Shopify is expanding the reach of its merchant advertising tool Audiences to include all major advertising platforms. New integrations add Snap, Criteo and TikTok to Shopify’s growing list of channel ad partners, which already include Meta, Google and Pinterest. The latest version of Shopify Audiences now offers benchmarking functionality to help merchants compare their campaign performance to that of similar sellers.
Shopify Audiences, which is currently available for U.S. and Canada Shopify Plus merchants, first debuted in May 2022, to help brands better identify and reach target customers on their preferred advertising networks. The solution launched with Meta’s Facebook and Instagram and later expanded to include Google and Pinterest. Now with the addition of TikTok, Snap and Criteo, Shopify merchants can create and reach target audiences on nearly all the major digital advertising platforms.
Building a Strong Algorithm for Merchants
Shopify Audiences uses insights from the broader Shopify Plus ecosystem to help merchants find prospective customers based on “proven intent.” Merchants select a product they want to sell more of and Shopify’s machine learning tools help build a tailored audience of high-intent buyers. Then, merchants can securely export that audience to their ad network of choice. The algorithm will become more impactful as the number of merchants using Shopify Audiences (and the number of shopper insights available) grows.
“Since launching Shopify Audiences last year, our algorithms have only gotten smarter and more effective thanks to the collective power of our merchants,” said David Wurtz, VP of Advertising at Shopify in a statement. “We’ve long said that commerce is not a zero-sum game. Together, the independent merchants on Shopify help each other win.”
The updated Shopify Audiences tool now lets merchants benchmark their campaign performance against that of other similar merchants. For example, a custom T-shirt retailer can compare the performance of its advertising campaign against other merchants selling similar products at similar price points, as opposed to broadly comparing itself against all apparel retailers.
