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Buy now pay later finance group Afterpay’s move into advertising is leveraging its younger user base.
Saket Mehta, Afterpay's VP of global advertising, partnerships and revenue, said Gen Z and millennials are using Afterpay to engage with brands and manage their spending.
“So leveraging commerce media, the signals that we have, the audiences that are coming, and really shaping the way that the next generation is going to pay and work with financial companies is critical,” Mehta told AdNews.
Afterpay launched its own media network, powered by Yahoo DSP, to help advertisers reach shoppers across the web and in-store, in September.
The network has connected 240,000 Australian merchants to 6.9 million customers, generating $13.4 billion in sales across both online and offline channels.
Yahoo DSP's director of commercial and platforms Andrew Gilbert said a common misconception is that commerce media and retail media are the same.
“When we talk about commerce media we're talking about multiple merchants at one time and when we're talking about retail media we're talking about one singular retailer,” he said.
Brands can deliver personalised ads, track sales, measure campaign performance and gain insights about their customers.
Mehta said Afterpay is able to create “rich audience profiles” based on their purchases and “target” them with relevant messaging.
“Leveraging all of that information, both online and offline, we're able to create really rich audience profiles based on the signals we're seeing,” he said.
“It creates a more customised experience between the customer and the merchant, ideally driving stronger engagement and conversion rates with the brand.”
Gilbert said there has been a significant amount of interest from media agencies.
“We've been rolling this out for about six to months and the amount of work and the number of conversations that are happening right now is really amazing,” he told AdNews.
“A lot of them are still working out where commerce media sits within their own businesses.”
Afterpay has already ran a number of successful campaigns focussed on electronics, fashion, travel, entertainment and retail.
One CTV campaign with a major retailer led to a 35% increase in basket size, a 2.3% rise in category share, and attracted 327,000 new customers to the brand.
Mehta said commerce media provides advertisers and agencies valuable insights about peoples' shopping habits.
“It's not just related to one specific part of the customer's journey,” he said.
“The fact that we have 350 million transactions allows us to create a new offering which allows them to connect across multiple verticals, not just one.
“Those nuggets are incredibly valuable to an advertiser and agency as they think about furthering their customer personas.”
Gilbert said transaction level data is the future of identifiers.
“This will allow marketers, retailers and brands to go after different segments because they actually understand who their consumer is, what they're doing and where they are,” he said.
“We're continuing to expand the media network. We're also looking at how we can combine our on site and off platform offering together.
“We're continuing to provide that holistic experience so advertisers and agencies who come to us can really drive that full-funnel, on site, off channel, performance together and really look at it in different ways.”
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