Ad Tech Insights
How Uber Is Driving Dollars
The story: Uber’s advertising business has rapidly evolved in the two years since its inception and is now poised to reach over $1B in ad revenue this year. Uber’s ad business consists of three key segments: rider app ads, grocery ads, and Uber Eats restaurant and CPG ads -- a model which Danilo Tauro, the newly appointed Uber Eats Advertising Lead, and former Amazon Advertising and Procter & Gamble exec, highlights for its dynamic and full-funnel capabilities.
“Advertisers, like consumers, use multiple apps for multiple services,” Tauro explained. “It’s an omnichannel solution that works for more performance-based marketing.” Restaurants and brands can bid for ad spots when users search for cuisine types and later attach complementary products, like drinks or sides, in a dual-step consumer decision process. This strategy not only increases opportunities for advertisers to engage with users but also enhances the customer experience -- and it’s this balance of ad revenue and customer satisfaction that is proving to be highly successful for the rideshare brand.
The takeaway: Uber’s retail media network success stems from strategically leveraging its diverse platforms to build a comprehensive advertising solution. The dual-step customer decision process offers unique opportunities for both SMBs and larger brands, and Uber’s commitment to continuous testing, performance, and branding positions it as a leading example of a retail media network on the path to sustainable growth.
Extra Industry Insights
- A Q1 report by Sensor Tower finds that Walmart’s retail media network, when compared with other U.S. RMNs, is far ahead of the pack when it comes to delivering ad impressions, with more than 10 retailers surpassing the one billion impression mark in the quarter.
- Target trailed behind Walmart in second, delivering 7 billion ad impressions, and Chewy took bronze with under 4 billion impressions. The Home Depot and Kroger rounded out the top-five list.
- Walmart Connect’s data-sharing partnerships with major platforms and publishers, including TikTok and Disney, have allowed Walmart to engage with nonendemic brands, which is likely where the large gap in impressions stems from.
- Sensor Tower’s report also shows that, when broken out by advertiser group, personal care was the leading category at nearly 4.5 billion impressions. Food and beverage, pet supplies, and home and garden are other advertiser segments with high retail media activity.
Kevel Catch-Up
PUBLISHED: MC Sonae x Kevel
MC Sonae is the latest customer featured in Kevel’s portfolio of success stories, launching a holistic retail media offering and driving 478% ROAS with Kevel. MC’s retail media business unit, Endless, launched 160 ad placements in just six months, all leveraged with loyalty program data knowledge.
Check out the full case study here.
Keep Learning
WATCH → Join hosts of The Middlemen Podcast, Tom Limongello and Todd Sawicki, as they interview Kevel’s James Avery to talk about the long road to retail media, server-side ad serving, and more.
READ → After what feels like a lifetime discussing how best to prepare for a cookieless future and arming ourselves for the great third-party cookie demise, Google has abandoned its deprecation plan for Chrome. Read all about it in this ExchangeWire article.
LISTEN → What will Chrome’s third-party consent look like? AdExchanger explores just that in this episode of The Big Story, offering a best guess based on existing information (which is thin). Plus, the controversy around ID bridging and more. (Listening time: 44:28).
