Quick Commerce

At M+C Saatchi Performance, we connect brands with relevant audiences at key moments in the purchase journey across marketplaces, retail media networks, and quick commerce platforms. As consumer expectations evolve, the time between product discovery and delivery is now measured in minutes rather than days.

Talk To Us
  • Active in 150+ countries
  • 20+ years in media
  • 10 day retail audit
Quick Commerce Advertising Agency

What is quick commerce advertising?

Quick commerce advertising is paid media that runs inside rapid-delivery apps, where a shopper orders a product and gets it locally in roughly 10 to 30 minutes. The delivery platform owns the ad inventory. Your campaign only serves where a nearby dark store or partner outlet has your stock on hand.

It is a branch of retail media. You will also see it called q-commerce advertising or rapid-delivery retail media.

Best for brands that:

  • Sell in high-frequency categories like food, beverages, personal care, household, and pet care.
  • Need strong shelf visibility and share of basket in frequent, impulse-driven purchases.
  • Already invest in retail media and want the same accountability for delivery app advertising.
  • Operate across markets and need one measurement framework to compare performance globally.

Why brands are moving on quick commerce now

Quick commerce is becoming a bigger part of brand planning, but scaling remains difficult. Fragmented platforms, inconsistent standards, and pressure to prove ROAS are pushing brands to invest more and seek specialist support.

63%
of retailer partnerships are now longer-term, up from 50% in 2025.
51%
of businesses cite fragmentation as a key barrier to scaling.
44%
of brands now run commerce media in digital teams, up from 34%.
88%
of buy-side decision-makers cite ROAS as the primary success metric.

How is it different from retail media?

Three things change, and each one changes how you plan.

 

Shoppers make purchase decisions within seconds

The decision happens in one scroll on a phone. Hero SKUs and pack sizes carry more weight, and competitor targeting has less room to work before returns drop.

Stock availability limits every media outcome

Ads only match what a nearby dark store can send right now. An out-of-stock SKU, a thin listing or vague pack details turn paid impressions into wasted spend.

Demand changes across locations and dayparts

Beverages at 10 pm and household basics on a Sunday morning are two different demand curves in the same app. Your bids and budgets have to follow them.

Why quick commerce needs a different operating model, not a bigger budget

The digital shelf comes first

Advertising cannot rescue a listing that is out of stock, badly written, or buried below private-label alternatives. We fix the shelf before scaling spend.

No two platforms work alike

Blinkit, Zepto, Swiggy Instamart, Amazon Now and Flipkart Minutes each run their own auction, ranking logic and ad formats. One copied playbook under-delivers on most.

Separate incremental from attributed sales

Platform-reported sales overstate your impact because they count demand you would have won anyway. We use holdout and geo-lift tests to isolate true growth.

Commercial outcomes lead, media follows

We plan against SKU-level profit, city-level demand and cohort-level LTV, and treat dashboard ROAS as simply one input among several, not the final verdict.

Our clients

What we do

Catalogue and digital shelf

Listing copy, imagery, enhanced content modules, PDP hygiene, category taxonomy, and review health. We fix this first, because media has nothing to convert against if the listing is broken.

Market and platform prioritisation

Quick commerce performs differently by platform and by city. We assess each market individually to identify where your brand has the strongest opportunity and where additional spend is most likely to generate incremental sales.

Assortment built around the shopper's mission

A 10-minute purchase is not a weekly grocery shop. We tailor pack sizes, pricing, and hero SKUs to the occasion, and identify cross-sell opportunities that lift basket value and repeat purchase.

Paid media planning and activation

We plan and run campaigns on the platforms your category actually sells on, which means Blinkit, Zepto, Instamart and Flipkart Minutes in India, Instacart, DoorDash, Uber and Gopuff in the US, Deliveroo in the UK, plus GrabAds, foodpanda and ShopeeFood across Southeast Asia. Each one gets its own bid logic, format mix, and keyword build.

Seasonal and event planning

Festive windows, sporting calendars, weather-driven demand, and the rate-card spikes that come with them.

Cross-channel demand extension

Search, paid social, DOOH, CTV, programmatic, and app marketing sequenced alongside your commerce activity so demand and conversion arrive together. We then use geo-lift, holdout, matched-market, new-to-brand, and halo testing to show which channels drove incremental sales.

How We Execute

We can run the full commerce system or the one pressure point that’s constraining growth. Most engagements start at one of four stages:

Diagnose

Audit the current setup to understand where growth is constrained and where intervention will have the biggest impact.

Build

Create the assets, storefronts, and platform foundations needed to support stronger commerce performance.

Activate

Bring the plan to market through coordinated on-platform and off-platform activity that drives demand and conversion.

Optimize

Use connected measurement, reporting, and testing to improve performance and guide future investment

Platforms we activate

We build the media plan around where each platform is strongest.

Platform Role Formats we activate Where we add value
Blinkit Visibility and conversion Product Booster, Recommendation, Product Shelf, Brand Spotlight, Brand Store, Listing Spotlight Support priority SKUs, improve visibility for high-intent searches, and focus spend on products that deliver results
Zepto Discovery and conversion Search, category placements, brand placements, Sponsored Display Increase product discovery and support add-to-cart activity among relevant shoppers
Swiggy Instamart Discovery and shopping occasions Search, collections, in-app visibility, promotional placements Align campaigns to shopper occasions and identify products that are frequently purchased together
Amazon Now Purchase intent and reach Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Display, Brand Store Apply retail media practices to grocery-focused product ranges and larger baskets
Flipkart Minutes Market expansion Search, category placements, display, PCA within Flipkart Ads Test demand for established products in additional cities and categories
Instacart Retail media and conversion Sponsored Products, display, brand pages Reach shoppers with active grocery intent and manage spend against product sales
Uber Eats Convenience purchases Sponsored listings, featured placements, offers Improve visibility during immediate and high-frequency purchase occasions
DoorDash Product discovery and local demand Sponsored Products, search, promotions Reach shoppers near the point of purchase and assess demand by location
Gopuff Immediate-need purchases Sponsored listings, display, merchandising Position products for urgent and impulse-led purchases and identify basket opportunities
Deliveroo Grocery and convenience purchases Sponsored listings, search, promotional campaigns Improve product visibility and coordinate media with availability
Ocado Zoom Rapid grocery delivery Retail media placements and on-site promotions Coordinate rapid-delivery campaigns with the wider Ocado audience
Zapp Premium convenience purchases Search, sponsored placements Support product trial and repeat purchases among urban shoppers
foodpanda Grocery and convenience purchases Sponsored listings, search, platform promotions Improve product visibility and assess conversion by category and location
GrabMart On-demand retail Search, featured placements, promotions Reach frequent users and assess product demand across categories
GoMart (Gojek / GoTo) Grocery and convenience delivery Search, sponsored placements, promotions Support product discovery and adjust activity according to local demand
ShopeeFood Product discovery Sponsored search, promotional placements Support launches and assess whether media produces additional sales

One control tower across markets

We activate quick-commerce and rapid-delivery retail media in India, the US, the UK, Singapore, Indonesia and more. Planning and reporting are managed through a single framework, with performance reviewed by platform, SKU, city, placement, and daypart. This gives brands a consistent view across markets and a clear basis for moving budget.

Extending demand beyond the platforms

Quick commerce is where the purchase happens. It is rarely where the demand starts. So we run commerce media alongside the channels that create that demand, which keeps spend landing when shoppers are ready to buy.

Search

Brand and non-brand SEM, plus product-page and comparison intent.

Paid social

TikTok, Meta and Snap conversion placements that push discovery into quick-commerce baskets.

DOOH and OOH

Placements timed to the dayparts and locations where quick-commerce demand peaks.

CTV and streaming

Awareness we can tie back to purchase through geo-lift and MMM.

Programmatic and DSP

Off-platform reach through our DSP partners, connected to first-party commerce signals.

App marketing

Quick-commerce apps are the store, so ASO and user acquisition count as commerce media.

Our industry accolades

Our awards

Not sure what's limiting your quick commerce performance?

Our quick commerce audit reviews seven areas of your current setup: ad creatives, competitor targeting, product listings, audience targeting, product targeting, keyword strategy, and campaign structure. You’ll receive a clear score for each area, along with prioritized recommendations on where to focus first for the biggest impact.

Request a Quick Commerce Audit

Related Reading:

See More

Frequently Asked Questions

What's the difference between quick commerce and e-commerce advertising?

E-commerce advertising targets shoppers who browse, compare, and purchase over a longer period. Quick commerce advertising focuses on immediate purchases, often delivered within 10 to 30 minutes via local fulfillment centers and dark stores. The buying journey is shorter, product consideration is lower, and availability directly impacts sales. Because of this, quick commerce campaigns require different planning. Product selection, pack sizes, promotions, platform placements, inventory levels, and daypart bidding all need to reflect how shoppers buy in rapid-delivery environments rather than traditional online marketplaces.

Do we need to be on every quick commerce platform?

No, and most brands shouldn’t be. Each platform has different strengths, user bases, and city footprints. We identify where your category and price point will actually perform, and concentrate investment there before expanding.

How do you measure whether quick commerce media is actually driving growth?

Platform-reported sales overstate impact because they capture demand you’d have won anyway. We use control vs exposed markets, holdout and geo experiments, and new-customer and halo measurement to separate incremental growth from attributed sales.

Why is inventory so important in quick commerce advertising?

Because advertising cannot sell products that are not available. If a shopper’s local fulfillment center is out of stock, the product cannot be purchased, regardless of campaign performance. Promoting unavailable items can waste budget, reduce conversion rates, and limit visibility within platform algorithms. We align inventory, catalog management, platform visibility, and media activation so that advertising spend supports products shoppers can actually order.

Can you help if we're launching on quick commerce for the first time?

Yes. We build the foundations, catalog readiness, listing content, pricing, and promo setup before activating media, so the spend has something to convert against.

Let's Have
a Chat

contact

We would love to hear from you to chat about your commerce media advertising requirements. Drop us a message, and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible.