If you’re still building campaigns around the same old audience segment, you’re not alone – most marketers are. Not because it’s working, but because there hasn’t been a better, easier way to access fresh, high-quality audiences. For too long, audience buying has been fragmented, expensive, and slow to scale. But change is already underway, driven by a growing part of the media ecosystem: commerce media, and the increasing ability to layer audiences with precision and intent.
‘Today’s best–performing brands aren’t just targeting,’ said Daniel Levy, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Flow. ‘They’re layering, testing, and scaling. And they’re doing it with the help of first–party data – not vague assumptions.’
The Real Reason Targeting Needs A Reset
Most advertisers have become highly skilled at creative testing, channel optimisation, and campaign execution. But when it comes to audience strategy, many are still stuck in the same old patterns, because the systems weren’t built to flex. For years, audience buying has looked like this:
– Expensive and rigid: locked into cost per thousand impressions (CPMs), where you pay based on volume, not value.
– Slow to scale: with long lead times and manual processes.
– Siloed: often limited to one source of data per campaign.
That makes it hard to test new audience combinations or shift strategy quickly. So, teams default to what they already have: recent site visitors, customer relationship management (CRM) lists, or old retargeting pools. It’s comfortable, but it’s not cutting-edge. And what worked five years ago simply won’t drive performance today.
What Commerce Media Makes Possible
Commerce media helps solve these problems. It connects advertisers to rich behavioural data, from retailers, marketplaces, and ecommerce platforms, and opens access to dozens of pre–qualified audience segments, not just one at a time.
These aren’t generic interest groups. They’re people actively researching, comparing, buying, or returning to checkout – and they can be activated across platforms like Meta, Google, and TikTok.
Importantly, commerce media doesn’t replace your current audiences, it enriches them, allowing you to work with higher-quality signals and layer them into more effective targeting.
Layered Targeting Is The New Baseline
Gone are the days of blanket targeting. Today’s leading brands are shifting to layered audience strategies, which means:
– Testing multiple audiences in parallel.
– Combining signals like cart activity, product views, or loyalty status.
– Building richer retargeting pools using new, multiple data sources.
This approach is agile, efficient, and increasingly expected, especially in high-performance media buying. More signals. Smarter strategy. Better outcomes.
Forward-thinking brands are already shifting from audience guesswork to performance-driven intent strategies. Here’s how:
– They tap into existing commerce signals from retailers, ecommerce platforms, and data partners to access ready-to-convert segments.
– They test and layer audiences to find what drives the best ROI, not just the most clicks.
– They retarget smarter, using every campaign to build more qualified, high-performing audience pools for the future.
Instead of trying to reach more people, smart brands are getting better at reaching the right people, and seeing better results as a result.
Third-Party Cookies Are Going, And That’s Fine
For years, marketers relied on third-party data as a crutch. But in reality, most of those segments were generic, outdated, and wildly overused. It’s no wonder performance often fell short.
Commerce media proves you never needed third-party cookies in the first place, said Levy. ‘Performance doesn’t just come from better creative or more budget – it comes from better access to the right audience. The brands who realise that first will take the lead.’
Your Next Move: Build Audience Access Into Your Strategy
You don’t have to build these audiences from scratch. Across South Africa, platforms are sitting on deep pools of first-party data – actual purchase signals, not guesswork – from millions of consumers.
Commerce media brings this to marketers in a way that’s accessible and actionable. And certain platforms allow you to build a flexible audience strategy that is:
– Not limited by cost models like CPM.
– Not restricted to a single segment or data source.
– Fully customisable, layered, and scalable over time.
This allows marketers to plan, test, and refine strategies with the same agility they bring to creative and media planning.
Create A Competitive Advantage
This shift isn’t coming, it’s here. Globally, commerce media is growing faster than traditional digital channels and is expected to exceed $100 billion in annual spend in the next few years. Locally, the smartest brands and agencies are already adapting by not just buying media but developing audience strategies that truly deliver. Soon, every marketer will expect to work this way.
‘The future isn’t one audience, it’s access to every audience that gives you an edge,’ said Levy. ‘So, if you’re still using one-size-fits-all targeting, good luck. The brands that win? They’re making these moves now, learning fast, and getting ahead.’
FLOW
https://flowplatform.com
