Launching free gift offer structure on Instacart — Drive adoption and encourage trial 

At Instacart, we enable our brand partners to reach, engage, and acquire consumers with a suite of different solutions, each designed to achieve specific objectives. To help drive adoption and encourage trial, we provide several types of promotions and offer structures that CPGs can run — including digital coupons from the Ibotta performance network thanks to our partnership with Ibotta.

Adding to these capabilities, we recently launched a new ‘free gift’ offer structure which enables CPGs to offer consumers 100% off a single item and create a full-sized sampling opportunity for their products on Instacart. 

Setting up free gift offers

Similar to creating any other type of promotion, brands can now create free gift offers through Ads Manager. You’ll need to specify your budget¹ for the offer, the number of redemptions allowed per order, when you want the offer to start, what products are eligible, and a targeting option. 

You can target your free gift offer to consumers based on whether they are new to brand, new to category, a category buyer but new to brand, or both new to brand and new to category. These targeting options enable you to choose how narrow you want the audience for your offer. 

The consumer experience

Once live, your free gift offer appears directly on the item card for eligible products throughout any surface on Instacart, including the Deals tab. And because we only display free gift offers for products with a high likelihood of being in stock at the specific store consumers are shopping from, consumers get a hassle-free shopping experience. 

Free gift offers take priority over other offers, such as Temporary Price Reduction (TPR) set by retailers, so you can be assured consumers see your offer on eligible products.

Case studies of successful free gift offers

While piloting free gifts, we partnered with different brands to analyze and understand the impact of running free gift offers.²

In one study we looked at a recently launched beverage brand looking to generate trials. The advertiser executed a free gift campaign exclusively for their single serve soft drinks. The subsequent customer purchase behavior was tracked and analyzed over an 8-week period following the initial sampling phase and found that— 

• 80% of free gift redeemers were new to the products advertised
• 70% of redeemers were new to the brand
• 46% of redeemers were new to the soft drinks portfolio of the advertiser
• 39% of redeemers made a repeat purchase of the brand within 8 weeks
• These buyers went on to spend $13+ on the brand within 8 weeks post redeeming a free gift

Best practices for running free gift offers

We recommend pairing your free gift offers with other ad formats to boost visibility. Sponsored product ads amplify the impact of the offer by securing premium placements on the digital shelf so that consumers see your product and its free gift offer as they shop. 

Or for awareness, you could pair the offer with display or shoppable display ads that announce the offer in the text of the ad’s creative. Display ads can drive consumers to a dedicated page where consumers can select their free gift. While with shoppable display ads, you can pin the eligible products to the ad’s carousel so consumers can take advantage of the offer right from the ad. If you do pair with display or shoppable display ads, make sure the targeting for the ad and the offer match. 

Ready to run a free gift offer on Instacart? Talk to your Instacart representative for more information or log into your Ads Manager account and set one up today! 

Get started advertising with Instacart here.

¹ Advertisers are responsible for paying both the redemption fee ($0.55 per redemption as of date of publishing, subject to change) and the savings value passed on to consumers (retail price of the free gift UPC)² Case studies include custom reporting that may not be included in standard reporting for these products. Custom analysis available pending investment rate. Case study results serve as an example and are not a guarantee of performance.

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Instacart is the leading grocery technology company in North America, partnering with more than 1,400 national, regional, and local retail banners to deliver from more than 80,000 stores across more than 14,000 cities in North America. To read more Instacart posts, you can browse the company blog or search by keyword using the search bar at the top of the page.