👋 Hello, hungry media buyers!

DoorDash just served up a 175 million dollar ad tech buffet, and it’s not just fries and flyers anymore.

While you were still arguing about the death of cookies and the resurrection of CTV, DoorDash quietly became one of the most advanced retail media networks on the planet. Yes, DoorDash. The app you use to order wings while hungover.

DoorDash is no longer just dropping off chicken katsu at 11pm—it’s dropping full-funnel ad campaigns on programmatic platforms like The Trade Desk. With 42 million monthly users and a conversion pipeline hotter than a Nashville hot sandwich, they’ve evolved into a retail media war machine.

Their 175 million dollar Symbiosys acquisition didn’t just turbocharge targeting—it broke down the walled garden with a sledgehammer made of receipts and reorders. Now your CPG clients can run off-site Google, Meta, and TikTok ads and still close the loop. Retargeting with real receipts? Go off, King.

Forget ChatGPT suggesting recipes. DoorDash’s AI knows when your blood sugar crashes. Smart targeting tools now let mom-and-pop chicken joints behave like multinationals. You give it a budget and vibe—DoorDash does the rest. Real-time promo swaps? Algorithmic discounting? It’s basically a media buyer with fewer breakdowns.

SMBs are now running “smart” ads on autopilot, while your intern still thinks CPM stands for Cost Per Muffin. Fix that.

DoorDash's marriage to The Trade Desk gives you access to their first-party purchase data across display, CTV, mobile, and audio. No sketchy cookie-farming here—just clean, contextual, and delightfully actionable audiences who already impulse-bought sushi at 2am.

And with closed-loop attribution, you can finally answer the age-old question: “But did it actually sell anything?” Yes, Karen. It did. Now let’s run it again.

Let’s talk numbers. Ad revenue passed ONE BILLION DOLLARS in 2024. EBITDA margin for ads? A disgusting 85%. That’s higher than Google’s—seriously.

Meanwhile, DoorDash’s food margins are sweating at 5.5%, which explains why they’re suddenly treating media like it’s truffle oil.

Forecasts say this ad revenue will hit 2.6 billion by 2027. So next time a client says “I want to be on Uber Eats,” just nod and gently redirect them to the platform that actually has a scaled ad product.

From banner ads at checkout to sponsored brand videos and event-based targeting, the new formats are juicier than a Five Guys double stack.

And now with collaborative bidding, even your local pizza place can share a campaign budget with Pepsi and 7-Eleven for that ultimate hangover bundle. It’s the Avengers of ad spend.

DoorDash’s adoption of clean rooms and privacy-safe data sharing means you can finally sleep at night. Or at least pretend to during Cannes.

With cookie death looming and GA4 still giving everyone trust issues, DoorDash’s first-party goldmine and clean data plumbing feel like a rare W in the chaos.

They’re not just delivering pad Thai. They’re delivering hyper-local media solutions that Amazon can’t touch. From pet food to hair dye, DoorDash is eating up territory. Literally.

And as they expand internationally via Deliveroo and deeper CPG integrations, this is your early-mover moment. Get in now—before it gets expensive.

If Amazon is a walled garden, DoorDash just built a sexy rooftop bar across the street with better conversion rates and no weird Prime Day crowds.

Agencies who ignore DoorDash’s evolution will miss the next retail media gold rush. Or worse—end up trying to justify a twenty-grand TikTok test that delivered 11 likes and one accidental sale.

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Until next time!