Create a Sponsored Product Campaign
Sponsored Products help capture high-intent customers and drive conversion by promoting your items across search, category pages, store pages, and DoubleDash. We offer advertisers the ability to create and run Sponsored Products campaigns in DoorDash Ads Manager. We also offer the ability to self-serve Sponsored Product campaigns via our API partners (Pacvue, Flywheel, Skai, and CommerceIQ).
This guide walks through how to set up a Sponsored Product campaign in Ads Manager, including how to configure your budget, schedule, bidding strategy, and targeting to drive performance.
Before creating a Sponsored Product campaign
Before starting, confirm:
You have access to Ads Manager
Your catalog is up to date
Products are correctly linked to retailers
Your ad will meet DoorDash Ad and Promotions Policies
If products are unavailable or not linked, they will not be eligible for selection during campaign setup.
How to create a Sponsored Product campaign
Step 1: Create your campaign
To begin, click the Create Campaign button in the top right of 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: The date 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 or leave ongoing
Format: Select Sponsored Products
Choose your budget
We offer two budgeting options depending on your preferred budget controls: lifetime and daily.
The daily budget lets you set the amount you want to spend each day.
Total Campaign Budget lets you set a maximum spend limit for your daily budget during the campaign, ensuring your spend never exceeds your total campaign budget
Optimized Pacing automatically adjusts your daily budget based on consumer traffic patterns – spending more on high-traffic days and less on slower ones – so you can capture more sales opportunities without manually increasing your daily budget
The lifetime budget lets you set the amount you want to spend for the duration of your campaign.
6. Select your bidding strategy
There are two different bidding options for Sponsored Product campaigns: Auto-bidding and Custom bidding. Auto-bidding is available when daily budget is selected. Custom bidding is available when lifetime or daily budget is selected.
Auto-bidding sets and adjusts your bid in real-time to optimize your spend. It attempts to spend your budget while maximizing clicks and minimizing cost-per-click (CPC). This option is suggested for those advertisers who prefer a hands-off approach or are looking for an easier way to maximize performance without managing bids manually. Note: Auto-bidding is only available to U.S. advertisers.
Custom Bidding allows you to make your own selections for bidding. You are also able to customize your targeting and placement options as well. This option is suggested for brands who already have an established bidding strategy.
What to do next
Before you can launch your campaign, you must first:
Create one or more ad groups
Configure product selection, targeting, bids (for custom bidding) and ad placements
Your campaign will begin delivering ads once all required components are set up.
