Block Partners with Narrative I/O to Power Privacy-First Data Infrastructure for Afterpay Media Network
Afterpay Advancing Privacy-Led Advertising with Embedded Identity and Measurement Capabilities
DISTRIBUTED-WORK-MODEL/MELBOURNE – Jun 16, 2025 Block, Inc. (NYSE: XYZ), the technology company behind Square, Cash App, and Afterpay, today announced a strategic partnership with Narrative I/O, the leader in privacy-safe data collaboration and identity orchestration. The collaboration is set to significantly advance the Afterpay Media Network (AMN), enhancing its infrastructure with a privacy-centric, scalable, and interoperable foundation that redefines how brands engage consumers.
Through this partnership, Block will integrate the Narrative Anywhere Native App and its advanced data orchestration technology directly into its Snowflake environment. This architecture empowers Block to deliver powerful advertising solutions to brands and merchants without compromising the privacy of sensitive financial and transaction data — a critical differentiator for the Afterpay Media Network.
“Our ecosystem at Block gives us an unparalleled view of the modern commerce landscape,” said Marni Schapiro, GM of Global Advertising & Partnerships at Afterpay. “With Afterpay, Square, across the world and Cash App in the US, we capture rich signals across both digital and physical retail. For the AMN, this partnership enables us to activate the Afterpay insights responsibly, with Narrative’s infrastructure ensuring end-to-end data privacy.”
Key enhancements enabled by the partnership:
- In-Environment Data Orchestration: Narrative Anywhere’s deployment within Block’s Snowflake instance ensures that sensitive data never leaves Block’s secure environment.
- Federated Identity Infrastructure: Links first and third-party identity signals across platforms without centralising data, supporting intelligent audience construction and enhancing addressability.
- Advanced Measurement & Attribution: Enables precise incrementality testing and attribution, aligned with privacy compliance standards.
- Streamlined Activation: Direct integration with platforms like Yahoo DSP facilitates efficient campaign deployment and optimization.
The Afterpay Media Network, a first-of-its-kind commerce media network powered by Yahoo DSP in Australia, is already live in Australia and available to select advertisers, leveraging proprietary insights from Afterpay transactions – both online and in-store – to offer brands a deeper understanding of consumer behaviour. The platform is fast becoming a blueprint for next-generation commerce media solutions that are privacy-respecting by design.
“Traditional commerce media models often expose brands to unnecessary privacy risks by moving data into third-party environments,” said Schapiro. “Our work with Narrative eliminates that risk while unlocking sophisticated audience-building capabilities that deliver real outcomes.”
“Narrative Anywhere offers a fundamentally new model for data collaboration,” added Tim Mahlman, CEO of Narrative. “By embedding our platform directly into Block’s environment, the Afterpay Media Network gains full control over identity logic, data flows, and measurement — all without transferring data externally. That’s what real privacy-safe advertising looks like.”
The partnership reflects the rising demand for commerce media infrastructure that is compliant, composable, and under full control of the data owner — with the Afterpay Media Network now at the forefront of this transformation.
For partnership inquiries and media opportunities, please contact the Afterpay or Yahoo Advertising teams.