Commerce audiences in Display & Video 360 allow brands and commerce media networks (CMN) to use the power of first-party shopper data to drive more effective advertising campaigns. By targeting the audiences curated by commerce media networks, brands can deliver more personalized and relevant ads, increasing the likelihood of conversions and maximizing return on ad spend. For CMNs, this presents a new avenue to monetize their valuable customer insights and strengthen their brand partnerships.
The process for licensing a commerce audience from a CMN is handled out of Display & Video 360, directly between the CMN and advertiser. Once an audience license agreement has been made, the CMN will push the commerce audience to an advertiser’s Display & Video 360 account using the appropriate Advertiser ID.
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Target commerce audiences
Advertisers can target commerce audiences for their line items across various channels, including YouTube, third-party display, video, and Connected TV (CTV). To target commerce audiences for your line items:
- Create a new line item, or open the line item you want to update and click Line item details.
- In the “Targeting” section, click Add targeting and select Audience lists.
- Note: On YouTube, audience list targeting is done at the ad group level.
- In the “Include” section, click Add for “First-party and partner audiences”.
- Select Commerce from the “Audience type” filter.
- Select your preferred audience and click Apply.
- Click Apply again, then Save.
- Commerce audiences are charged for as a percent of media cost. This is a third-party fee. In some cases, the audience fee has a CPM cap.
- While commerce audiences from multiple different commerce partners can be negatively targeted on a line item, commerce audiences must be from a single commerce partner to be positively targeted.
- Creatives used by commerce audiences on YouTube and DemanGen line items must have a landing page URL associated with the site of the commerce partner whose audience is being targeted.
Access commerce audience data
View available commerce audiences and fees
The Partner tab in the Audiences module shows a list of commerce audiences shared to the advertiser’s Display & Video 360 account from the CMN under the Commerce chip. Each commerce audience in the table shows their respective audience size and channel breakdown.
To view the shared commerce audiences:
- Open your Display & Video 360 advertiser account.
- Click Audiences in the left- hand menu and select All audiences.
- Click the Partner tab and click the Commerce chip.
Report on commerce audience data fees
The Commerce audience billing template allows advertisers to understand the data fees the account was billed for each commerce audience over a given period of time. The template is pre-populated with the relevant fields, and advertisers can filter by commerce audience lists.
To create a report using the Commerce audience billing template:
- Click Reports in the left- hand menu and select Instant & offline.
- In the Instant reporting tab, click View all to expand the list of templates.
- Select Commerce audience billing.
Benefits
For brands and advertising agencies
- Access to valuable shopper segments: Brands and agencies can use audiences curated by CMNs based on granular shopping data, including purchase history, browsing behavior, and brand affinities to enhance targeting strategies and drive better campaign performance.
- Enhanced targeting capabilities: Commerce audiences help brands and agencies go beyond basic demographics and reach shoppers based on their demonstrated interests and purchase intent.
- Streamlined campaign management: Brands and agencies can easily incorporate commerce audiences into their existing Display & Video 360 campaigns for efficient activation and management.
- Greater control and transparency: Brands and agencies can run commerce media campaigns directly within Display & Video 360, maintaining full control over their budget, targeting, and creative execution.
- Data-driven insights: Commerce audiences help gain deeper understanding of customer behavior and preferences to inform future campaigns and marketing strategies.
- Strengthened partnerships: Agencies can help brands achieve their marketing goals and drive measurable results through an advanced solution.
For commerce media networks
- New revenue stream: CMNs can monetize valuable first-party shopper data by making their audiences available to brands within Display & Video 360.
- Strengthened brand partnerships: CMNs can strengthen their partnership with brands by providing them access to high-value audiences within their platform of choice.
- Increased brand visibility: Commerce audiences can enhance a CMN’s position as a key player in the growing commerce media landscape.
- Drive sales and loyalty: By enabling brands to execute more effective campaigns that drive increased sales, commerce audiences help foster greater customer loyalty across the CMN’s platform.
Commerce audience pricing and fees
The cost associated with using commerce audiences is charged as a third-party fee.
Current pricing model
Commerce audiences are billed as a percent of media cost. The percent of media cost fee is the only pricing model available for commerce audiences.
Advertisers can select commerce audiences with one of the following pricing options:
- Percent of media cost
- Percent of media cost with CPM cap
The percent of media cost with CPM cap option was introduced to prevent data fees from becoming prohibitively high, making the pricing model more attractive and predictable for advertisers. This hybrid approach allows CMNs to scale their fees with media spend on lower CPM inventory while providing a cost ceiling on higher CPM inventory, which encourages broader adoption.
Example
Negotiation and billing
The process for licensing a commerce audience and agreeing upon the audience fees is handled outside of Display & Video 360, directly between the advertiser and the CMN. CMNs set the price of their first-party data and share that pricing model with Display & Video 360 advertisers as part of the commerce audiences sales process.
Display & Video 360 handles the billing for audience usage to the brand. The data fee for the commerce audience is applied within the line item budget, ensuring advertisers do not go over their planned budget.
Display & Video 360 passes usage fees to the data onboarder on a monthly cadence at the beginning of each month, covering the previous month's licensed usage fees activity. The data onboarder subsequently passes the collected fee back to the retailer.
To learn more about the CMNs available via Display & Video 360, contact your Google Account team.