Can DoorDash Deliver More Than Food?

• DoorDash is delivering massive growth in a competitive space
• On-site engagement is the next big challenge for the site
• Investment in non-branded keywords is helping the site compete with the industry leaders

Founded in 2013, DoorDash is a restaurant delivery service that allows users to order food from a wide range of outlets including some that don’t offer a takeout service. Last week, the company completed a further round of investment, suggesting a valuation of around $1.4B.

Food delivery is far from an untapped market, with competitors like Grubhub, Seamless, Eat24, and Uber Eats. Nevertheless, DoorDash has managed to make an impact, despite a later start, posting tremendous online growth with promising signs of further success.

Traffic Growth

Traffic to doordash.com has experienced considerable growth over the past two years, with an 88% increase in total site visits from 2016 to 2017. In September 2017, monthly traffic to doordash.com surpassed traffic to seamless.com for the first time and has continued to maintain that advantage since.

Measuring Engagement

Even as doordash.com has surpassed seamless.com with monthly traffic visits, it still lags behind in several key engagement metrics. A higher bounce rate indicates that even when visitors arrive at a site, they did not find exactly what they were expecting causing them to bounce off the site without exploring further. Over the past 12 months, doordash.com posted an average bounce rate of 43%, compared to 26% for seamless.com.

Investing in SEO

Lower engagement presents a real challenge for DoorDash. One of the biggest factors in their traffic increase was organic search traffic, particularly from non-branded keywords. As they sharpen that search strategy and find the optimal combination of search terms, there should be a positive impact on overall engagement.

Non-Branded Search Terms

In January 2017, only 24% of the search traffic to doordash.com was non-branded. One year later, that number had risen to 42%. While Grubhub, the industry leader, continues to dominate many non-branded keywords, DoorDash has become much more competitive, overtaking Seamless for several non-branded keywords including, delivery near me, food delivery near me, restaurants near me, and chinese food near me.

Conclusion

DoorDash is an exciting company to watch, generating serious investment based on growth and huge potential. Nevertheless, there is still work to be done to ensure that the brand can compete consistently in a space that demands user loyalty as well as constantly increasing user acquisition.