Instacart acquires AI-based promotional platform

Instacart continues expanding its capabilities as a platform for CPG advertising 

The on-demand delivery platform is acquiring Eversight, an artificial intelligence (AI)-based pricing and promotions platform for CPG brands and retailers. Founded in 2013, Eversight provides solutions designed to enable brands and retailers to offer optimal promotions and pricing. 

The Eversight platform allows CPG brands and retailers to continuously test customized pricing and promotions directly with their individual customers, at scale. This capability automates formerly manual processes and surfaces real-time, custom insights into promotions.

As a result of this technology integration, Instacart’s CPG and retail partners will have access to new individualized and customized pricing tools and dynamic insights designed to enable the pricing of goods at a real-time level which promotes sales and customer acquisition.

Eversight’s CPG offerings will be part of the Instacart Ads self-serve ad platform, while its retail technology will be part of the Instacart Platform, which offers a range of enterprise technologies retailers can use a la carte or as a suite

Specifically, Eversight will be available to retailers through Carrot Insights, Instacart’s data dashboard that tracks key performance and operational metrics for retailers to help optimize operations, provide more connected online and in-store shopping experiences, and make informed business decisions.

[Read more: Instacart launches Amazon-style e-commerce platform]

Instacart expands advertising functionality

For the past two years, Instacart has been making inroads as an advertising platform. In May 2020, the company rolled out a self-serve ad service called Instacart Ads which brands and agencies can use to purchase search ads, set goals and advertising budgets, and manage bidding.

And in October 2021, Instacart collaborated with e-commerce marketing platform CommerceIQ on an offering called CIQ Advertising for Instacart. The service, which includes an API integration, enables CPG brands to obtain real-time visibility across all their campaigns on the Instacart Ads self-serve ad platform, as well as leverage CommerceIQ artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities to automatically optimize Featured Product ads on Instacart in bulk.

In January 2022, the company released a collection of advertiser solutions, including brand pages and a suite of display applications designed to maximize brand reach and consumer awareness for CPG brands. The new products are designed to enable advertisers to run a full-funnel marketing strategy throughout the entire consumer shopping journey on Instacart – from awareness to consideration to purchase. 

And in May 2022, the company releasedshoppable video ads and enhanced shoppable display ads. Shoppable video ads provide seamless add-to-cart functionality for customers viewing the ads on its site. Shoppable display ads feature brand imagery integrated with direct add-to-cart functionality, and are designed to serve as a CPG brand’s contextual “pop-up shop” on Instacart

Instacart partners with more than 800 national, regional and local retail brands to facilitate online shopping, delivery and pickup services from more than 70,000 stores across more than 5,500 cities in North America.

“Giving everyone access to the food they love is core to Instacart’s mission, and when it comes to grocery shopping, we know that every dollar matters. With higher inflation and the average cost of groceries up, we’re taking even more steps to make food and daily essentials more affordable,” said Fidji Simo, CEO of Instacart.

“By combining Eversight’s leading pricing and promotions capabilities with Instacart’s world-class teams and technology, we’re positioned to deliver even more value to our brand and retail partners, while also creating more opportunities for customers to maximize their savings both in-store and online.”

“We founded Eversight to help brands and retailers be more agile and consumer-centric with their pricing and promotions decisions. This is particularly critical in today’s high inflation environment, with rapidly changing shopping behavior,” said David Moran, co-founder and chairman of Eversight.

“By joining Instacart, this technology can be scaled across online and offline pricing to help make buying groceries more affordable for everyone while also driving more value for CPGs and retailers. We’re excited about our future together, as we build towards becoming one of the most strategic, valued technology platforms for our partners.”