How Cabify Ads reached more than 300 Million impressions

At Cabify, the journey to create our advertising space in the app has been nothing short of dynamic. What started as a space to showcase our own features has evolved into a new source of communication with our users that also serves as “speaker” for third parties across industries such as fintech, streaming platforms and airlines. And we want to share here what, for us, have been key aspects during this journey.

A shift in mindset: from filling spaces to driving value

Initially, our advertising efforts were focused on internal campaigns. Back in 2023 we started using our app’s ad spaces to highlight services or features that we wanted users to explore. But this evolved quickly. Instead of thinking “What can we show here?”, we began to ask ourselves questions like “How can we drive visibility to this feature?”, “Which value proposition would we like to highlight at this moment?”. Cabify Ads became a central part of our marketing toolkit. It found its own space.

First and current internal campaign comparison

Enter External Advertisers: Adapting Quickly to Client Needs and Scaling Cabify Ads

Once we’d validated the concept, we stepped into external campaigns. Early offerings were simple, with limited audience segmentation and creative options. But we knew one thing: our engineering team was agile enough to react quickly. That’s why we decided to take a reactive approach rather than anticipating our future clients’ needs. This meant our engineers could stay focused on core Rider priorities while we adapted Cabify Ads only when a concrete opportunity arose. Our collaboration with New Business and Sales was key to this. Staying closely connected with ongoing client negotiations allowed us to be ready when an opportunity came up, making the process smoother and faster for our clients.

With each new client, we found opportunities to expand our offering. For example, we added new segmentation capabilities, more creatives, and introduced more sophisticated campaign rotations. The result? A continuous improvement cycle that ensured we met client expectations while still delivering value to users.

Example of new campaigns workflow:

flowchart TB
  subgraph Flow[ ]
    direction TB
    A(New potential client) --> B(Can we support all their needs with our current product)
    B -->|Yes| C(Align creatives and copies)-->G(Campaign  launch)
    B -->|No| D(Define the MVP requirements. Is it feasible?)
    D -->|No| F(Learn and iterate)
    D -->|Yes| E(Develop and align deadlines)-->C
  end
  style Flow fill:#F8F8FE,stroke:#DBDCE8,stroke-width:1px,rx:32,ry:32

Every major leap in Cabify Ads was driven by client needs, and that flexibility has paid off. Today, we have automated processes and a platform where we can manage all our campaigns and creatives.

During this process, some big companies, such as Mercado Pago, LatamPass, Vueling, Disney+, Iberia, or Easy Cencosud, trusted Cabify Ads.

Moving Forward

Our approach to ads has been about striking the perfect balance—innovating when there’s a clear opportunity without overwhelming our team or diverting focus from our core product. The result is a thriving advertising ecosystem that has grown rapidly and organically, now with over 300 million impressions served.

By staying agile, reactive, and client-focused, we’ve been able to create a solution that not only benefits us but also external brands looking for impactful ad placements within our product. All of these efforts have proven that we are able to have a new ready-to-sell product that is capable of generating direct value in the cash flow of the company as a different line of business than ride hailing.