DoP Deep: Uber, Instacart and how to introduce ads as a new product revenue stream
DoP Deep: Uber, Instacart and how to introduce ads as a new product revenue stream
Principles, guidelines and questions to ask yourself before adding ads
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Hi product people 👋,
Product teams can be a little snobbish about the impact of ads on their products. And in many cases, this is justified; badly implemented ads can have a significant detrimental impact on the overall user experience. Netflix’s recent introduction of ads has already sparked complaints from users who say that the ads are poorly placed with little consideration for the context of the show they’re watching.
But when done well, ads can complement - or even enhance - the overall experience. In this DoP Deep dive, we’ll explore how companies like Uber and Instacart have generated billions in additional revenue without detrimentally impacting the overall product experience. And more importantly, we’ll use this to consider how you might be able to introduce ads into your own product with some key principles and questions to ask yourself beforehand.
Coming up:
How companies like Uber, Instacart and others are generating billions in ad revenue
How to introduce ads into your product as a new revenue stream
Unconventional opportunities for introducing ads
Principles to consider, questions to ask yourself and mistakes to avoid
Understanding the global ads business
I recently mentioned in the weekly briefing that Amazon recently became the second largest advertising revenue company - behind Google and Meta.
If you ask someone where the best places to advertise their products might be, you’ll probably be told a Meta or Google platform (such is the power of those), but Amazon has quietly been building an ad giant of its own with almost $50 billion in annual advertising revenues.
Alphabet / Google’s dominance is unchallenged but you’ll also notice just how small other companies' ad revenues like Uber and Instacart are by comparison. Despite being dwarfed by big tech, Uber and Instacart’s ad business has grown significantly from zero over the past few years and there are some interesting takeaways from their success.