DoorDash bets on commerce media with global push

DoorDash is making its most overt play yet to position itself as a full-stack commerce media platform. On Thursday, the delivery company announced a sweeping expansion of its ads business, which now spans more than 400,000 advertisers across DoorDash, Wolt and Deliveroo globally.

DoorDash, like other retail media networks, is looking beyond ads sold on its own platform. It is now expanding into off-site media and measurement, helping advertisers reach consumers across channels and tie campaigns directly to purchases.

The rollout includes a new premium ad format, scaled off-site capabilities, a clean-room measurement partnership and enhanced automation tools for merchants.

“Consumers come to DoorDash ready to buy, and that’s a fundamentally different opportunity for advertisers than most platforms can offer,” said Toby Espinosa, vice president of ads at DoorDash. “Every order starts with an occasion — a Friday night, a birthday, a last-minute grocery run. We’ve built a platform around those moments.”

Global intent

The headline product is Spotlight, a premium homepage placement that gives restaurants and CPG brands an immersive space within the DoorDash app. According to the company, early results show twice the click-through rate of standard banners. New customers account for more than 20% of sales for restaurants and over 36% for CPG brands.

DoorDash is also expanding its off-site ambitions through Symbiosys, the retail media platform it acquired in early 2025. Media spend through Symbiosys has nearly doubled since the acquisition, according to the company. The platform extends DoorDash’s reach across search, social and display with closed-loop measurement across the Americas, EMEA and APAC.

Magnum Ice Cream, the first brand to activate Symbiosys’ full social channel suite via DoorDash, saw an 85% increase in new consumers compared with the prior period.

“DoorDash, Wolt and Deliveroo have become important partners in how we bring our brands to market,” PepsiCo said in a statement. “Their reach allows us to execute across regions while staying closely connected to local consumers.”

Measurement and incrementality

The LiveRamp partnership may be the most strategically important piece of the expansion. Using a privacy-centric clean room, advertisers can now match their customer data against DoorDash’s audience data to measure incremental reach and identify new customers.

DoorDash also used the announcement to position itself as a customer acquisition channel, not simply a retention tool. One leading CPG brand found that nearly 100% of consumers reached through sponsored product campaigns were new to its customer base. A national restaurant chain found that 81% of its DoorDash engagers were exclusive to the platform. Across campaigns, more than 80% of consumers reached are new to advertisers, according to DoorDash.

The company is also expanding its automation tools. Smart Campaigns now support buy-one-get-one-free offers alongside spend-based promotions, dynamically managing targeting and discounts in real time. Pubbelly Sushi returned over $4 for every $1 spent over nine months, with some locations experiencing more than 20% net sales growth.

For CPG advertisers, auto-bidding now supports a minimum ROAS target — and in testing, more than 95% of campaigns exceeded it.

For advertisers, the pitch is straightforward: reach high-intent consumers, verify they’re genuinely new to the brand and measure what drove the purchase. The remaining question is whether DoorDash can deliver that proposition on a global scale.