Instacart Sponsored Products Tracking — Sponsored Label, Product and Brand Data Across Instacart Search and Category Pages
How Food Data Scrape scoped a scheduled feed that records every product tagged "Sponsored" on Instacart, with product name, brand, rank and location context.
Key takeaways
Key takeaways
A US CPG analytics client wanted to capture all Instacart sponsored products, with each item's name and brand. We scoped a scheduled feed that records the public "Sponsored" label, product, brand, keyword, rank, price and ZIP context. It does not capture spend, impressions, clicks or ROAS, which only advertisers see.
Client overview
What did the client need?
In January 2026, a US CPG analytics client asked for a way to scrape every product tagged "Sponsored" on Instacart. The core fields were product name and brand, so the team could see which brands buy visibility in grocery search.
Instacart says its sponsored product ads appear on the homepage, in search results and while browsing, and are sold on a cost-per-click basis. Its Carrot Ads platform also powers sponsored products on some grocers' own sites, so the same format shows up beyond the marketplace.
The challenge
What made this hard?
- Ads change by context. The sponsored set shifts with the search keyword, the store and the delivery ZIP, so one snapshot is never the full picture.
- Placement is mixed with organic results. Sponsored tiles sit among regular results, so rank must be recorded for both to make the data useful.
- Performance data is private. Instacart reports impressions, clicks, attributed sales and ROAS to advertisers inside Ads Manager. None of it is public.
- Product names vary. The same item can appear with different size or pack wording, which affects brand and product matching.
- Responsible collection. Capture had to stay on public, logged-out pages and respect Instacart's terms, robots.txt and rate limits.
The solution
How did Food Data Scrape solve it?
We designed a keyword-and-location capture plan focused only on what a shopper can see.
Approach
- Define the shelf. Agree a keyword list and category pages per retailer, plus a set of delivery ZIPs. The first run used the client's priority keywords, category pages and delivery ZIPs.
- Record every tile. For each page, store all products with a sponsored flag, so sponsored and organic ranks can be compared.
- Capture core fields. Product name, brand, price, size, store and a timestamp for each tile.
- Normalise brands. Clean brand names and pack sizes so one product rolls up to one brand across keywords.
- Schedule, don't promise real time. Runs repeat at an agreed interval; we label each record with its capture time.
- State the limits. The output covers observable placements only, with no spend, impression, click or ROAS fields.
Data captured
Data attributes / fields
The table shows fields typically included in this kind of project; the exact field list is agreed with each client during scoping.
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| is_sponsored | True when the tile shows the public "Sponsored" label |
| product_name | Product title as displayed |
| brand | Brand shown on the listing, normalised |
| search_keyword | Keyword searched, or the category page name |
| page_position | Rank of the tile on the page, counting sponsored and organic |
| price | Displayed price in USD, including any sale price |
| pack_size | Size or count as shown |
| retailer_store | Store the shopper was browsing on Instacart |
| zip_code | Delivery ZIP used for the session |
| captured_at | Capture timestamp |
Results
What were the results?
- A clean list of sponsored products. Product name and brand for every sponsored tile in scope.
- Share of sponsored slots. Brand share of sponsored placements by keyword and ZIP, computed from counts of observed tiles.
- Context for pricing and shelf work. Rank and price beside each placement, ready to combine with other digital shelf data. Placements were delivered with product IDs so the client could join them to its existing shelf reports.
Retail media is a large and growing channel: EMARKETER forecast in 2024 that Instacart's ad business would pass $1 billion that year. That scale is why brands want to see who holds the sponsored slots.
Client testimonial
In the client's words
"Capturing every sponsored tile with its brand, keyword, rank and ZIP gives us a consistent view of who is buying visibility on Instacart. Because each record is time-stamped, we can track share of sponsored slots over time and line it up with our wider digital shelf reporting."
— Director of Retail Analytics, US CPG Analytics Team
Questions
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes, for public search and category pages in scope. Results vary by store and ZIP, so we agree a keyword and location set first.
No. Those metrics are reported only to advertisers in Instacart Ads Manager. We capture what shoppers can see.
On a schedule you choose, such as daily or several times a day. Each record carries a capture timestamp.
Yes. Records arrive in a consistent schema that loads into BI tools or joins with price and shelf data.
Need Instacart sponsored products tracking?
Tell us your keywords, ZIPs and refresh needs, and we will scope a free sample. Visit fooddatascrape.com to discuss your data requirement.
