At a media event in New York City this week, DoorDash announced a $175 million acquisition of retail search platform Symbiosys and launched new AI-powered ad tools for restaurant merchants creating campaigns on the platform.
The company also detailed new capabilities for brands advertising on the network, including the ability to reach consumers actively searching for items within the app and, with assistance from Symbiosys’ ad tech tools, the ability to target consumers off-site across search and social platforms.
The food delivery service announced a revenue milestone as well: in 2024, DoorDash Ads surpassed $1 billion in ad revenue since launching in 2021.
In a fireside chat with NBA CMO Tammy Henault, DoorDash Chief Marketing Officer Kofi Amoo-Gottfried shared his thoughts on where advertising is headed, creating experiences that drive culture, delivering value for customers and tips for brands building campaigns on its network.
On how DoorDash is approaching fragmentation challenges within the advertising industry:
“We’re in a really interesting moment where customer attention and intent is fragmented across every possible platform surface … This notion of being where your customers … has always been at the heart of marketing. It’s also never been harder. [It] used to be pretty easy to figure out where your customers were. Now, there’s probably only a handful of platforms where you can know exactly where everyone’s going to be, but everything else you have to sort of figure out where the customer’s going to go.
And so I think the thing that is interesting about DoorDash is we have all of these people turning up with real intent, right? So it’s not about browsing. When we talk about our monthly active user base, more than twice that number is opening the app … We count monthly active as people that have transacted, so we’re saying 40 million. There’s 80 million people that are opening the app every month. And so being able to get in front of that customer who’s interested in making a purchase, I think is how we think about how we build this platform and how we meet people where they are.”
On creating experiences that drive culture:
“A lot of what we do is try to figure out can we create experiences that drive conversation and culture, but then bring a conversion to DoorDash. And I think one of the things that’s been interesting in our partnership is this year we built a campaign around whenever a player hits 50 points [in an NBA game], if you’re a DashPass subscriber, you get 50% off of your next order … We take something that’s happening in the world that people are excited about, but then we turn it into a conversion leveraging some of the very tools that the team has presented today.”
On humanizing and broadening the brand:
“We’ve always felt that food is … deeply emotional. If you talk about food, you get to talk about anything. Food is culture, food is community, food is belonging … We think there’s some really natural storytelling there, but then as we expanded from the restaurant category to all of these new verticals, it became actually much broader. It became about more than just the selection; it became about the use that we serve in your life. The way we think about the brand today is that it’s a 24/7 life assistant. Whatever you need at any time, DoorDash can provide that for you.
“And that also lends itself to incredible stories. Just this past week we’ve been doing this thing on social where we’ve been asking people to nominate a graduate in their life. It’s graduation week, and we’ve sent out gift baskets to probably 200 graduates just based on people telling incredible stories about these people in their lives. And that’s us showing up in that moment to meet that need for a customer. So while it’s a functional thing, it’s also deeply emotional because you’re being part of people’s lives when it matters.
On creating value for customers:
“Another good example is the work we did around Mother’s Day this year … Yes, moms want flowers, but the thing every mom wants for Mother’s Day is a goddamn break to not be a mom for a day. And so we leaned into that … if you order flowers for your mom, you get an additional $50 or $75 for your DashPass sub. So, creating real value that people that went on to use at places like Ulta Beauty. And so bringing in our partners, bringing in promos, tying it into our ad system, that’s the way that we try to think about how do we create value for each customer.”
On how brands can show up authentically along the customer journey:
“Do the fundamentals and the basics really well. So even before we get into ads … a lot of the work our merchant teams do with our partners is [ensuring], is your menu set up? Do you have the right store hours? Do you have a photo for every menu item? Do you have a description from every menu item? Are your operations great? Because all of these things affect how you show up in the algorithm.
“But then I think it’s beyond that. It’s really about honoring the customer’s intent. So, what are people looking for when they come to DoorDash? … It’s thinking about, if I’m a new customer and I’m going start in the search bar, how do you reach me in that moment? How do you know when someone’s looking for wine, when someone’s looking for groceries, when someone’s looking for batteries? Whatever that thing is, how can we be part of that moment and part of that conversation?
“The other one is, how do you create value for the customer? … We know particularly in the context of the macro environment that we’re in that finances are something that are top of mind for people … So people are thinking about how they can save money … What’s your value prop? What’s the value you’re trying to create? Is that a promotional value? Is it about discovery? Is it about access to a new item? Is it about an LTO? And then, how do you participate throughout the journey?”