Google Ads lets retailers share shopper audiences with brands

Google has added commerce audience sharing to Google Ads, according to a help page first spotted by Search Engine Roundtable on 18 September. Retailers and marketplaces can pass their own customer segments to brands and sellers, which then use them in their own campaigns.

Google calls the two sides commerce partners and advertising partners. The feature works only in what Google names commerce media network campaigns.

Retailers share segments from Audience Manager in three steps

Both sides first link their Google Ads accounts to each other’s Merchant Center and data sharing accounts. The retailer then opens Audience Manager, picks the segments and chooses “Share with partners”. Last, it selects which brands get access.

The brand finds the shared lists in its own Audience Manager and adds them to eligible campaigns. Search Engine Roundtable notes that brands can mix these lists with their own customer data.

Every click has to land on the retailer’s website

The main rule is about traffic. Google says a campaign using a partner’s audience “can only direct traffic back to the commerce partner’s website”. The ads must point to the domain the retailer allows.

That is what separates this from a normal audience list. The brand pays for the ads, but the sale happens in the retailer’s shop. It is the model that retail media networks already use on their own sites, now moved into Google’s inventory. Google has been adding similar tools for shops, such as a beta that lets retailers tell bidding which products matter most.

Brands see list sizes, retailers see spend

Each side gets part of the data. The brand sees segment names, list sizes and conversion figures. The retailer sees campaign results and how much the brand spent.

The help page does not say which countries have access or whether the feature is still in testing. In markets where retail media is growing fast, such as Poland, where Allegro holds a large share, the question is whether big marketplaces will add Google as one more place to sell their audiences.

A brand that sells through a large retailer can check one thing in its Google Ads account today: whether Audience Manager already shows a partner segment. If it does, those campaigns will send every click to the retailer, not to the brand’s own shop.