Roku announces Shopify app

Today Roku announced the introduction of a new app within the Shopify app store that will enable Shopify merchants to buy, build and measure campaigns across the Roku streaming platform. The Roku app will become available ahead of the 2021 holiday season, according to the company.

As the first streaming platform available to Shopify merchants, the app is set to open up SMBs to affordable TV campaigns. The app allows business owners to set up, monitor and execute campaigns on their own, based on the parameters of their ad budget.

Advertisers download the Roku app from the Shopify App Store, pick their audience and ad budget, and set timing and duration. From there, they upload their creative and have a campaign ready to go. Roku reaches tens of millions of U.S. households.

A study by Roku and The Harris Poll indicated that 49% of consumers said they saw an ad while watching a streaming program, paused the show, and shopped for a product online that was suggested by the ad.

In recent years, Roku has been a preferred streaming ad platform for many direct-to-consumer brands. TV streaming spend in Roku’s OneView Ad Platform nearly tripled year-over-year in Q2 2021.

Why we care. A low barrier to entry on the publisher side means that there are a lot of opportunities on streaming for advertisers. On an OTT platform like Roku, for instance, viewers can watch premium services like Disney+, or ad-supported free services like Pluto TV, which includes over 100+ channels.

With so much inventory, SMBs with smaller budgets can run ads in front of families in their living rooms. The easy app experience further enables the democratization of streaming advertising, and will increase the slice of the overall TV pie that OTT/CTV has been building.