Should Paypal be building an ad business?

Next in Media spoke with Dr. Mark Grether SVP & General Manager, PayPal Ads, on why he thinks the company's 'transaction graph' may be even more powerful than some retailers' data for advertising, and why there's nothing to worry about with a company that has so many people's banking information to use that data for ad targeting. 

💡Takeaways:

• 🌐 The Power of Transaction Graphs: PayPal's advertising strategy is built on its "transaction graph," which captures consumer spending across 30 million merchants globally, offering a much broader and deeper understanding of purchase behavior than single-retailer data. 
• 🔗 Cross-Retailer Attribution: Unlike traditional retail media that operates in silos, PayPal can provide closed-loop attribution across all merchants where a brand's products are sold. 
• 🛍️ Beyond Single-Category Insights: PayPal's transaction graph enables connections across diverse spending categories (e.g., sporting goods, groceries, travel). 
• 🔒 Trust and Data Security in Advertising: Despite handling sensitive financial data, PayPal emphasizes that trust and data safety are central to its advertising business. 
• 🤝 Agency Collaboration: Advertising agencies are actively "leaning in" to PayPal advertising because of its ability to offer a cross-media view and help optimize and plan campaigns across many outlets in their ecosystem.
• 📈 Evolution to Offsite and Full-Funnel: PayPal is naturally expanding into "offsite" ads and full-funnel marketing due to its existing transaction data across numerous merchants. 

🎙 Guest: Dr. Mark Grether

🎤 Host: Mike Shields

📺 Sponsor: Rembrand

🎬 Producer: FEL Creative