Overview of Sponsored Listings

2 min read

Sponsored Listings are DoorDash's core advertising format for restaurants. They help your business appear in high-visibility placements across the app when customers are browsing or searching.

Ads - Rx - Overview of Sponsored Listings 1

What are Sponsored Listings on DoorDash

Sponsored Listings help increase your restaurant's visibility across DoorDash by placing your business in prominent locations throughout the app. These ads are designed to help you reach customers during key decision-making moments, whether they are actively searching for a restaurant or browsing for meal options.

Sponsored Listings operate on an auction-based system. Your ad competes with other advertisers for placement based on factors such as your bid and campaign setup. Ads are served to customers as they browse or search on DoorDash, helping you capture demand when customers are deciding where to order.

Sponsored Listings use a second-price cost-per-acquisition (CPA) pricing model. This means:

You only pay when a customer places an order after clicking your ad
Your bid acts as the maximum amount you're willing to pay for an order
You may pay less than your bid if a lower amount is enough to win the auction

Where Sponsored Listings appear

Your ads can appear across key discovery surfaces in the DoorDash app, including:

Search results
Homefeed
Cuisine category pages
Carousels

These placements are designed to capture customers at different stages of intent — from browsing to ready-to-order.

How to Manage a Sponsored Listings Campaign

You can manage your Sponsored Listing campaigns in Ads Manager, including:

Creating a new Sponsored Listings campaign
Setting the budget, bidding strategy, schedule, and store selection
Choosing the audience targeting and dayparting options
Reviewing live campaign performance
Edit campaigns, including bidding strategy, schedule, and store selection.
Update budgets, campaign length / timeline
Pause or stop any live campaigns.

How Sponsored Listings work with other DoorDash Ads products

Sponsored Listings work well alongside Promotions. While Sponsored Listings increase your visibility and help customers discover your restaurant, Promotions give customers an added reason to order once they find you — like a discount or free delivery.

Running both at the same time can help you capture demand at multiple points: appearing in front of customers as they browse, and converting that interest into orders.