Instacart Launches Clean Room Data Hub for CPG Advertisers

Instacart has unveiled a major new product designed to help consumer packaged goods (CPG) brands and their agency partners gain deeper, privacy-safe insights into shopper behaviour by combining their own data with Instacart’s first-party grocery shopping signals. The offering, known as Data Hub, was introduced at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2026 and represents a significant step in Instacart’s efforts to strengthen its retail media and data-analytics capabilities for advertisers.

Retail media — where brands advertise directly within a retailer’s ecosystem by leveraging rich shopper data — has become an increasingly important part of marketers’ media plans. Analysts forecast strong growth for retail media networks as brands seek ways to optimise advertising performance and better understand consumer purchase paths. However, questions have arisen around transparency and measurement consistency across the landscape. Instacart’s Data Hub aims to address these concerns by providing advertisers with secure tools for integrating first-party data and developing customised audiences and measurement frameworks.

At its core, a data clean room is a secure, privacy-compliant environment where advertisers can match their proprietary customer data with a platform’s first-party signals without exposing personally identifiable information (PII). In the case of Instacart, brands will be able to combine their own CRM lists, loyalty data, or audience segments with detailed grocery shopping behaviour captured across the Instacart Marketplace — covering everything from purchase frequency and repeat buyers to brand affinity and customer lifetime value.

According to Instacart executives, this blend of proprietary brand data and marketplace insights gives advertisers a more complete picture of how consumers shop and convert, particularly at the critical “last-mile” point of purchase. Ali Miller, general manager of advertising at Instacart, said brands and agencies have been clamouring for access to “trusted, scaled sources of purchase data,” and that Data Hub is designed to help marketers derive actionable insights and inform smarter media strategies.

Instacart has already tested Data Hub with a select group of agencies and brands, with participants reporting positive early feedback. Plans call for expanding access to additional partners throughout 2026 as the platform evolves. The initial pilot phase has included collaboration with advertising agencies like WPP Media and technology partners like Pacvue, which support advertisers in activating and measuring campaigns on Instacart and beyond.

Why Data Hub Matters for Brands and Agencies

Retail media has gained traction partly because it links ad exposure directly to sales outcomes, offering a clearer line of sight into the return on ad spend (ROAS). Unlike broader digital channels where conversions can be harder to track, retail media data ties promotional activity to actual purchasing behaviour. Instacart’s Data Hub takes this a step further by enabling brands not just to see performance, but to understand which shoppers are responding to ads, how often they buy, how loyal they are to specific products, and how they might be reached again across other digital channels.

This type of analysis is especially valuable for CPG brands, which often operate with thin margins and need deep customer insights to maximise the efficiency of their marketing investments. By combining first-party data with the rich signals generated by Instacart users — data that includes actual basket composition and purchase history — advertisers can build audience segments that reflect true buying intent and behaviour. They can then activate those segments in cross-channel campaigns, reaching shoppers on social media, search, or other environments outside of Instacart’s own properties.

Data Hub also allows for flexible measurement options, including attribution models that better reflect the complexities of omnichannel shopping. Brands can examine how exposure to retail media ads influences purchases over time, including repeat purchases and cross-category buying, helping to establish not just whether a campaign worked, but how it drove business results.

A Broader Push to Solidify Retail Media Credibility

Instacart’s clean room initiative builds on its existing advertising products. In recent years the company has introduced tools such as the Consumer Insights Portal, which offers self-serve analytics into shopping trends and performance; and it also integrated its retail media data with platforms like TikTok’s Ads Manager, enabling seamless planning and measurement across social and retail channels.

The Data Hub also complements ongoing partnerships that extend Instacart’s retail media influence beyond its own marketplace. For example, collaborations with Google have enabled CPG brands to power Google Shopping ads using Instacart’s retail media data, showcasing how third-party platforms can leverage retail insights to drive shoppable search experiences.

These developments reflect a broader trend in which retail media networks are expanding their role from simple advertising placements to strategic data partners. By centralising first-party data, providing privacy-safe analytics environments, and enhancing measurement capabilities, retail media platforms like Instacart are positioning themselves as essential conduits between consumer behaviour and marketing performance.

Challenges and Opportunities Ahead

Despite the potential benefits, retail media — including clean room solutions — must navigate ongoing concerns around data privacy, measurement standardisation, and transparency. Some marketers have raised questions about how retail media performance is reported and whether insights from these platforms are truly comparable to other digital channels. Instacart and other retail media networks must demonstrate that their analytics and audiences are reliable, accurate, and valuable to advertisers’ bottom lines.

As more brands adopt retail media strategies and demand sophisticated tools to understand shopper behaviour, the capabilities offered by solutions like Data Hub could become a differentiator in a crowded marketplace. For CPG marketers seeking clarity and performance in an increasingly fragmented media landscape, access to robust, privacy-safe data environments may be the key to unlocking more effective campaigns in 2026 and beyond.