Uber Advertising Expands Offsite with Google and Meta

In Short

Uber Advertising is moving beyond its own apps. It will now sell offsite ads through partners, while adding new ad formats across Uber and Uber Eats.

What Happened

Uber Advertising said its business has surpassed $2bn in annual ad revenue. Uber is now expanding the offering by launching offsite advertising, meaning ads that run outside Uber-owned surfaces like the Uber and Uber Eats apps.

The company is doing this via partnerships with major ad platforms including Google and Meta. In practice, this usually means brands can use those platforms’ buying tools to place and manage Uber-powered audiences or placements across a wider set of apps and websites.

Uber also introduced new ad formats inside its ecosystem. These include sponsored rider discounts in the Uber app, which are promotions funded by brands. It also added “brand takeover” placements on Uber Eats, which are premium slots that give a brand dominant visibility in key parts of the app for a set period.

Why It Matters

For marketers, Uber’s move is another sign that retail media and “closed-loop” measurement are spreading beyond supermarkets and e-commerce. Closed-loop measurement is when an advertiser can connect ad exposure to real outcomes, like a ride taken or a food order placed, using first-party data, meaning data a company collects directly from its users.

For African growth teams and consumer brands, this could eventually mean more ways to reach high-intent customers using mobility and delivery signals, not just social and search. It also raises the bar for local adtech and commerce platforms that want to offer measurable ad products tied to transactions.

For Uber, offsite inventory opens up new budget pools. It lets the company sell against its audience and data even when users are not actively using its apps, which can support continued growth as ride-hailing and delivery markets mature.