The competitive landscape of the e-commerce sector is becoming increasingly complex, presenting businesses with challenges such as low-quality traffic, diminishing returns on ad spend, and poor conversion rates. However, technological advancements are keeping pace with these market shifts, and Shopify’s latest Audiences tool could be the breakthrough your business has been seeking.
Audiences is a novel machine learning feature designed to address the pain points that many e-commerce businesses encounter. Shopify Plus merchants can harness Audiences to identify high-intent buyers through a novel, tailored targeting approach. This tool revolutionizes the way we perceive ROI and customer attribution.
Imagine you are a Shopify merchant seeking innovative customer acquisition strategies. Initially, sales may have been robust, but scaling efforts and reaching new customer segments can quickly deplete your ad budget. Here, Audiences emerges as the ideal solution.
Upon granting Shopify access to your merchant data, Audiences generates lists of potential buyers, termed “audiences,” for any selected product. These lists can then be exported to platforms like Facebook and Instagram for targeted advertising campaigns.
Audiences excels in top-of-funnel advertising due to Shopify’s unique customization, facilitated by the vast merchant network already utilizing the platform. This offers Shopify Plus merchants new opportunities, such as:
The tool’s foundation is a highly precise system that aligns buyer intent with product attributes, eliminating the costly and time-consuming trial-and-error process of improving conversion rates. Why guess where your buyers are when you can pinpoint them with a simple click?
Shopify’s case studies demonstrate Audiences’ potential to drive e-commerce growth, with early adopters reporting significant enhancements in their marketing processes, including:
The cost of customer acquisition has surged, with Meta ads increasing by 61% over 2021. Audiences is a strategic solution to this critical barrier to sustained business growth.
Machine learning (ML) is pivotal in reducing customer acquisition costs through Shopify’s Audiences tool, which processes vast buyer data to provide actionable insights. ML enables Shopify Audiences to identify buying trends at a broader scale and pinpoint potential customers with accuracy challenging to achieve manually. Similar to YouTube’s video targeting algorithm, Shopify recognizes that a one-size-fits-all approach is unsuitable for e-commerce.
An attribution model is the framework businesses use to determine which touchpoints should be credited for a conversion. In the era of omnichannel marketing, merchants are rapidly adapting to customers who traverse multiple channels before making a purchase. Tracking this customer journey is challenging, and without tracking, improvement is impossible.
Shopify Audiences’ customization is further enhanced by a unique attribution model that simplifies touchpoint tracking and reduces ambiguity around conversions. This ensures that businesses can confidently attribute conversions to Audiences.
This exclusive model is made possible by Shopify’s ability to measure performance through emails, not just at the checkout stage, but also before. Shopify’s Audiences tool matches the checkout email with customers in your audience to assign credit post-order processing.
Shopify Audiences offers a robust reporting tool to monitor the progress of your campaigns, providing both overview and detailed reports. Merchants can track every aspect of Shopify Audiences’ performance, ensuring no detail is overlooked.
Buyer and merchant privacy are paramount, with data access requiring merchant consent and encryption to maximize security. Businesses will not have access to personal buyer information, and data is securely encrypted during transmission to ad platforms.
Consent, combined with Shopify’s transparent approach to attribution and compliance with privacy laws, reinforces Audiences’ status as a tool merchants cannot afford to overlook. Opt-out options are available at any time.
Getting started with Audiences is straightforward, with a streamlined installation process taking mere minutes. Let’s briefly explore the steps involved to maximize this exciting new feature from Shopify.
Eligibility for Audiences is restricted to Shopify Plus merchants in the US or Canada. Verify your eligibility and install the Audiences app to proceed. You’ll need to set up the app before creating your first audience.
Access the ‘Apps and sales channels’ page in your settings menu, open the Audiences app, and select ‘Set up audiences.’ You’ll be prompted to enable data contribution and accept Shopify Audiences’ terms. Note that acceptance will automatically share customer data for audience creation. We advise updating your site’s privacy policy to ensure compliance.
Once accepted, link your Facebook account for ad campaigns, and you’ll be ready to create your first audience with Shopify. Start by selecting the ‘Create audience’ option in the Audiences app, choosing a product, naming the audience, and exporting the list.
It’s important to note that there is a limit to the number of audiences you can create weekly with Shopify’s tool. This limit will be displayed on the Shopify dashboard after your first audience export. Only buyers in the US and Canada will be considered, and those who have opted out will be excluded.
Your audience list will not be updated once exported to an ad platform. If your store experiences a surge in buyers post-campaign, you’ll need to create and export a new audience to include them.
Maximizing the benefits of Shopify Audiences requires creativity from merchants. However, it’s crucial to maintain transparency with buyers about their data privacy rights and your use of Audiences on your website.
Lastly, while promising, Shopify Audiences is still a relatively new tool, with its own set of limitations. Nonetheless, it presents an opportunity to leverage first-party data, tap into Shopify’s extensive network, and enhance ROI through a customized strategy. For more insights on growing with a tailored approach, follow Coalition Technologies, a leader in digital marketing.
