding its commerce media business with new ad formats, offsite advertising capabilities, and a partnership with data collaboration platform LiveRamp, according to apress release.
• The partnership with LiveRamp focuses on data clean rooms, matching DoorDash and advertiser data to achieve more efficient incremental reach and performance. A leading consumer packaged goods (CPG) company tested the capability across four of its brands and found that nearly all customers reached through sponsored product campaigns were new to the business.
• DoorDash also launched a premium homepage ad placement called Spotlight, which uses a visually driven storytelling approach to capture user attention when they open the app. Early tests show that Spotlight's click-through rate is twice that of banner ads. These moves indicate that DoorDash is committed to standing out in the increasingly crowded commerce media space through more diverse formats and more precise targeting.

Deep Dive

This series of announcements from DoorDash Ads is part of a larger strategy to position itself as a commerce media platform with global scale, serving both restaurants—the delivery platform operator's historical focus—and the CPG advertisers driving the retail media boom. DoorDash says that across platforms like DoorDash, Wolt, and Deliveroo, DoorDash Ads now has over 400,000 advertisers, and as of 2024, its annualized advertising revenue run rate has surpassed $1 billion, the company said ina blog post.

"Every order starts with a moment—a Friday night, a birthday, a last-minute grocery run. We've built a platform around these moments, and now we can help businesses of all sizes reach consumers in these moments and measure the impact," said Toby Espinosa, Vice President of Advertising at DoorDash, in the press release.

One of the more eye-catching products launched is Spotlight ads, which occupy a large portion of the screen when the DoorDash app is opened. This display- and video-focused format is designed to showcase new products, highlight seasonal menu items, and spark interest in limited-time offers, while also pairing with promotional strategies like buy-one-get-one deals to drive transactions.

To demonstrate its ability to help brand partners reach new customers, DoorDash Ads has also partnered with ad tech company LiveRamp in areas such as audience overlap analysis, custom segmentation, and activation. LiveRamp was acquired last month by advertising group Publicis Groupe for $2.2 billion, underscoring the growing importance of data collaboration in modern marketing strategies, including bets on artificial intelligence.

Beyond the CPG advertiser test driving incremental reach, DoorDash's early work with LiveRamp has also uncovered unique audiences on the platform. For example, 81% of customers who engaged with a national restaurant chain on DoorDash were exclusive to the delivery platform.

In addition to campaigns within the DoorDash ecosystem, its commerce media division also highlighted offsite advertising capabilities powered by Symbiosys, an ad tech startup DoorDash acquired last year for $175 million. Symbiosys now supports DoorDash's on-site and off-site advertising across the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and Asia-Pacific.

Magnum Ice Cream—the ice cream company recently spun off from Unilever—is the first marketer to use Symbiosys' full social channel suite, with campaigns leveraging DoorDash first-party data to target high-intent shoppers. The campaign increased new consumer acquisition by 85%.

DoorDash is also expanding its existing ad products, such as AI-driven smart campaigns that support buy-one-get-one promotions. Another AI feature—automated bidding—applies machine learning to optimize bids in real time, aiming to achieve minimum return on ad spend targets for CPG brands. In test campaigns using automated bidding in February, over 95% of campaigns exceeded the minimum ROAS thresholds set by advertisers.