Shopify Audiences is a data-sharing, machine-learning co-op that gives participating Shopify Plus merchants an edge in digital ads. It could be a model for cookieless advertising.
Regulators, big software companies such as Apple and Google, and many shoppers have demanded better personal privacy protection.
These demands upended the advertising industry. Advertisers and platforms alike are experiencing “signal loss” as the internet community collectively ends third-party tracking cookies.
ROAS and Relevance
Few folks would argue against more privacy in the digital world. Yet eliminating third-party cookies disrupts consumers and companies as advertising becomes less relevant to individual shoppers, increasing advertisers’ customer acquisition costs and return on advertising spend.
These side effects are at least annoying to shoppers and downright harmful to online sellers. The former see loads of ads they don’t care about or even dislike. Imagine the 22-year-old who sees spots for adult diapers. The latter — ecommerce merchants— becomes less profitable.
Audiences
Shopify released Audiences in May 2022 for U.S. and Canada-based Shopify Plus accounts that also use Shopify Payments.
Audiences uses first-party data from participating ecommerce sites to create custom ad-targeting audiences for Meta, Google, Pinterest, TikTok, Snapchat, Criteo, and other large platforms. The result is better ad performance for those Shopify Plus merchants.
To borrow the example from Shopify, consider a store selling swimsuits. For this merchant, Shopify Audiences does not create a list of folks who recently purchased a swimsuit but rather shoppers who bought sunglasses, sunscreen, a sun hat, or pool supplies.
Shopify rolled out Audiences 2.2 last month. It’s a significant update, with some sellers reporting a 50% drop in acquisition costs.
This co-op approach could be a model for groups of advertisers working together to restore ad relevance and ROAS in the absence of third-party cookies.
Credit: https://www.practicalecommerce.com/shopify-audiences-boosts-cookieless-ads