Uber’s Ad playbook for 2025: scaling, innovating and staying the course

And depending on how things are going, 2025 is sure to see more milestones.

Uber deftly navigated what could have been a rocky transition following the departure of Mark Grether earlier this year, making it just another stepping stone in its growth story. The company used this period to improve its ad operations, appointing dedicated GMs to lead distinct verticals: ride-hailing apps, Uber eat food and restaurant advertising, and CPG advertising. To top it all off, Uber brought in retail media veteran Kristi Argyilan to succeed Grether, setting the stage for even more growth ahead,

Digiday caught up with Wright just days before Argyilan’s appointment to dive into how Uber Advertising plans to keep the momentum going in 2025.

What has been the key to your ad business success over the past two years?

The business has evolved in that we are much clearer about what we do and how we want to build it. As a result, we’re having more focused conversations, whether it’s about retail, our branding efforts, or our work around understanding customer behavior. There is more structure and purpose behind everything we do.

On the other hand, we see more money coming through the funnel. One of the things we try to find out is how a brand works with performance on our platform. While we’re not necessarily unique in our ability to help marketers reach people at all stages of their buying journey, we have a very broad ecosystem across the entire funnel.

You mentioned that the business has changed. As?

Before Uber Advertising officially launched its ad business, there was a sponsored product in 2021. It was really about allowing traders to choose whether they wanted to be higher up in the feed. Fast forward to 2022, when Mark Grether and his team launched Uber Advertising, which is when we launched ads in the Uber Ride app. From there, we started thinking about how we were going to work with CPG and FMCG advertisers – something we hadn’t done before. This gave us the basis for rapid global expansion, from the UK to France to Australia that same year. In 2023, we focused on what other markets to open before expanding to markets like Japan, Taiwan and Spain a year later.

How will you build on this plan for 2025?

There are several key areas of focus. First, we’re doubling down on measurement tools – providing advertisers with deeper insights into our customer base remains a priority as we become a more sophisticated media business. Expansion into new markets is also on the radar, although nothing is set in stone. With operations already covering 24 markets worldwide, we have most of the major ones covered. In addition, we will continue to innovate and test the format. But more importantly, there is a lot of growth in the core business, which we also need to focus on.

Given the focus on measurement, will much be done to understand incrementality when so much of retail media focuses on ROAS?

Both are actually important. Focus often depends on marketers’ goals, how they measure ROI, and what they sell. Going forward, we actively support the IAB’s efforts to establish retail media measurement standards. That said, I believe we may need to develop measurement frameworks entirely. Traditional methods rooted in display media and legacy models may not fully capture today’s evolving marketing journey.

Take a look at ours for example. Around 60% of Uber Eats users open the app without knowing what they want to order. In this scenario, ads act as a kind of signpost to guide undecided customers to a decision – something that is quite different from the typical retail media setup where a customer returns to a retailer for their weekly shop. Ultimately, we need to work with our advertisers to define what works best for them, while balancing that with broader industry standards.

So will Uber Advertising develop its own custom measurement solution?

I wouldn’t say custom. Rather, we need to figure out what the right solutions are for the environment. Now, it doesn’t necessarily have to be tailored. In fact, it could be something that other platforms already use. Of course we want to work in the advertising community, but we don’t yet know about consumer behavior in these types of environments, and we need to study and understand them better.

How are brands starting to think more carefully about how they use Uber Advertising?

Earlier this year we collaborated with Pizza Hut. In the Uber Rides app, we created this game for the brand that allows people to create their own pizza, but using the gameplay mechanics of Space Invaders. This was a brand activation that linked up with Pizza Hut for customers to place an order. What we saw were several things: We got a specific number of sales from the game itself. Moreover, the ROAS was very high. It was just a test, but it’s an example of how brand and performance can work in tandem in our environment. This is difficult for many retail media offerings.

What does this mean for the way you work with agencies?

While I can’t share details, it’s clear that agencies are accepting us more. The data tells the story – they are starting to see the unique insights we bring to the table. After all, who can provide detailed information on how many people are traveling through a particular airport or attending a Taylor Swift concert at Wembley Stadium.

Even so, we’re less focused on the overall data we have and more focused on having the right data for each agency or client we work with. So far it looks like it’s paying off. Agencies use our insights to achieve impressive results for their clients. Just recently, an agency contact told me about two brands they work with that were blown away by the results of our partnership. It is rewarding to see such an impact.