Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands Targeting Capabilities

Targeting determines which consumers see your Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands ads on DoorDash.

By selecting the right targeting options, you can reach more relevant audiences, align campaigns with your strategy, and improve overall campaign performance.

How to set targeting

To configure targeting in Ads Manager:

1. Open your campaign 

2. For Sponsored Products, navigate to the "Ad Group" tab. For Sponsored Brands, navigate to the “Products and Targeting” tab.

3. Select your targeting options based on your campaign goals

4. Use the Audience Reach Estimator to evaluate reach

5. Adjust targeting to balance scale and precision

Targeting capabilities available

Targeting capabilities available for Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands:

Dayparting (Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands)

Dayparting allows you to control when your ads are eligible to run throughout the day.

You can schedule ads during specific time windows (e.g., 9 am–12 pm or 3–8 pm) based on when your category or products are most relevant. Please note, Dayparting uses the local time of where the user is shopping.

This is useful for:

• Aligning campaigns with peak demand periods

• Improving efficiency by focusing spend on high-conversion times

We recommend starting with an always-on campaign to understand budget sufficiency, and then later testing into dayparting to optimize performance and reach.

Keyword targeting (Sponsored Products only)

Keyword targeting allows you to choose or exclude keywords to reach shoppers based on their search behavior and align your ads with customer intent. Available for custom bidding campaigns. Automatic bidding only supports keyword exclusion.

With Keyword targeting, you can apply bids to the keywords that matter most, exclude those that aren't relevant, and leverage branded and competitor keywords to protect your brand presence and expand reach.

You can add keywords directly or use DoorDash's recommended keywords, which are surfaced based on how your products appear in search. Apply individual bids to prioritize specific keywords, or use bulk actions to update multiple bids more efficiently. 

To refine targeting, you can add negative keywords to prevent your ads from showing on specific searches. Enter keywords you want to exclude in the "Exclude keywords" section. Negative keywords use exact match, so your ads will not appear when shoppers search for those specific terms. Read more about Keyword Targeting here.

Behavioral targeting (Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands)

Behavioral targeting allows you to reach customers based on past purchase behavior over the last 180 days, at both the brand and/or category level.

This helps you tailor campaigns to different business objectives:

• Bought from any of my brands: Select one or more brands from your portfolio with a goal to drive repeat purchase or trial/trade up behavior

• Bought from a category (option to exclude your brand): Select a category with a goal to win category share and acquire new customers

• Didn't buy from a category: Select a category with a goal to reach new customers and grow total category

• Lapsed from a category: Select a category to re-engage inactive customers, grow total category

Because behavioral targeting narrows your audience, it should typically complement a broader, always-on strategy to maintain scale.

Retailer targeting (Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands)

Retailer targeting allows you to reach loyal shoppers at the specific retailers where your products are sold. This feature gives you greater control and alignment with your retail strategy by enabling you to select from a wide variety of retailers.

When using Retailer targeting, your ads will appear within selected retailers' store homepages and category pages. Retailer Targeting is supported for Sponsored Products (custom and automatic bidding) and Sponsored Brands (custom bidding).

Retailer Targeting is particularly useful when:

• Running retailer-specific promotions

• Prioritizing key retail partnerships

Before selecting your retailers, confirm that your products are available at each targeted store — ads will not serve for products that aren't carried at the retailers you've selected.

Retailer Targeting is currently not available for Alcohol advertisers.

Dish Interest targeting (Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands)

Dish Interest targeting allows you to reach high-intent customers based on their demonstrated affinity for specific restaurant dishes and food categories. This feature uses DoorDash's restaurant ordering and engagement data to build actionable, food-based audiences unique to DoorDash Ads. By connecting with consumers through these signals, advertisers can drive stronger engagement, improve media efficiency, and increase conversions.

This targeting connects your products to relevant consumption moments, helping improve engagement and conversion.

For example, you can reach customers interested in:

• Breakfast and brunch

• Pizza, burgers, or snacks

• Coffee, tea, or desserts

These interest signals are derived from actual ordering behavior, making them highly relevant for CPG brands. Use the Interest Insights Report to identify which food categories or dishes have the highest affinity for your brand, and prioritize those segments in your campaigns.

How to use the Audience Reach Estimator

Audience Reach Estimator is a planning tool within Ads Manager that provides directional insight into the potential number of active customers your campaign could reach based on your selected targeting and placements. It provides directional reach ranges in real time based on:

• Targeting selections

• Placement choices

Your reach band helps you understand how restrictive or expansive your targeting selections are:

• Broad: large, scalable reach

• Moderate: balanced flexibility and specificity

• Narrow: may limit performance; consider expanding targeting

• Too narrow: very restricted; expansion strongly recommended

This tool is compatible with Behavioral, Interest, and Retailer Targeting.

What to do next

• Create a Sponsored Product campaign

• Create a Sponsored Brand campaign

• Monitor performance and refine targeting over time