Instacart Launches Consumer Insights Portal to Power Faster, Smarter Decisions for Brands

Rhea-AI Summary

Instacart (NASDAQ: CART) has launched its Consumer Insights Portal (CIP), a new software platform providing brands with real-time access to grocery shopping data. The platform analyzes data from nearly 100,000 stores and over 1,800 retail banners, offering SKU-level performance metrics, search behavior patterns, and promotion impact analysis.

The CIP enables brands to track daily product-level sales, analyze consumer path-to-purchase, understand substitution behaviors, and measure promotion performance. Early adopters including Coca-Cola Bottling Canada and Advantage Solutions are already utilizing the platform to optimize their sales strategies and promotional effectiveness.

Positive

• Platform provides access to real-time, first-party purchase data instead of modeled data or survey panels
• Comprehensive coverage across 100,000 stores and 1,800+ retail banners
• Enables brands to track daily performance metrics and make faster, data-driven decisions
• Helps optimize promotional strategies and measure ROI across retail partners

Negative

• None.

Insights

Product Strategy Analyst

Instacart's new data analytics platform creates valuable revenue stream from first-party shopping data, strengthening its B2B value proposition.

The Consumer Insights Portal (CIP) represents a significant expansion of Instacart's business model beyond its core grocery delivery service. By productizing access to its first-party transaction data from nearly 100,000 stores across 1,800+ retail banners, Instacart has created a new revenue stream while simultaneously deepening its strategic relationships with brand partners.

What makes CIP particularly valuable is that it provides SKU-level performance data based on actual transactions, not modeled data or survey panels. This real-time visibility into consumer behavior—including search patterns, substitution behaviors, and promotion impact—addresses a critical pain point for CPG companies that typically rely on lagging third-party data or limited panel information.

The platform's focus on actionable insights rather than raw data is strategically important. By providing metrics on trial drivers, repeat rates, and brand-switching patterns, Instacart positions CIP as a decision-support tool for marketing, sales, and product teams. Early adopters like Coca-Cola Bottling Canada and Advantage Solutions are already using these insights to optimize promotional strategies and refine retail planning.

Beyond the direct revenue from CIP subscriptions, this platform creates a virtuous cycle for Instacart's advertising business. As brands gain visibility into consumer behavior, they can refine their Instacart Ads strategies, potentially increasing their ad spend on the platform. This aligns with Instacart's broader strategy of diversifying revenue beyond delivery fees toward higher-margin advertising and data services.

New self-serve platform gives partners like Applegate, Coca-Cola Bottling Canada, and Advantage Solutions access to real-time grocery shopping trends across 1,800+ retail partners

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 23, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Instacart (NASDAQ: CART) today introduced the Consumer Insights Portal (CIP), a new software platform for brands to access Instacart's first-party grocery shopping data in real time. Built on daily activity from nearly 100,000 stores and more than 1,800 retail banners, CIP gives marketing, sales, and insights teams self-serve access to SKU-level performance, search behavior, substitution patterns, and promotion impact – all based on actual transactions, not modeled data or survey panels.

The offering gives brands a faster, clearer picture of what's driving trial, loyalty, and basket-building across channels, and helps marketers refine promotions, product placement, and media strategies week to week.

"Over the last few years, we've been focused on harnessing Instacart's first-party data to deliver advanced measurement and metrics to our partners," said Ali Miller, General Manager of Advertising at Instacart. "What we've heard from brands and agency partners is that they're eager to use our data to inform broader decision-making. We built the Consumer Insights Portal to surface actionable patterns in consumer behavior - information like brand switching, trial drivers, and repeat rates - in a way that's timely and directly useful."

By productizing its first-party purchase data, Instacart is allowing brands to subscribe to actionable insights that can influence sales-driving Instacart Ads strategies while also informing broader decision-making across omnichannel consumer touchpoints.

A Ground-Level View of Real Consumer Behavior

The Consumer Insights Portal surfaces real-time trends and performance data. Core capabilities include:

• Daily product-level sales data by category, brand, and retailer
• Path-to-purchase insights showing what consumers search, click, and consider before buying
• Substitution behavior analysis, revealing which products get swapped and why
• Promotion performance, measuring impact on trial, habituation, and incrementality
• Launch and campaign tracking to evaluate week-over-week performance

Brands are already using the Consumer Insights Portal to sharpen decision-making across the board by:

• Tracking trial and repeat rates for new product launches in near real time
• Evaluating promotional ROI across retail partners
• Comparing regional and national performance to guide display and distribution strategies
• Identifying top-converting keywords and placements to fine-tune Instacart Ads campaigns

With always-on access, brands no longer have to wait for lagging reports or rely on modeled assumptions. CIP enables proactive decision-making and iterative campaign management.

Early Partner Feedback

"Having access to timely, real purchase data through the Consumer Insights Portal has been incredibly helpful for our team," said Tara Scott, Chief New Growth Officer & VP Alternative Revenue Streams at Coca-Cola Bottling Canada. "It's given us a clearer view into how consumers are discovering and choosing our products across customer channels and helped us move faster on decisions around promotion strategy and retail planning. We're excited to keep building on these insights as we aim to advance our role as valued customer partners."

"One of the ways we're driving optimized sales is by leveraging data and analytics to deliver fast, more actionable insights for our clients," said Nico Cattaneo, Senior Vice President of Enterprise Analytics and Insights at Advantage Solutions. "Our team leverages the Consumer Insights Portal to provide clients with a deeper understanding of what shapes omni behavior, identifying paths to improve promotional effectiveness at scale across retailers and channels. With our exclusive brokerage access as a build partner to first party, closed-loop purchase behavior analytics powered by Instacart we can better connect shoppers with brands and products that enrich their lives."

Bringing First-Party Insights Into Everyday Decision-Making

With the Consumer Insights Portal, Instacart is expanding how brands can leverage its data, with a direct line to the consumer behavior signals that shape category performance. From marketing and sales to product and retail execution, the tool is designed to help brands move faster, act on real-time trends, and make decisions grounded in what consumers are doing right now.

About Instacart

Instacart, the leading grocery technology company in North America, works with grocers and retailers to transform how people shop. The company partners with more than 1,800 national, regional, and local retail banners to facilitate online shopping, delivery and pickup services from nearly 100,000 stores across North America on the Instacart Marketplace. Instacart makes it possible for millions of people to get the groceries they need from the retailers they love, and for approximately 600,000 Instacart shoppers to earn by picking, packing and delivering orders on their own flexible schedule. The Instacart Platform offers retailers a suite of enterprise-grade technology products and services to power their e-commerce experiences, fulfill orders, digitize brick-and-mortar stores, provide advertising services, and glean insights. With Instacart Ads, thousands of CPG brands – from category leaders to emerging brands – partner with the company to connect directly with consumers online, right at the point of purchase. With Instacart Health, the company is providing tools to increase nutrition security, make healthy choices easier for consumers, and expand the role that food can play in improving health outcomes. For more information, visit www.instacart.com/company, and to start shopping, visit www.instacart.com. Maplebear Inc. is the registered corporate name of Instacart.

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SOURCE Maplebear Inc. dba Instacart

FAQ

What is Instacart's Consumer Insights Portal (CIP) and how does it work?

The CIP is a self-serve platform that provides brands with real-time access to Instacart's first-party grocery shopping data, including SKU-level performance, search behavior, and promotion impact across nearly 100,000 stores.

How many retail partners does Instacart's Consumer Insights Portal cover?

The Consumer Insights Portal covers more than 1,800 retail banners across nearly 100,000 stores, providing comprehensive retail coverage.

What key features does Instacart's CIP offer to brands?

CIP offers daily product-level sales data, path-to-purchase insights, substitution behavior analysis, promotion performance metrics, and launch tracking capabilities.

Which companies are already using Instacart's Consumer Insights Portal?

Coca-Cola Bottling Canada and Advantage Solutions are among the early partners using CIP to optimize sales strategies and gain deeper insights into consumer behavior.

How does Instacart's CIP differ from traditional market research tools?

CIP provides real-time, actual transaction data rather than modeled data or survey panels, enabling faster and more accurate decision-making based on current consumer behavior.