Still building campaigns around the same old audience segment? You’re not alone. Most marketers are doing the same. Not because it’s working, but because there hasn’t been a better or easier way to access fresh, high-quality audiences.
For too long, audience buying has been fragmented. It has also been expensive and slow to scale. That is exactly what needs to change. In fact, that change has already begun. It is being driven by a fast-growing part of the media ecosystem: commerce media. This shift is powered by the increasing ability to layer audiences with precision and intent.
Today’s best-performing brands aren’t just targeting. 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 developed strong skills in creative testing, channel optimisation and campaign execution. However, when it comes to audience strategy, many are still stuck in outdated habits. This is not because they lack ideas. It is because the systems were never built to be flexible.
For years, audience buying has looked like this:
- Expensive and rigid, with CPM models that charge based on volume instead of value.
- Slow to scale, often involving long lead times and manual work.
- Siloed, with data limited to one source per campaign.
These limitations make it difficult to test new audience combinations or shift strategies quickly. As a result, teams default to what is available: recent site visitors, CRM lists, or old retargeting pools. This feels familiar, but it is far from innovative.
What worked five years ago will no longer drive performance today. It is time for an audience targeting reset – one that prioritises flexibility, speed and scale.
What commerce media makes possible
Commerce media offers a solution to these long-standing problems. It connects advertisers to rich behavioural data from retailers, marketplaces and e-commerce platforms. This opens access to dozens of pre-qualified audience segments, not just one at a time.
These segments are not generic interest groups. They include people who are actively researching, comparing, purchasing or returning to checkout. Even better, they can be activated across platforms like Meta, Google and TikTok.
Importantly, commerce media does not replace existing audiences. Instead, it enriches them. It gives marketers access to higher-quality signals, which they can layer into more effective targeting strategies. This evolution is at the heart of the audience targeting reset that marketers urgently need.
Layered targeting is the new baseline
Blanket targeting has become outdated. Today’s leading brands are adopting layered audience strategies.
This approach involves:
- Testing multiple audiences at the same time.
- Combining signals such as cart activity, product views and loyalty status.
- Building deeper retargeting pools from multiple data sources.
This method is agile, efficient, and increasingly becoming the industry standard, especially in high-performance media buying. Forward-thinking brands are moving away from audience guesswork. They are adopting performance-driven strategies rooted in intent.
Here is how they are doing it:
- They tap into existing commerce signals from retailers, ecommerce platforms, and data partners. This gives them access to ready-to-convert segments.
- They test and layer audiences to identify what delivers the highest return on investment, not just the most clicks.
- They use every campaign to build more qualified, high-performing audience pools for the future.
Instead of trying to reach more people, smart brands are improving their ability to reach the right people. As a result, they are seeing stronger performance. This shift marks a clear audience targeting reset, where success depends on precision and adaptability, not scale alone.
Third-party cookies are disappearing – and that’s okay
For years, marketers leaned on third-party data. In reality, many of those audience segments were generic, outdated and widely overused. It’s no surprise that performance often lagged behind expectations.
Commerce media has shown that third-party cookies were never essential. Performance doesn’t just come from better creativity or more budget. It comes from better access to the right audience. The brands that realise this first will take the lead.
Your next move – build audience access into your strategy
You do not have to build these audiences from scratch. Across South Africa, platforms already hold deep pools of first-party data. These include actual purchase signals from millions of consumers, not assumptions.
Commerce media makes this data accessible and actionable for marketers. With platforms, marketers can develop a flexible audience strategy.
One that is:
- Not limited by traditional CPM cost models.
- Not restricted to one audience segment or a single data source.
- Fully customisable, layered and scalable over time.
This flexibility allows teams to plan, test and refine strategies with the same agility they apply to creative and media efforts.
Creating a competitive advantage
This transformation is not coming; it is already here. Globally, commerce media is growing faster than traditional digital channels. It is expected to surpass $100 billion in annual spend within the next few years.
In South Africa, the most forward-looking brands and agencies are already adapting. They are not just buying media. They are building audience strategies that deliver real performance.
Soon, this approach will become the standard for every marketer. This is exactly what we are enabling. It is a smarter, simpler way to access high-quality audiences and place data-driven targeting at the centre of campaign strategy.
It is not only about improving results today. In fact, it is about building long-term competitive advantage. The future isn’t one audience. It’s access to every audience that gives you an edge. So, if you’re still using one-size-fits-all targeting, good luck. The brands that win are making these moves now, learning fast and getting ahead.
Daniel Levy | Co-Founder | Co-CEO | Flow | mail me |
