Shopify rolls out advertising network for merchants

Shopify earlier this month introduced a new advertising network, called “Product Network,” for merchants to generate additional revenue using ads.

Amanda Engelman, director of advertising product at Shopify, told Retail Brew the idea behind Product Network is to help merchants grow with each other. Merchants have to do “a lot of work to drive demand to their site, which is advertising,” Engelman said. “But the other part of it is making sure that they’re getting the most of the demand that is arriving at their site.”

The Product Network tool enables merchants to meet customer demand with “instant merchandising access to Shopify’s network of merchants and our catalog,” Engelman said. Merchants can install the Product Network app within the Shopify app store and receive Shop Campaign credits as revenue on a click-by-click basis.

Product Network allows merchants to choose which surfaces their ads are shown on, including on Shopify Collections, search, the thank-you page, and order status page, Shopify said. Merchants can see earnings activity in the app and the advertising tab, and they can navigate to the Product Network app to manage their ads.

Sky Canaves, eMarketer’s principal analyst for retail and e-commerce, told Retail Brew the product could be transformative for Shopify, creating a retail media marketplace within Shopify’s ecosystem that unlocks new revenue streams for merchants of all sizes.

“There are a lot of complementary merchants that use Shopify in lifestyle categories, for example,” Canaves said. “And we could certainly see a lot of appeal from smaller brands to appear on the surfaces of larger and more established brands that to date we haven’t really seen.”

Canaves added that it’s a reversal of the traditional media model where brands are typically the advertisers, not the media networks themselves. “This is really innovative,” she added.

Merchants receive commission in the form of Shop campaign credits for hosting ad placements on their online store.