How Glovo, a Super App Company, Built an AI-driven Ad Platform with Topsort APIs

The Perfect Retail Media Partner: Customization & Rapid Scalability

Glovo, a part of Delivery Hero, is a leading delivery app operating across Europe, Western Asia, and Africa. It stands out as the fastest-growing multi-category player in the region. On its app, you can order everything from a Burger King to groceries to flowers, from both independent high street businesses to big global chains.

The business has 20m customers in 1,500 cities across 26 countries, including Spain, Italy, Ukraine, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. Since their start over ten years ago in Barcelona, Glovo now operates with over  170.000 active  vendors.

When Glovo started talking with Topsort the ad business was in its early stages, acknowledging the substantial success of Sponsored Listings for industry giants like Uber Eats, they were primed to tap into this opportunity and initiate monetization of their delivery app.

Following validation from vendors and brands, they began their search for an ad partner that could provide speed, flexibility and sophistication in the auction mechanism to quickly reach the tech parity as industry standards such as Amazon or Google.

Their options were easily narrowed  into 2 providers - the legacy ad server Kevel vs. Topsort a high  performance ad server with a built-in auction engine. 

Glovo picked Topsort, the partner with the more tech-forward approach based out of Silicon Valley yet with a global reach, with an Ad infrastructure which enables a joyful and intuitive experience for its advertisers, all while being user-friendly.

With Topsort: Unleashing the Power of Glovo's Ads

Glovo launched their first Auction-based ads in less than three weeks with Topsort’s Campaign API.  They started the A/B testing phase with around 20 vendors, allowing them to run Sponsored Listings campaigns for 10 days. 

“Topsort delivered exactly what we needed in a partner– a flexible, API-based solution that delivered top value for our advertisers, met our unique needs as an advertising platform and they delivered it FAST!” Rory O'Rourke - Head of Adtech Product at Glovo

The initial results were highly positive! Restaurants, supermarkets, and other partners were happy with Glovo  Ads  performance, bringing them >5x ROAS.   

Excited to keep scaling, Glovo decided to expand the advertising offer to more vendors. In less than three months, Glovo crossed 1000 active vendors with a 10 times  vendor growth rate. An onboarding pace we have not seen before and it doesn’t seem to be slowing anytime soon. During the same period, the average ROAS remained high around 5-7x even with the high number of new vendors advertising, due to the consistent high conversion rates. 

Topsort AI-APIs allows Glovo to run auction-based ads without sacrificing their app look & feel. Here's how a Sponsored Listing Ad appears on Glovo's app: 

Auto-bidding = Happy sellers

With Topsort’s Auto-bidding feature, vendors  were able to launch effective and high-ROAS ad campaigns even as first- timers. Manual bidding takes effort, time and expertise! Our algorithm optimized their budget, in relation to their campaign goals, for maximum Return on Ad Spend (ROAS). They were thrilled!

What was the result? Glovo’s vendors  launched more than 5,000 effective and high-ROAS ad campaigns– no matter their expertise!  With a Daily Ad Spend Growth of +35x.

A Path to Growth: Constant Experimentation & Improvement

With a true partnership mentality, the Topsort team collaborated closely to develop new APIs and features, while improving tools, thereby delivering Glovo a fully customizable solution aligned with their vision. Now Glovo runs a successful ad business on their own terms!

With Topsort technology restaurants, supermarkets, and groceries were able to create and manage their campaigns with ease while targeting the ideal customers, showing them relevant and joyful ads. Glovo was able to strengthen relationships with their vendors by giving them a new marketing channel that had unmatched returns. A win-win for all!

Looking Ahead, Glovo has plans to continue expanding the ad platform to new cities and countries while constantly adding new features to help more vendors and brands reach their desired audience.

Topsort’s simplified platform and modular APIs enable marketplaces, apps, and communities to build, scale, and optimize their own advertising businesses. With Topsort you never compromise and Glovo has the proof!

Read more about building an ad platform with Topsort or get in touch with us today.