Connecting creators with Shopify’s millions of merchants: Introducing Shopify Collabs

Key takeaways

Paid media is essential for fast growth and visibility in today’s competitive digital marketing world, giving businesses better targeting and measurable results. The best paid media agencies use technology, custom strategies, and transparent reporting to drive real business growth, with Hunter Digital leading through a data-driven and client-focused approach.

Key points:

Paid media allows brands to reach the right audience quickly with targeted and testable campaigns.
Top agencies blend creative work & media buying, access exclusive ad features, & use proprietary analytics to get measurable results.
Industry specialization helps agencies deliver more effective strategies faster by understanding unique client needs.
Clear communication, customized planning, frequent reporting, and ongoing optimization are must-haves for successful partnerships.
Hunter Digital stands out with its real-time data, multichannel expertise, and relentless focus on performance and transparency.

Topic

Key Insight

Why It Matters

Action Items

Paid Media Importance

Accelerates growth and delivers measurable marketing results.

Agency Specialization

Agencies with industry experience customize strategies for better outcomes.

Not all campaigns or industries are the same.

Choose an agency with direct experience in your sector.

Core Capabilities

Top agencies blend creative, data, platform access, and transparency.

These factors separate leading agencies from the rest.

Look for agencies with these strengths when vetting firms.

Hunter Digital Approach

Uses proprietary analytics, ongoing optimization, and open reporting for growth-focused work.

Provides transparent, results-driven marketing partnerships.

Prioritize agencies offering data-driven, honest service.

Evaluating Agencies

Asking about customization, reporting, team, & past success reveals agency fit.

Ensures you hire a truly effective marketing partner.

Always ask key questions to assess agency capability.

Why Paid Media Is the Backbone of Modern Digital Marketing

Paid media is now the core engine behind fast growth and visibility for brands. Whether your business is new or already established, digital marketing is too competitive to rely on organic progress alone. Paid media lets you put your brand in front of the right people, on the right platforms, at the right time.

Here’s the simple truth: Companies investing in paid media see faster results. You can target specific audiences, test and scale creative ideas, and get new customers—all with measurable results. As a digital marketing agency, we’ve watched businesses double or triple their revenue after launching campaigns built on data and performance. No guesswork. Just proof that paid media works.

What Makes an Agency One of the Best Paid Media Agencies

Top paid media agencies do more than run ads. They combine technology, creativity, and proven strategy to build lasting growth for their clients. The best agencies know how to match digital marketing tactics to each client’s goals and industry.

Why does that matter? Because not every campaign or client is alike. An eCommerce clothing brand needs something different from a B2B SaaS company. The best paid media agencies understand this—they customize everything, from ad copy to budget splits, based on your business.

From my experience at Hunter Digital, successful paid media comes down to six main strengths:

Integrated creative and media buying—so your ads not only look good, they actually convert.
Access to beta ad features and exclusive partnerships with Google, Meta, TikTok, Pinterest, and more.
Proprietary analytics platforms for real-time insights and quick pivots when results change.
A proven track record of real, measurable ROI.
Custom strategies for each industry.
Transparent reporting and reliable communication.

Agencies praised on industry lists—like these top-rated paid media shops—all share those traits.

Categories of Paid Media Agencies and Why Specialization Matters

Answer first: Not all paid media agencies offer the same thing, & choosing one with experience in your industry can cut your learning curve in half.

Specializations you’ll find in the market:

Enterprise and Fortune 500: Focus on complex, cross-channel buys and advanced analytics. Key for big budgets and global brands.
SaaS and Performance Marketing: Optimize long sales cycles, lead generation, and audience nurturing with laser-targeted search engine marketing and multi-step retargeting.
eCommerce and Direct Response: Maximize every ad dollar to boost sales, lower CPA, and unlock paid social and Google Shopping tactics.
Creator Campaigns: Pair brands with trusted influencers, perfect for Gen Z and those who want authenticity at scale.

At Hunter Digital, we’ve worked with clients across these categories. But no matter the industry, our approach is always data-first and growth-focused. If the numbers aren’t moving up, we’re not finished.

Using Shopify Collabs, creators can discover and partner with Shopify’s millions of merchants, and independent brands can reach new consumers

Most creators can’t support themselves full time. Discovering brands and establishing partnerships is cumbersome, and creators want to spend their time making content
With Shopify Collabs, creators can easily discover and partner with merchants to build curated shops and share products that reflect their own interests, accelerating their path to entrepreneurship
Building on integrations with social and entertainment platforms, launch of Linkpop and Starter plan, Shopify Collabs cements Shopify as the creator’s commerce platform of choice

At Shopify, we believe creators are the next generation of entrepreneurs. They’re artists and makers building passionate followings that they inspire, inform, and entertain. They use their creativity to engage audiences across the internet.

Shopify’s goal is to bring economic independence to this new generation of entrepreneurs. Despite the size of the total creator economy, estimated to be worth over $100B, most creators struggle to make money and become independent. Just 4% of creators make content full time. As a solo creator, discovering brands and establishing partnerships is cumbersome, and creators would rather spend their time doing what they love—engaging with their audiences.

For merchants, the creator economy presents a new way to find new consumers, at a time when acquiring customers has become increasingly difficult and expensive. Creators are trusted by audiences who look to them to share product recommendations they know they’ll love.

Enter Shopify Collabs. With Collabs, we’re bringing brands and creators together, making it simple for creators to monetize while giving merchants a new sales and marketing channel. For consumers, that will mean hearing about the world’s best independent brands and products from creators they trust.

Collabs helps creators monetize by discovering and partnering with the independent brands their audiences will love

Creators can now discover Shopify brands who are looking for new collabs.

Creators can view details about a brand on their profile page.

Creators can find products they want to promote from their collabs.

Creators can redeem gifts sent to them by brands.

Creators can track the performance of their collabs.

Once approved, creators can find details about their collab all in one place.

With Shopify Collabs, creators of all kinds can now easily browse, discover and partner with Shopify’s millions of merchants for free. Here’s how:

Creators apply for a Shopify Collabs account, and browse for Shopify merchants that align with their audience.
Once they find brands they love, creators can partner with those merchants and use Linkpop, Shopify’s free link in bio tool built for commerce, to curate a selection of products to share on their favorite social and entertainment platforms.
When someone purchases a product using the link a creator has shared, that creator gets paid. And it’s all managed from Shopify Collabs—from discovery to payout.

“Besides creating great content for my audience, an essential part of my job is to be my most authentic self and work with brands that I genuinely love to wear and use,” said Rahel Brhane, content creator. “While it can be overwhelming and time consuming to find, communicate and weed out the brands that reflect who I am, it’s the only way to preserve my integrity and keep the trust I’ve built with my audience. This is why I am super excited to have access to a product like Shopify Collabs because they’ve made it so easy to search and discover new and existing merchants! My job is all about creating and building meaningful relationships with brands and this new platform will make the process much more seamless and allow me to shift the focus back on my craft of creating great content!”

“Shopify is where the world’s best independent brands go to build their businesses. With Shopify Collabs, we’re making it simple for creators to discover and partner with these brands so they can make more money and reach economic independence,” said Amir Kabbara, Director of Product, Shopify. “In the future, Collabs will be fully integrated with Shopify, giving creators access to more parts of our platform and accelerating their journey as entrepreneurs.”

Collabs gives merchants a new channel to find highly engaged consumers

Shopify merchants can use Collabs to discover and manage their relationships with creators, giving them a new sales and marketing channel to find and engage with high-impact audiences. Once merchants install Collabs and make their store and products discoverable, creators can apply to join that merchant’s community. Shopify Collabs can then be used to manage the relationship with that creator, supplying everything they need, like unique links or discount codes, to share that merchant’s products with their audiences. Because Collabs is built on Shopify, the entire process is managed centrally from the merchant’s Shopify admin, which means inventory, order, and customer information are kept up to date, giving a real-time view of the merchant’s entire multichannel sales.

“For Shopify merchants, Collabs is a new way to find potential customers at a time when it’s never been more difficult or expensive,” Kabbara continued. “By giving merchants the ability to discover and partner with creators that align with their brand, they can tap into the power of community-driven commerce to reach consumers in new and meaningful ways.”

“How brands find new customers is changing,” said Nathaniel Weiss, President, Nécessaire. “Working closely with creators across platforms has been a key component of our sales and marketing strategy, and Shopify Collabs has been a vital tool in helping us manage that community. Streamlining how we find and partner with creators in the same platform we already use to manage our business will mean we can spend more time doing what we do best—creating great products.”

Shopify powers commerce for the creator economy

Shopify Collabs is our latest step in building for creators and making new modes of commerce possible for merchants of all kinds. Here’s what else creators and merchants can do today on Shopify:

Launch a simple mobile-friendly store with Shopify’s Starter Plan, a $5 plan that new-to-commerce creators can use to get a no-code store up and running. Creators can share links to their communities on platforms like WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram, TikTok, Spotify and more, or on their Linkpop
Make their link in bio shoppable withnLinknpop, so that they can share products wherever they engage with consumers and make check out simple
Integrate directly with the world’s most important social and entertainment platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, Spotify, Google, YouTube, Pinterest, and more

All of these products have laid the foundation for Shopify becoming a creator’s commerce platform of choice.

Written by Shopify

Link to Original Blog: https://news.shopify.com/connecting-creators-with-shopifys-millions-of-merchants-introducing-shopify-collabs