MIAMI – PayPal is positioning itself as a new heavyweight in the digital advertising space, unveiling a bold vision for its ads business centered on what it calls the “transaction graph”—a data-driven foundation built on the behavior of its 400 million users and 30 million global merchants.
Speaking this week, Mark Grether, senior vice president and general manager of PayPal Ads, said the company’s latest product, Offsite Ads, opens the door for merchants and advertisers to activate campaigns far beyond PayPal’s own platforms.
“We have access to transaction data from 30 million merchants globally with 400 million users on our platform,” Grether said in this interview at the Possible marketing conference. “When Facebook has a social graph, or TikTok has the interest graph, we have the transaction graph.”
This transaction graph, Grether said, gives PayPal an unmatched horizontal view across all merchants, allowing advertisers to understand consumer behavior at a granular level and to target and measure ad performance with precision across media channels — from connected TV (CTV) to programmatic display.
‘One-stop shop’ for omnichannel advertising
With the launch of Offsite Ads, advertisers can now use PayPal’s data to run campaigns across the open web, not just within PayPal properties like its app, Honey and MNO.
“Advertisers and merchants can now leverage our transaction data to run campaigns basically everywhere,” Grether said. “It’s a really exciting opportunity.”
These campaigns are powered by packaged media products — private marketplaces (PMPs) and programmatic guaranteed (PG) — that advertisers can activate through existing demand-side platforms. Importantly, measurement and attribution are unified, eliminating the need for brands to stitch together performance data from disparate sources.
“You don’t need to run campaigns individually anymore and stitch campaign performance together,” Grether noted. “Now you can do it in one stop, using our transaction graph.”
Transaction data as the new cookie
With third-party cookies on the way out, PayPal’s pitch is that first-party transaction data offers a more accurate, privacy-forward alternative for identity, targeting and measurement.
“There was this theme at the conference: ‘transaction is the new cookie,’” Grether said. “Because a transaction gives you identity, personalization and insights all in one.”
PayPal’s “identity graph” spans hundreds of millions of users, enabling audience segmentation based on actual purchasing behavior—not just web visits or interests. This capability is especially valuable for advertisers seeking cross-retailer insights and market share tracking, which Grether described as a key concern for CFOs and CMOs alike.
How a fashion brand like Hugo Boss could advertise
Grether illustrated how a brand like Hugo Boss could use PayPal Ads:
- Audience targeting: Based on actual purchases—wherever a Boss product is sold, not just in its own stores.
- Campaign delivery: Across CTV, PayPal apps and publisher inventory.
- Performance insight: With cross-merchant measurement that shows how market share is shifting.
“Market share is what the CFO really cares about,” Grether said. “It tells them how much budget to allocate to the CMO, and we help support that decision.”
Future in agent-driven commerce
Looking ahead, Grether described a world in which AI shopping agents—not websites or apps—handle purchases for consumers. PayPal is already building for that future by integrating into these new interfaces.
“You don’t have to go to a website anymore,” he said. “Shopping actually comes to you with the agent. And we’re integrating PayPal into those agents to make the experience seamless and trusted.”
As commerce becomes more automated and contextual, Grether believes PayPal’s data-driven identity and transaction infrastructure will be essential to powering intelligent, personalized shopping and advertising experiences.
“PayPal is really poised to be future-proof,” he concluded. “Especially as everything moves into an AI world.”
With Offsite Ads, PayPal is taking its first major step toward becoming a full-fledged player in the retail media and programmatic ad ecosystem—one that leverages its unique data, reach and trust to bring new precision and simplicity to omnichannel marketing.
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