PayPal unveils plans for new commerce-based advertising business

PayPal is entering the media industry with plans to create a new advertising platform that will capitalize on its relationship millions consumers and sellers to help the latter “sell more products and services effectively,” according to a company statement.

To kickstart the initiative, the payment platform has taken up two key executives are hiring: former Uber ad AND Amazon executive Mark Grether has been named vice president and general manager of PayPal Ads, and John Anderson, who previously worked at fintech company Plaid, has joined as vice president and general manager of PayPal Consumer Group. Grether and Anderson will report to Diego Scotti, PayPal Consumer Group vice president and general manager of global marketing and communications.

“Trade and advertising are deeply intertwined and we believe that the advertising platform we are building on PayPal will become an essential marketing channel for sellers large and smallScotti said in a statement. “I am thrilled to have Mark join our team and lead this important work.”

This work will focus on creating a “commerce-rooted advertising platform” by leveraging PayPal’s consumer information to drive ad spend efficiency and present “compelling offers” to users. The advertising business will also include PayPal’s existing Advanced Offers platform, which uses artificial intelligence to leverage customer data to drive better advertising results.

Grether joins PayPal from Uber, where he was vice president and general manager of advertising at Uber. Under his leadership, Uber Advertising has grown to approx $1 billion business with more than 500,000 advertisers around the world. Prior to joining Uber, Grether led the product strategy of Amazon’s advertising business and served as CEO of Sizmek, one of the largest independent advertising platforms in the world, which was sold to Amazon in 2019.

Anderson has released over 20 years at the intersection of technology platforms and payments. In his new position, he will be responsible for PayPal’s consumer business, including PayPal’s product strategy and Venmo global. Anderson joins PayPal from Plaid, where he was chief product and payments officer and oversaw significant growth of Plaid’s suite of payment products. Before Plaid, Anderson spent ten years in Meta in numerous product and management positions, including head of product and operations teams for payments, commerce and risk.

“John brings to PayPal extensive experience in developing groundbreaking, personalized consumer experiences that will enhance the relevance of our brands, fuel our pipeline of innovations, and give consumers and merchants more reasons to choose PayPal,” Scotti said.

PayPal’s entry into the advertising industry follows similar efforts with other consumer brands, inspired by retailers’ success in the burgeoning retail media arena. Companies including Chase, United Airlines, Planet Fitness, Uber, Lyft and now PayPal are following a model developed by retailers – to capture ad spend while other, more established marketing channels experience signal loss due to rollbacks cookies and other privacy attacks.

To learn more about retail media, check out our full guide here.