Create a Sponsored Brand Campaign

Before creating a Sponsored Brand campaign

Before starting to create a campaign, confirm:

• You have access to Ads Manager

• Your catalog is up to date and complete

• Products are available and linked to retailers

• Creative assets meet DoorDash requirements

• Your ad will meet DoorDash Ad and Promotions Policies

If products aren't in the DoorDash catalog or not linked to retailers, they will not be eligible for selection during campaign setup.

How to create a Sponsored Brand campaign

Step 1: Create your campaign

To begin, click the Create Campaign button in Ads Manager. On the campaign creation page, you will:

• Name your campaign: Use a clear, descriptive name to help with reporting and organization

• Start date: Choose when your campaign will go live. Note: DoorDash runs on UTC, so set your start time to 5:00 AM UTC on your intended launch date if you want to ensure your campaign begins at midnight EST.

• End date (optional): Set an end date 

• Format: Select Sponsored Brands

Step 2: Set your budget

Choose from one of two budgeting options, Daily or Lifetime, depending on your preferred budget controls.

• Daily Budget lets you set the daily budget you want to spend. The Total Campaign Budget feature lets you set a maximum spend limit for your daily budget during the campaign, ensuring your spend never exceeds your total campaign budget.

• Lifetime Budget lets you set the amount you want to spend for the duration of your campaign. We recommend this option to help maximize impressions and reach.

Step 3: Add creative and brand messaging

Sponsored Brand ads help you drive consideration of your brand by showcasing an eye-catching mix of creative elements displayed in a dynamic product carousel. To create your ad, you'll need to upload a collection of creative assets, including a static image or video formatted for the carousel, as well as a logo image, header and subheader text. Ensure that they meet DoorDash Creative Requirements.

Creative should clearly communicate your brand and highlight your products. Ads that don't meet requirements may be rejected during moderation.

Once you've uploaded your creative assets, use our in-app image resizer tool to optimize their appearance. When you're satisfied with the sizing, you can preview your ad in Ads Manager for both in-feed and Landing Page placements.

Step 4: Select your ad details

After you upload your creative assets, you're ready to select your brand ad details. This includes setting up your ad group and configuring your dayparting and targeting.  

When you set up an ad group in DoorDash, you'll specify the following details:

• Ad Group name: Add a name for your ad group in this text field.

• Select products: Add products to an ad group:

  • Start by selecting Add Products

  • Then select your items using search or bulk import. When searching, you can filter items by name, brand, or 14-digit GTIN/12-digit UPC, and then add them to your campaign. A maximum of 200 SKUs can be selected in a campaign.

• Pin Products: Product pinning lets you control which items users see when they view your ad. Pin any products that you would like to have shown at the top of an ad and maximize the visibility of your most important products, while also surfacing a wider set of products to consumers. 

A Sponsored Brand campaign needs at least three items to surface on mobile and at least four to show up on desktop web, so be sure to choose a wide variety of products to account for variances in in-store distribution. For best practices, we recommend more products to ensure availability. 

Ad groups can also be edited after they're launched. Note: these edits may trigger additional moderation.

Step 5: Customize your campaign

Tailor your campaign to reach the right customers at the right place and time. 

Bidding

For Sponsored Brand campaigns, you can select one bid for the entire campaign and optionally select whether you'd like to target either specific dayparts, retailers, or consumers.

Dayparting

Schedule your ads to run during optimal times of day to reach potential customers in their local time zone. Pick specific times you want your ads to run, like 9 am–12 pm, or 3–8 pm. Consider leveraging dayparting to ensure your ads are live during peak brand and category hours.

We recommend starting with an always-on campaign to assess budget sufficiency, and later testing dayparting to understand performance and reach. When dayparting, it's important to monitor performance and scale to ensure your reach isn't too narrow to achieve your scaled objectives. You can even customize your Sponsored Brand creative or copy to align with your dayparted window.

You can combine dayparting with other targeting capabilities for Sponsored Brands.

Targeting

Choose from Retailer, Behavioral, or Dish Interest Targeting options to help you reach the most relevant customers based on where they shop, customer purchase behavior, or demonstrated restaurant ordering behavior. These targeting capabilities allow you to refine your audience and align campaigns to specific business goals, such as driving new customer acquisition, increasing category share, or improving conversion efficiency.

Learn more about targeting options for Sponsored Brand campaigns.

Bidding Strategies: For Sponsored Brand campaigns, enter a single bid for both the store page and category page.

Step 6: Review and launch your campaign

Once you've provided the required campaign information and selected which products you'll advertise, you can either save your campaign as a draft or review your campaign details before submitting. Each detail about your campaign will be displayed for you to confirm or edit, and adjust before launching. You'll also see a preview of how your campaign will appear, and have the ability to edit or pause at any time.

Before launch, DoorDash reviews the content of all Sponsored Brand campaigns. You'll receive an email within three business days indicating whether your campaign was approved or rejected. You can also view the latest status in your Ads Manager dashboard.

After approval, any changes you make to dates, promoted items, creative assets, or copy will require another review. While it's being reviewed, your campaign will be paused.

If your campaign is rejected, the rejection email will include more details on what may need adjustment. You can always make edits and then resubmit. Rejection reasons are also available on the campaign details page within Ads Manager

After you've received DoorDash approval, you're ready to launch your first Sponsored Brand campaign.

What to do next

• Learn how to optimize your campaign after launching

• Review the Sponsored Brand creative requirements