It’s a well known fact that in life, your wallet opens like it never has before the moment you start a family.
A car seat is never just a car seat. It’s the first purchase in a chain that runs through strollers, nursery furniture, paediatric visits, nappies, bottles, childcare, and eventually school shoes. Nobody plans this cascade. It happens because a household just reorganised its entire spending logic around a person who didn’t exist a year ago.
Most media plans target “new parents” as a demographic, which means targeting an age bracket and hoping the intent is in there somewhere. That’s a poor substitute for targeting the actual behaviour, and until now, most brands haven’t had a way to do better.
That gap just closed. For the first time anywhere, advertisers have direct access to Toys R Us and Babies R Us shopper audiences, now live on Flow’s Audience Marketplace. These are first-party data audiences, and until now nobody outside these retailers could target them directly.
Three ways to use these audiences
The Loyalty Land Grab
Targets expectant parents before they've picked a brand.
Best for: established brands defending category share.
The Expanding Basket
One purchase reliably triggers the next, so the win is showing up for the whole sequence, not chasing a single conversion.
Best for: brands running acquisition or cross-sell campaigns.
The Emotional Shift
Leans heavily on the psychology behind the purchase, not the product features.
Best for: brands with an emotionally-led product that wins on trust and safety rather than features.
The Loyalty Land Grab
Nobody sets out to switch nappy brands once they’ve decided. Or car seat brands. The decision gets made once, under pressure, usually in the first few months, and then it solidifies into a habit that can last up to 10 years.
That means the brand that shows up first in this window isn’t fighting for a sale. It’s fighting for a decade of repeat purchase. The buyers most worth reaching are the ones who haven’t decided yet, not the ones already loyal to a competitor.
💡 There is a short window where parents decide on the brands they trust for years.
Make sure you’re reaching them first.
The Expanding Basket
One purchase in this life stage triggers five more. Buy a car seat and a stroller conversation starts. Buy a stroller and a highchair follows. Somewhere in there, a nursery gets furnished, a paediatrician gets chosen, and a childcare budget gets built.
For a performance-driven brand, this reframes the ad spend entirely. You’re not buying a conversion on one SKU. You’re buying entry into a spending sequence that’s already been set in motion by a purchase. That’s a materially better ROAS story than targeting demographics alone, because the intent signal is based on behaviour.
💡 The first purchase decides the next five. Show up for all of them.
Best suited to: Brands running acquisition or cross-sell campaigns, where the win is capturing a spending sequence, not a single conversion.
The Emotional Shift
People don’t shop for car seats like they shop for phone cases; the real drivers are safety, protection, and love. Creative work should reflect these emotional values, as functional comparisons often undersell the product.
This is where Shoppers with families (and even pets) matter for the same reason. The psychology of buying for the most important people and pets in your life doesn’t behave like rational retail spend. Brands that lead with emotion and love in this category consistently outperform brands that lead with functional specs.
💡 They’re not buying features. They’re buying peace of mind.
This approach works best for brands that build trust and safety through brand and creative campaigns, rather than focusing on product features.
How to get access
Getting access to these audiences is easier than ever through the Flow Audience Marketplace.
Browse the Toys R Us and Babies R Us audiences, live now on the marketplace alongside audiences from more than 35 leading retailers, platforms and e-commerce partners. Select the audience, or combination of audiences, that fits your brief and objective. Add to cart and activate in your campaign on Meta, Google and TikTok. Read here for a step by step guide to booking your first-party data audiences.
Not sure who you want to reach? Nova, Flow’s AI strategist, will point you to the audiences that fit your brief or you book a chat with the Flow team of experts.
Browse the full marketplace or book a demo with the Flow team and we’ll build your first audience with you.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need a Flow account to get started?
No. You can browse the marketplace, plan, and add audiences to your cart without a login. You only sign in when you are ready to book.
Are these audiences based on actual purchase behaviour or modelled data?
They’re built from first-party shopper data collected directly on Toys R Us and Babies R Us. That means they reflect what people are actually browsing and buying, not an inferred demographic profile.
Which platforms can I activate these audiences on?
You can activate your audiences on Meta, Google and TikTok.
How is this different from targeting "new parents" through a standard ad platform?
Standard platform targeting relies on inferred demographics like age and interests. These audiences are built from actual shopping behaviour on named retail partners, which is a stronger and more precise intent signal.
