A home fragrance brand on Instacart: 3 in 4 buyers were new to the brand.
A 4-week shopper marketing pilot at Meijer turned into a steady acquisition engine, with return climbing every month as we tuned the account.
The setup
A safer-scents home fragrance brand wanted more velocity at Meijer. It competed with much bigger names, had little brand awareness in the region, and needed to prove that paid media could bring in new households, not just reach people who already bought it.
What we did
Built the account around how shoppers actually shop
The data showed shoppers search the category and the scent, not competitor names. Competitor brand keywords barely served. So we put the budget where the demand was: category, scent and brand terms, plus Instacart’s automated placements next to competitors, which is where conquest sales actually came from.
Tuned it every week
- Split conquest into its own campaign for clean budget control.
- Cut traffic that wasn’t selling and switched the category campaign to maximize sales.
- Set a 1.5x ROAS target and routed brand searches to a dedicated branded campaign.
- Consolidated into three focused campaigns at the same daily budget.
Planned the next chapter
With search capturing the demand that exists, we mapped the next gains: shoppable display and video to build demand before shoppers search, a visible holiday offer, refill ads to bring first-time buyers back, and more Instacart retailers.
The results
- New households: 75% of buyers were new to the brand, the pilot’s core goal.
- Return climbed every month: 0.7x at the first check-in, 1.0x a week later, 1.3x by September and 1.5x lifetime by the end of the pilot.
- Brand search converted at 22x, which made the case for building awareness next.
A good pilot answers one question clearly. This one proved Instacart can bring new households to the brand efficiently, and showed exactly where the next dollar should go.
Results from an account our team runs, with the brand name removed. Attributed sales use Instacart’s 14-day click window.
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