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PayPal Holdings Inc. has officially launched PayPal Ads Manager, a service that allows merchants to act as their own retail media network and generate new revenue streams, PayPal says.
Retail media networks are advertising platforms that allow retailers to sell ad space across the media channels they own or control, such as the Web, physical stores, and social media, to other merchants looking to reach high-intent shoppers.
The new service, which will be available in the United States early next year, will utilize purchasing data from PayPal. Providing advertisers access to that data, which includes purchasing information on more than 430 million consumers across 200 markets globally, will allow merchants to target ads within their media channels to the desired consumer demographic based on actual buying behavior, as opposed to browsing behavior, PayPal says. PayPal plans to expand the service to the United Kingdom and Germany after launching it in the U.S.
PayPal says it developed Ads Manager to make retail media networks more accessible to small businesses.
Examples of competing retail ad networks include Amazon Ads and Walmart Connect. Amazon Ads allows brands to bid on sponsored products, display ads, and video placements across Amazon’s e-commerce ecosystem. Walmart Connect combines in-store, online, and offsite placements using Walmart’s shopping data.
“PayPal Ads Manager is a dual-sided product. It allows [small and medium-size businesses] to create a new revenue stream by publishing ads to any brand they choose,” PayPal spokesperson says by email. “SMBs simply install an SDK, select any preferences they want, and PayPal matches the right brands and ads onto their site.”
“The solution also allows SMBs to manage ad campaigns in one place,” the spokesperson adds. “Instead of going to different providers for their individual campaigns, SMBs come to their PayPal account—where they’re managing their business already—and can run a variety of ad campaigns to acquire new customers. PayPal Ads Manager allows SMBs to earn new revenue and acquire new customers.”
Small businesses can use PayPal Ads Manager to acquire customers across PayPal-owned properties and social channels, using such tools as PayPal Storefront Ads, which integrates checkout through PayPal and Venmo within live ads so shoppers do not have to leave the content they’re viewing to make a purchase. PayPal launched Storefront Ads earlier this year.
As a result, merchants can run coordinated advertising efforts across multiple platforms from a single dashboard and utilize AI-powered creative tools to generate ad campaigns without the need for a graphic designer or dedicating advertising and marketing teams, PayPal says.
Merchants can integrate PayPal Ad Manager using a software development kit. Merchants can then select their advertising preferences, such as not allowing ads from competing merchants to appear on their media channels. PayPal uses the merchant’s preferences to automatically select relevant ads based on those preferences and other undisclosed factors, which eliminates the need for a small business to manually select ads that appear on their media channels.
Once shoppers start seeing the ads, small businesses can control and monitor their performance within the PayPal Merchant Portal. Ad revenues are deposited into the merchant’s PayPal account. Merchants can use those revenues to grow their business by funding their own marketing initiatives, purchasing inventory, or hiring more staff.
“PayPal Ads is an evolution of the PayPal business. As our customers continue to look for new ways to find customers and generate revenue, we saw an opportunity to further the relationship between PayPal and our customer base,” says the PayPal spokesperson.
