Advanced Audience Targeting for Commerce Media: New AI Solutions Transform Ad Performance

As retailers compete for advertiser budgets, your ability to connect brands with the right shoppers at precisely the right moment is your competitive advantage. Nearly 20% of all digital ad spend now flows through retail media. Advertisers increasingly expect sophisticated targeting capabilities, and are willing to pay top dollar for your first-party data that improves their performance.

Audience Targeting solutions, like those powered by Moloco, bridge this gap – giving retailers unprecedented control over audience management while empowering advertisers with flexible options that drive predictable outcomes (even in uncertain times). All while protecting the privacy of consumers.

The Strategic Power of Commerce Media Audiences 

Commerce media audiences stand apart from traditional targeting methods because they blend actual purchase behavior with shopping intent data. 

When retail media networks (RMNs) can identify shoppers who have purchased competing products or browsed specific categories, for example, you unlock all kinds of improved outcomes: 

• Help supplier partners reach new customers with precision
• Enable brands to target competitor customers for conquest campaigns
• Drive incremental revenue by offering premium segments to top advertisers
• Measure actual return on ad spend (ROAS) with closed-loop attribution

Yet, many retailers struggle to fully monetize this audience data or provide the targeting flexibility advertisers increasingly demand. That's where Moloco comes in.

Three Approaches for Targeting Commerce Audiences

Supplier retail media campaigns often have different objectives, from new product awareness to incremental sales. While maximizing performance is key, brands also want control over who sees their ads, when they see them, and how they're reached. 

Moloco’s enhanced Audience Targeting Suite offers a more flexible, tailored experience, including multiple pathways for your advertisers to reach their ideal customers.

Smart Targeting: Maximize Performance Through Real-Time ML

When advertisers want maximum performance with minimum effort, Smart Targeting delivers. Custom-built transformer models respond to anonymized in-session shopping behavior, predicting an ad’s relevancy for each user in real time. This advanced machine learning technology:

• Automatically identifies and targets the most relevant users for each campaign
• Dynamically adjusts targeting in real time based on user behavior
• Discovers and reaches non-traditional user segments that may be missed by manual targeting
• Optimizes campaign performance without continuous manual monitoring

With this approach, less mature or time-strapped advertisers gain an efficient “set it and forget it” option that delivers impressive results, without the need for constant oversight and manual adjustments.

Custom Audience Targeting: Precision Control for Advanced Advertisers

For power advertisers who want granular control, Custom Audience capabilities provide the tools to build highly tailored audiences based on:

• User events (purchases, item views)
• Item metadata (category, brand, seller)
• Time period

This approach ensures your most sophisticated advertisers can create highly specific audience segments aligned with each campaign’s unique objectives.

Predefined Audience Targeting: Unlock Your Most Valuable Data Assets

Predefined Audience Targeting, the latest addition to Moloco’s platform, enables retailers to upload and activate their own curated audience sets for campaign targeting. This allows you to:

• Create high-value audiences based on rich first-party data
• Offer premium audience packages as an incremental revenue stream
• Control access to sensitive audience data while still monetizing it
• Provide advertisers with one-click access to your most valuable segments

With Predefined Audience Targeting, advertisers can:

• Select targeted audiences with just a few clicks
• Combine audiences using flexible "Include all" or "Include any" logic
• Access your-curated audiences without complex segment creation
• Target users with precision based on retailer-defined characteristics

Audience Administration: Strategic Control for Retailers

In addition to enhanced targeting capabilities, retailers also need to carefully manage who can access their valuable audience data. Some audiences represent your most valuable data assets and should be reserved for strategic partners or premium advertisers, while others might be appropriate for broader access.

Moloco’s new Audience Administration tools give you centralized control over how your audience data assets are utilized across the advertising network.

With Audience Administration, retailers can:

• View all predefined audiences and monitor their sync
• Configure audience access at the ad account level
• Implement tiered access models (open to all, restricted, or account-by-account)
• Perform bulk operations for efficient audience management
• Align targeting options with business rules and strategic priorities

This robust administration layer ensures that retailers can strategically deploy their high-value audiences while maintaining governance over their data assets.

Flexible Implementation For Every Retailer’s Needs

We understand every retail media business has unique requirements. That's why implementing Moloco’s new Audience Targeting capabilities is flexible and tailored to your needs. Retailers of all sizes and sophistication levels can leverage targeting capabilities that align with their business strategy and data infrastructure.

Choose the implementation that best suits your business:

• Sync predefined audiences directly from your Customer Data Platform (CDP)
• Upload customized audience lists via CSV file format
• Offer any combination of Smart, Custom, and Predefined targeting
• Configure different access models for different advertiser segments

Precise Audience Targeting Drives Real-World Results 

When retailers deploy our comprehensive Audience Targeting suite, they see tangible benefits across their business, from higher campaign efficiency and conversion rates to greater overall return on ad spend.

For Retailers and Marketplaces:

• Enhanced data governance and control
• Strategic monetization of high-value audiences
• Increased ROI from proprietary data assets and CDP investments
• Simplified operations with highly performant automated Smart Targeting
• Improved advertiser satisfaction and performance

For Advertisers:

• Greater precision in reaching ideal customers
• Improved campaign performance and ROI
• Flexibility to leverage retailer insights or create custom segments
• Enhanced campaign efficiency through targeted reach
• Increased engagement with non-traditional audiences

From AI to ROAS: Elevate Your Audience Advantage 

Your first-party commerce data represents an incredible opportunity to generate new revenue while helping advertising partners achieve better results – and consumers discover more relevant products throughout their shopping journeys.

With Moloco's AI-powered Audience Targeting Suite, you can move faster, optimize smarter, and maximize the impact of every advertising dollar spent on your platform.

Our team is ready to help you implement these powerful new capabilities and drive superior results for your advertising campaigns. Contact us today to learn how Moloco can transform your retail media strategy.

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