The Goals
- Become the go-to food delivery app by associating Uber Eats with key cultural moments.
- Build brand awareness.
The Approach
- Increased visibility during football tentpole events by securing coveted deals through Programmatic Guaranteed – included on CTV devices.
- Used Display & Video 360 to unify ad strategy and simplify campaign execution across different publishers.
- Increased campaign reach by better controlling ad frequency across channels.
The Results
- Increased campaign reach by 10%.
- It reached over 76 million people, of which 25% were CTV viewers.
- Saved and reinvested the equivalent of 150% of the platform fee by passing unnecessary impressions.
The food delivery industry had massive growth in the past year as more people ordered from home. To set themselves apart from the competition, Uber Eats launched their new “Tonight I’ll be eating” campaign to build their brand with celebrities and key cultural moments. For example, sponsoring the football season in the US. In doing so, they shifted their digital marketing strategy to focus on customer acquisition and drive brand awareness. Uber Eats decided to supplement their TV strategy with video ads on laptops, mobile and connected TV to effectively reach people where they are.
Massive reach through Programmatic Guaranteed
When assessing this challenge, Uber and their media team at MediaCom found that using Display & Video 360 would give them access to the largest and most diverse pool of inventory sources – from display and video to audio and connected TV (CTV). Because inventory is hard to come by and expensive around high-visibility events such as football games, the Uber Eats team used Programmatic Guaranteed in Display & Video 360 to secure in-demand deals. They harnessed an inventory package their Google account management team curated to reach their audience across YouTube, Spotify, Hulu, ESPN, Roku, and more. Securing relevant inventory early via Programmatic Guaranteed helped Uber pace deals and control budgets better. Combining this variety of channels in one platform helped Uber reach over 76 million users, a growing audience of which 25% were CTV users.
Effective cross-channel frequency management
Not only did the Uber Eats team know that ad saturation could be detrimental to their brand, but they also knew it could negatively impact campaign performance. So Uber Eats turned to Ads Data Hub to run customized analyses and understand which ad frequency drove the best campaign results. They uncovered that after seven weekly ad exposures, effectiveness went down. With these insights in mind and all inventory sources and formats in one place, Uber Eats could effectively manage and control ad exposure. YouTube is fundamental to how Uber Eats reaches the 18-35 demographics with lighter TV viewers, so using a tool that could manage frequency across that inventory and their other buys was critical.
Uber Eats set a cross-channel frequency goal and skipped bids exceeding the ideal ad exposure. Uber Eats particularly valued how frequency management works for Programmatic Guaranteed deals. Once their overall campaign frequency goal was reached, Display & Video 360 aimed to stop showing more ads from the Programmatic Guaranteed deals while still prioritizing and ensuring that the agreed number of impressions was delivered.
As a result, Uber Eats could reach 10% more people than it would have without a unified approach. By passing on unnecessary impressions, Uber also limited budget waste. They saved and reinvested the equivalent of 150% of their platform fees.
