Uber Advertising: ads across Uber Eats, rides and in-car screens

Uber knows where people are going, not only what they buy. A rider's destination is set before the trip starts, so Uber can show an offer from a business near that destination while the rider is still in the car. Uber now sells this as Destination Offers and Ride Offers on Journey, and measures them by "verified arrivals" (Uber, 15 June 2026). A store-based network does not collect that signal.

That makes Uber a commerce media network more than a classic retailer. It owns no shelves, but it holds two kinds of first-party data. The table sets out what Uber says it uses.

Uber also blurs the line between ads and promotions. In Q1 2026 it merged ads and merchant-funded offers into one performance platform and signed an exclusive multi-year deal with Ibotta for brand-funded offers (Uber, 6 May 2026). In Q3 2026 it said merchant spending on ads and offers together passed a $10 billion annualized run rate (company claim, Uber, 4 November 2026). Buyers comparing Uber with other networks should check which of the two figures a source quotes.

All three are company claims of annualized run rate, not reported revenue.

Uber Eats. Sponsored Listings and Sponsored Search promote restaurants and products in the app. Brand Takeover, Item Showcase and Offers Spotlight are premium placements. Grocery brands buy Sponsored Items, which Uber sells through Instacart's Carrot Ads technology (Uber, 7 May 2025).

Rides. Journey Ads appear while riders wait and travel. Journey Takeover, launched in January 2026 with Coca-Cola, adds the map to the takeover (Uber, 5 January 2026). Destination Offers, Homescreen Ride Offers and Ride Offers on Journey sell offers rather than impressions.

In-car and outside the app. JourneyTV plays video on tablets in cars. Since June 2026 Uber has piloted offsite ads on Meta and Google Shopping with a small group of advertisers (Uber, 15 June 2026). In Australia it also sells branded cars and product sampling (Mediaweek, 10 September 2026).

Uber builds audiences from Uber Eats orders and trip context. Its self-serve tool, Uber Marketing Manager, connects signals across both apps (Uber, 22 June 2026). Advertisers do not receive rider or eater records.

For data collaboration, Uber launched Uber Intelligence with LiveRamp on 8 December 2025. It is a clean room that uses consented, pseudonymised signals and returns aggregated insights without access to user-level data. It is available in the US only (Uber, 8 December 2025). The LiveRamp clean room profile explains the underlying platform.

Uber reports orders for Eats formats and verified arrivals for ride offers. In 2025 it said it worked with "nearly two dozen" measurement partners, adding Comscore, Happydemics, DISQO, VideoAmp and Kochava (Digiday, 8 May 2025). It also built a custom attention metric with Adelaide and Kantar.

For incrementality, Uber worked with Affinity Solutions, which uses bank card data. Uber says Sponsored Listings lifted sales 27% across measured channels and 5% in physical stores (company claim, Uber, 5 October 2026). We found no Media Rating Council accreditation.

1. Decide which app fits the goal. Uber Eats suits restaurants and grocery brands; rides formats suit brands that want attention during the trip or footfall at a destination.
2. Open Uber Marketing Manager for self-serve Eats campaigns and offers (Uber, 22 June 2026).
3. Buy Journey Ads programmatically as programmatic guaranteed deals through Google DV360, The Trade Desk or Yahoo DSP. This route opened in the US in June 2024 and in 10 European markets in June 2025 (PPC Land, 2 June 2026).
4. Talk to Uber's sales team for takeovers, JourneyTV and offers tied to destinations.
5. Set up measurement first. Ask for an incrementality study or a clean-room match through Uber Intelligence before the campaign starts.

It suits:

• restaurants and food brands that want to reach people while they order;
• brands that want attention in a captive, screen-in-front moment during a ride;
• businesses that gain from footfall, such as shops, venues and entertainment, through destination offers;
• grocery brands already buying Instacart Ads, which can extend to Uber Eats.

It suits less:

• advertisers that need MRC-accredited metrics;
• brands that need store sales from shoppers who never use delivery or rides;
• buyers outside Uber's ads-enabled markets.

• A run-rate figure after Q2 2026; the Q3 2026 statement combined ads and offers.
• The number of advertisers.
• A minimum spend for self-serve or managed buys.
• How the protection of trip data works beyond Uber Intelligence, which covers the US only.
• Whether Sponsored Items through Instacart's Carrot Ads continue if DoorDash completes its pending purchase of Instacart, announced on 29 October 2026 (DoorDash Ads profile).

1. Uber Technologies, "Uber Launches Dedicated Advertising Division To Serve The World's Biggest Brands" (19 October 2022). https://investor.uber.com/news-events/news/press-release-details/2022/Uber-Launches-Dedicated-Advertising-Division-To-Serve-The-Worlds-Biggest-Brands
2. Uber, Q1 2025 prepared remarks (7 May 2025). https://s23.q4cdn.com/407969754/files/doc_earnings/2025/q1/transcript/Uber-Q1-25-Prepared-Remarks.pdf
3. Uber, Q4 2025 prepared remarks (4 February 2026). https://s23.q4cdn.com/407969754/files/doc_earnings/2025/q4/transcript/Uber-Q4-25-Prepared-Remarks.pdf
4. Uber, Q1 2026 prepared remarks (6 May 2026). https://s23.q4cdn.com/407969754/files/doc_earnings/2026/q1/transcript/Uber-Q1-26-Prepared-Remarks.pdf
5. Uber, Q2 2026 prepared remarks (5 August 2026). https://s23.q4cdn.com/407969754/files/doc_earnings/2026/q2/transcript/Uber-Q2-26-Prepared-Remarks.pdf
6. Uber, Q3 2026 prepared remarks (4 November 2026). https://s23.q4cdn.com/407969754/files/doc_earnings/2026/q3/transcript/Uber-Q3-26-Prepared-Remarks.pdf
7. Uber Technologies, Q3 2026 press release, Form 8-K (4 November 2026). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001543151/000154315126000039/uberq326earningspressrelea.htm
8. Uber Blog, "Uber Advertising launches Uber Intelligence, powered by LiveRamp" (8 December 2025). https://www.uber.com/us/en/blog/uber-advertising-launches-uber-intelligence-powered-by-liveramp/
9. Uber Blog, "Introducing Journey Takeovers" (5 January 2026). https://www.uber.com/us/en/blog/introducing-journey-takeovers/
10. Uber Blog, "Uber Advertising introduces new solutions on and off Uber" (15 June 2026). https://www.uber.com/us/en/blog/mobility-offers-premium-eats-formats-offsite/