[00:00:00] Phillip: Hello, and welcome to Future Commerce, the podcast at the intersection of culture and commerce. I'm Phillip.

[00:00:04] Alicia: And I'm Alicia.

[00:00:05] Phillip: And DoorDash, for a decade for me, I'm sure for much longer, has been innovating in every single arena. It's been delivering dinner for everybody. And today, it's building a retail media business around the everyday moments that turn your needs into a purchase. And speaking of innovation, I mean, there's even announcements this week about all the innovations that DoorDash is bringing. You'll... can read about it on futurecommerce.com. But I think the retail media business is the really interesting part of what is making brands successful today, and DoorDash has just introduced Brand Center. It's bringing advertising together, with insights, product availability, shopper behavior. And here today to talk about it, she is the general manager of CPG ads at DoorDash. And before connecting brands with consumers in those moments, she helped to build them at brands like Klondike and Axe at Unilever, and then launching private label at Jet.com. Today, she's helping brands to show up where it matters most. Katie Daleo, welcome to Future Commerce.

[00:01:04] Katie: Thank you for having me.

[00:01:05] Phillip: Yeah. What is the most important thing that you're working on right now over at DoorDash, and how are you helping brands connect to their audiences?

[00:01:14] Katie: Yeah. There's a lot we're working on. We announced that we are the first retail media network to have AAM certification for our iROAS methodology. We really have been kind of tinkering with it and solidifying our point of view, making sure we have a really sound methodology, and then brought it to market earlier this year, when we sort of felt that, like, we had as thorough of a point of view as we possibly could. And we saw great results. I think on average, we're seeing over 30% incremental sales lift for our partners, and then we fast followed with the AAM certification as sort of the cherry on top.

[00:01:55] Phillip: Alliance for Audited Media. So when you're attracting brands, I, I was thinking through the brands that you see on DoorDash these days. It's like Skims, Gap, Kohl's, right? When they're, you know, looking at DoorDash as a, you know, marketplace, as a... to buy media, are they looking at AAM as the differentiating factor? Is that the sort of thing that you feel like is decisive for them? Is... or is that something that you feel like is really important for you as you're coming into the market and the market is crowded and it becomes part of that credentialing?

[00:02:36] Katie: I think it is a very important part of the total equation. I think, you know, commerce media has kind of emerged as, you know, a derivation of retail media, if you will. And, you know, in the last couple years, a lot of our brand partners are sort of getting their head around, like, what does this mean versus, you know, other channels? And so, you know, data... I would say data is the currency we have with CPG partners. And so kind of figuring out the measurement story is really critical, but it's only part of it. The AAM certification and the iROAS methodology is part of the data. We also, you know, have started working with third parties like Circana and Numerator to, like, better tell the impact of... of, like, what DoorDash — or investing on DoorDash — means for your total investment. You can get surgical in terms of planning for DoorDash versus other platforms. So data and measurement, like, will always be an important pillar of how we serve our partners. There's a lot of other things that matter to brand partners as they kind of figure out commerce media. One is understanding the audience, and then understanding sort of where we fit within our consumers' overall kind of shopping patterns. To your point about having, like, Skims and Gap and other kind of core retail, you know, if I'm Unilever or Pepsi, at first, I'm like, well, that doesn't really matter to me. But what it does is it means that DoorDash is driving more value for our consumer. We're giving them more reasons to come back to the DoorDash platform, which just means that we're continuing to cultivate, you know, a unique and loyal audience. And that is very important to partners as they think about how all these different platforms kinda fit together.

[00:04:25] Phillip: How much do you think your time brand side — and I'm sure a lot's changed over, over the last, I mean, even just post-pandemic — but how much do you think it's informed your current perspective on the development of RMN, CMN? And does that help when you're working with brand partners?

[00:04:46] Katie: You know, I speak CPG, and I have a lot of, like, empathy because I've been on the other side of the table. And so I sort of know sort of the challenges that a brand manager is facing. That, like, consumer centricity that you learn at a CPG has been beneficial for me in my role here. I think that, coupled with my exposure to consumer tech or UI at Jet, like, have allowed me to come here. And as we think through, you know, what products and features we wanna build for our partners, it allows me to always also think about the impact on the core consumer at the end of the day. And our philosophy here has very much been, if you can find a solution that works for the consumer, it will work for the brand, in which case it will work for DoorDash. And you kinda get the win-win-win under product market fit.

[00:05:36] Alicia: And what I find so interesting about the DoorDash business is that that consumer set is so diverse and it's so firmly based in momentary needs. Sometimes it's problem based, sometimes it's situational. And you guys have done some fascinating research through partners like Circana around who's actually using DoorDash and what are those use cases. And what I find interesting is how you can kind of bring those insights into those commerce media centric conversations. So brands can kind of rise to the occasion, so to speak, and be part of the moment. In context of all that data and insight, I mean, what are you finding about the on-demand shopper today? Is there anything that brands maybe don't know or insights that are possibly overlooked to really understand this larger context of who this shopper is? And I guess mainly the, like, behavioral and psychological aspects that drive them?

[00:06:44] Katie: There's a couple of things there. I think we are finding, first and foremost, it's definitely more about the need state than anything else. I think two things that are good to know about... what we found about our consumers on DoorDash are, one, they're highly loyal. You know, we have 56 million monthly active users. Nearly two-thirds of them are DashPass users, which have, like, you know, 50%-plus frequency. And to the point earlier in the conversation, like, the more shopping occasions that we can deliver on, no pun intended, the more reason we have, like, that our consumers will continue to kind of think of DoorDash first, as they have a need to fulfill. And then the second piece is that they're open to discovery. We had multiple data points show this through third parties and our own research. So for example, we did a lot of research around occasions because we know, like, moments really matter to the DoorDash consumer. Those can be, like, big moments. You know, like, FIFA World Cup was a big one this summer, or can be, like, smaller moments, like a national food day. But one, we see increased traffic, and then we see that the consumers that come to the platform, you know, 50% of them say they're very open to, like, adding something new to their basket or trying something new. We've also saw... like, you probably saw the news from Groceryshop where we talked about our testing into, like, a grocery agent.

[00:08:01] Katie: And there, we found that, like, 60% — unique items were unique across baskets. And so there's definitely an immediacy factor. The majority of our deliveries still occur kind of on a need-it-now basis versus scheduled. But we are finding that once a consumer comes to the app, they're definitely open to being influenced, either of how to fulfill said need or to, like, add incremental items to their basket. And so I always take it back as, what does this mean for... for the brand? And it's every audience is different, and then the path to purchase or how the consumers shop for each platform is different. And so understanding, you know, discovery versus search and, you know, the path to purchase. We have categories where global search, where non... you know, non-branded term will drive 10% of orders. Like, someone comes and, you know, says, hey, I'm having party, I want to bring beer. But they'll literally just type beer on the DoorDash homepage, and the world is their oyster in terms of, like, where the... you know, what item they actually navigate to. And so I think it's just really important for brands to understand, you know, one, audience demographics; two, their purchase patterns; and then three, what does that mean for how you can actually show up to win?

[00:09:19] Alicia: I kinda wanna unpack those layer by layer because I think there are a few different, you know, perspectives to look at this new reality that brands are facing from a creative standpoint. So the first layer, you kind of talked about those global/cultural moments. I actually had the chance to see you and your team speak at the Upfronts earlier in September and saw the session with Keurig Dr Pepper. I thought that it was a really great case of an established brand really thinking strategically about, how do we join this conversation around college football? How do we join the moment in an authentic way? What I found interesting is how it got so granular to targeting Gen Z specifically for the college football moment. And I think it really got everyone in the room thinking about, okay, well, how do we design for these cultural moments in context of a shopping experience or app experience where it is so momentary slash needs based? Are there any key learnings from that particular case that you think are worth calling out?

[00:10:27] Katie: Some of it comes down to, like, brass tacks, right? Like, understanding what formats work better in certain situations. Like, I was... we were laughing, we were talking with my daughter who's, like, a tween, this weekend about commercials. I was talking about how, like, they used to be sixty seconds, and now most, you know, are at best fifteen. You know, in our app, consumers come in, and it's not a place where they spend three hours, right? It's... you're not... it's not like you're scrolling on TikTok or Instagram. And so we've actually found that, like, videos that are less than six seconds work well. I think it's... some of it is very tactical of understanding, like, the specifications of what work well on different platforms based on the consumer behavior and how they use that platform. And then I think it's just understanding our audience and that, you know, for Keurig Dr Pepper, you know, a lot of the appeal there was the Gen Z of, like, bringing Dr Pepper to this younger audience that, you know, over-indexes on our platform. And then the third piece is just figuring out, you know, end to end. So it's understanding, like, the different formats you're using between off-site content creation, what is the click-through when you get to the app so that it's quick and that minimizes friction, but also keeps kind of the brand front and center? So I'd say it's a combination of those three things.

[00:11:47] Phillip: You know, back to your old days of planning and thinking about how the funnel has changed dramatically is, you know, if it's orders, not impressions or clicks, that best capture the sales impact, is commerce media ready to be held to the same standard as TV? Like, is... are we sort of... is the mentality shifting away? And, like, how does CTV and other channels and sort of the way that the media environment as a whole evolving, that sort of changed the way that the marketer is looking at attribution? Are they looking at it holistically or are they making comparisons in performance to other channels like CTV when looking at CMN?

[00:12:40] Katie: I would say it's like a conversation we have with a lot of partners, especially as different organizations fund retail media or commerce media differently. So, like, their internal benchmarks vary across the board. Like, we very much believe in the impact that, you know, marketing on DoorDash has. And at the end of the day, any media should be showing impact, but the... the actual metric or the methodology may need to be different. You know, like, they're very much based on impressions and and reach. They're very much based on, like, a longer term view. So in our kinda Ipsos work, we show that, like, most of the impact actually happened a week after. We look at incrementality. That's why we did the third-party Circana study, and we're building that muscle in terms of, like, the impact offline. Yes, like, we want to be in the conversation, but there probably needs to be broader discussion around finding a methodology that actually can compare apples to oranges, to translate everything into a common currency.

[00:13:50] Phillip: Yeah, sure. Yep. Do you think this is leading back to the conversation that the marketer that had — the instinct-driven marketer and not the data-and-dashboard-insights-driven marketer — has a place in the modern organization still, right?

[00:14:04] Katie: Yeah, 100%. I think I've actually just seen this even through my career. Like, it very much used to... you know, when I was at Unilever, it very much felt like, you know, you're a brand manager, but you're really a general manager. Just marketing is your tools. And the beauty of being... what I loved about being a brand manager is you got to exercise the right and the left brain, right? You've got the creative and sort of the more intuit... intuitive pieces, and then you also had, like, the data that helped drive your decisions. Like, the 2010s were... it was very much like DTC. And it was very much a bifurcation. It seemed to be you're brand or you're performance, and you were one or the other. I think, yeah, now it's kinda needs to be the combination of the two. And I think you're also seeing that even in the conversations we have with brand partners of, like, who's involved in managing the relationship. We usually find that it's a combination of kind of, like, a traditional kind of, like, channel or sales lead and a media person, because you can combine those two things together to really look at, like, the total impact, you know, like, a platform like DoorDash can drive, as opposed to looking at purely as one or the other.

[00:15:10] Phillip: I... I've had a couple conversations with a few people more cynical than I that have also said that that's also just due to collapsing budgets and margin. Like, we're just trying to get more out of, you know, fewer headcount too, but that's... I digress on that. DoorDash has recently unveiled Brand Center, which is, you know, your integrated platform for retailer intelligence.

[00:15:32] Katie: Yeah. I think that's a kind of a good build on sort of the merge of, like, media and sort of core kind of retail mechanics. But, yeah, we we pivoted Ads Manager to Brand Center last week. And it is an evolution that says, you know, if you really wanna understand your total business on DoorDash — sales data and then your ability to run marketing campaigns as part of it — you also under... understand how some of the basics feed into your performance. And so we've launched data that shows your on-shelf availability, so you can understand how you're actually showing up. Yeah. Your assortments, you can understand what SKUs are carried on a... on DoorDash from your partners. There could be, you know, x thousands in stores, but maybe not all of them are making it through the app. You can also see how those SKUs show up from a content standpoint, in terms of, you know, the imagery and the words and all of that, and then have the ability to make edits in real time. And then the last piece is the consumer substitution data. So, like, real time understanding of the impact of a Dasher not being able to find your SKU, and where does the consumer redirect themselves.

[00:16:49] Phillip: This is the thing that I feel like I should be throwing my hands up and jumping up and down about because to me, there's... this is an entire industry. Like, this solves so many problems for retailers. Like, how do you show up? When are you being substituted? I feel like this is an entire, you know, segment of, like, the market that I think can be better served by a workforce that's already out there every day doing something with a phone pointed at it. What's happening right now? This is brilliant. What's the reception been like?

[00:17:24] Katie: It's... it's been... it's been strong. I, you know, I I think our brand partners are understanding how to digest the data and then also marry it up with their own, but it's... it's really helpful. I mean, we always get questions on, like, what happens with substitutions. Also, it's good for DoorDash, right? Because now we have better intelligence of, like, in our app, if I order something, it's not available, like, what's the best, you know, experience for Katie in terms of a substitution? They're happy to see that we're able to kinda give them the full picture of DoorDash as not just, you know, a platform you can advertise on, but a retail platform that has a cross-retailer view into, like, your ecosystem.

[00:18:06] Alicia: And what I find really interesting about that point, Katie, is that at the top of our conversation, you mentioned how incredibly loyal the DoorDash user is. So it's like when those moments of tension or disconnect happen where they have a particular need or they're building their list and there is that fork in the road, so to speak, of do you want a replacement item or do you want a refund? I think it was something like 40% of shoppers ask for a refund instead of just a substitute, right? So it's almost like this data is helping create that closed loop experience, so to speak, so people can continue on that journey with DoorDash and then ultimately with the brand because there's that data now, there's that insight to kind of help close that loop.

[00:18:50] Katie: Yeah, 100%. We find that about a third of consumers kinda have a specific item in mind when they're... when they're building a basket. And so that... in my mind, anyway, that math kinda makes sense that, like, roughly 40% won't do a substitution. I I even think, like, when I, like, place orders, you know, there's, like, the one SKU of gummies my daughter will eat. And if they don't have it, like, I don't... I don't wanna even, like, have the conversation. It's all... it's that or bust. It also just is that intelligence that you can come back and say, you know, real time data that validates reporting you're getting elsewhere that probably isn't as timely, and you can make quick corrections.

[00:19:28] Alicia: Right. And then if you have an ad that kind of alludes to a specific product or campaign and then there's, again, there's that disconnect, then it's kind of turning that moment of opportunity into a dead end, so to speak.

[00:19:39] Katie: I always come back to, like, the consumer and their experience. We're driving a lot of our existing restaurant base into the, let's call it, the grocery and convenience or consumables categories. About just north of, like, a third of our monthly active users are now shopping what we call new verticals, which is all things retail. And so I think discovery is really... you know, as as we're bringing a lot more new consumers into the experience, it makes sense that they're discovering, right? They wanna understand, like, what do we offer and what can I get from DoorDash? And so that, again, all comes back to, like, knowing the routines and the... who we're serving and who's coming to shop on DoorDash versus other platforms, because that... like, the why is different, and the why is what offers brands the opportunity.

[00:20:27] Alicia: Yeah. Because DoorDash is expanding its customer base, like you mentioned, into new verticals, a lot more, you know, apparel, mass retailer. So I guess all of this insight is the foundation to kind of building out not just the opportunity for the consumer to shop more verticals, but is... how does that play into, like, the advertising side, like, the vision for what the commerce media side of the business can be or or possibly should be, knowing that all of these new verticals and new brands.

[00:20:59] Katie: I think for brands, like, the part of our job to be done on the DoorDash side is understanding how, you know, telling a story for soda is probably very different than telling a story for beauty. I imagine in a lot of the retail categories, like, moments are even more impactful in terms of when you see sort of consumer interest peak. So, you know, we'll we'll be, you know, kind of figuring out the retail side as we continue to expand there. I think for brands, you know, if you're a soda brand, you don't have necessarily distribution at a lot of these, you know, specialty retailers, but it's just one potential consumer or audience insights of understanding affinities and whatnot. Not exactly the same thing, but a cool product we launched earlier this year is dish targeting, where we can actually leverage the orders. You know? If we know, Alicia, you come to DoorDash and you love breakfast burritos, we can have actually been able to show that, you know, folks who like breakfast burritos over-index on XYZ categories. And so there's definitely an opportunity to kind of look at purchase patterns across the different verticals on DoorDash and see what insights that bubbles up for brands.

[00:22:16] Phillip: This has been so great, Katie. You now serve over 400,000 advertisers on the platform. We usually ask what the future looks like. You're creating the future over there at DoorDash. But what is your, you know, what is your outlook on the space, you know, for the next year? How do you think you're going to be playing a part in this industry, with all these new launches?

[00:22:40] Katie: We had, like, a saying of... intimacy at scale. Like, how do you take, like, a big national brand and do it at scale? I think of DoorDash as a platform that allows you to do local commerce at scale. And then in addition to continuing to refine the formats and capabilities that we offer, I think, especially in an age of AI — and I'm, like, shocked that we made it through this without talking about AI — I do think we can simplify how everything works together, which will be sort of a critical job to be done. And I think kind of a key insight for us, at least on the CPG side, has been we want... need to simplify. We need to make it easier, but you also still need to give brands a certain level of control. And I think that kind of recipe and formula is gonna drive a lot of what we do in the short to midterm.

[00:23:29] Phillip: Oh, I like that a lot. Yeah. I love it. This has been such a great conversation. Congrats on everything. Thank you so much. And, Katie Daleo, the GM of CPG ads at the DoorDash business. Find out more at ads.doordash.com. We'll link it up in the show notes. Thank you all for watching this episode of Future Commerce. If this conversation sparked something for you, like, follow, subscribe, wherever you get your podcasts. It helps more people join the conversation. If you wanna bring more future commerce into your world, we have a whole slew of books, actual physical real life print. That's right. Atoms are, I think, a lot more valuable than electrons that rot in your inbox. You could get it at our print shop at futurecommerce.com. That's where commerce meets culture in beautiful crafted journals, zines, print collectibles. And remember, commerce shapes the future because commerce is culture. We'll see you next time.