Heather Freeland, vice president of marketing at Lyft, speaks with eMarketer vice president of business development Marissa Coslov on how the brand has pivoted its marketing priorities in response to shifting consumer behaviors, including partnering with Grubhub and offering free rides to the polls on election day.

While this is a major issue for DoorDash, Uber Eats, and Grubhub, many restaurants will decide to stay on these apps. This consumer habit will stick around because of the conveniences associated with online ordering, and most people won’t receive vaccines until the summer.”.

eMarketer principal analysts Andrew Lipsman and Nicole Perrin discuss the most fortunate and unfortunate D2C companies during this coronavirus pandemic, and what they are doing to survive it. They then talk about Google helping retailers highlight curbside pickup, Uber's offer to buy GrubHub, the Media Ratings Council maybe taking Facebook's advertising badge of approval and what to make of some major retailers filing for bankruptcy.

We'll then identify the ways restaurants can digitize—through in-house development, first-party payments providers, or third-party competitors like Grubhub—and determine which players are best suited to help in this endeavor. Finally, we'll highlight key priorities these players can focus on to win restaurant clients and capture volume, and evaluate providers operating most effectively in the space.

Companies like Grubhub and Uber Eats have seen an influx of usage during the pandemic. In its most recent earnings, Grubhub reported that the number of active diners grew to 27.5 million in Q2 2020 from 20.3 million in Q2 2019—an increase of 35%.

Food delivery, while once niche, is becoming more mainstream. This year saw the explosion of fast food giants like McDonald's and Burger King going all-in on digital ordering and delivery through partnerships with UberEats and Grubhub, momentum that's certain to continue throughout 2019.

Grubhub. Grubhub was an early US advertiser; it placed a 5-second ad in January 2019 and used ads on the app to drive installs and bring in new diners. After running a few campaigns, the company is increasing its ad investment, said Alex Weinstein, the company’s senior vice president of growth marketing.

“We’ve also seen increased spending from Grubhub and Uber Eats to bolster quick-service restaurants [QSRs] and casual dining transactions. Traditional movie spending weakened, but there was an uptake in streaming services.” This TV spend was accompanied by messaging that emphasized the availability and ease of different ways of getting products or services to consumers.

Grubhub, for example, announced last week that it would temporarily suspend commission fees for independent restaurants during the crisis. The CEO of Zoom said the company would donate videoconferencing services to K-12 schools. Alphabet subsidiary Verily is working on a pilot project to help people in the San Francisco Bay Area understand whether they should seek a COVID-19 test.

After taking on roles as a marketing leader at American Express, DirecTV and Grubhub, Tristan Young now wants to leverage Poshmark’s position as a company that straddles the line between traditional retail and digital disruption.

E-Poll also surveyed "Insta-Gens," consumers ages 13 to 21, about attitudes towards Grubhub and Taco Bell. Nearly nine in ten respondents (88%) had patronized Taco Bell while only 28% had used Grubhub, but Grubhub ranked higher on attributes like coolness, practicality, innovation and brand loyalty.

Grubhub was favored by around one-third, according to Cowen and Company. Since then, Grubhub has gained market share due to its 2017 acquisition of Eat24 from Yelp. The company phased out the separate Eat24 ordering platform in August 2018. Food delivery adoption is very much tied to age.

This is closely followed by Grubhub (including Seamless) and Uber Eats, which capture 26.7% and 25.2% of consumer spending in the US, respectively.

Of the 10 activities listed, 43% of commuters said they use their smartphone more now than two years ago to order food by using an app like DoorDash or Grubhub, while 41% said they do so now the same amount as they did then.

eMarketer junior forecasting analyst Nazmul Islam and principal analyst Andrew Lipsman tell us the likelihood that your food delivery driver has eaten some of your meal. How are people using food delivery apps, and how can they make the unit economics work for everyone?