PayPal launched Ads Manager, a new way for small businesses to earn revenue from their websites through display advertising. They are marketing it very strangely. The press release says:
“PayPal today unveiled PayPal Ads Manager, allowing the tens of millions of small businesses that use PayPal to become their own retail media networks and generate new revenue streams. With 99.9% of all businesses in the U.S. being small businesses, PayPal Ads Manager will help small businesses create billions of new advertising impressions for brands of all sizes by utilizing a fast-growing and highly profitable segment of digital advertising.”
“become their own retail media networks” — isn't PayPal the one becoming a retail media network in this scenario? It's the equivalent of telling someone entering the bottom of an MLM that they're “launching their own business.”
In the case of PayPal, small businesses are just a cog in the wheel of PayPal's media retail media network — and that's okay. I don't see a need to make it sound like Georgia's Tire Shop is getting an opportunity to build the next Amazon Ads with his 5 page Divi template WordPress website. Small businesses are simply being given a new opportunity to display ads on their website from PayPal — instead of Amazon, Google, Taboola, Mediavine, etc.
Mark Grether, SVP and General Manager, PayPal Ads, is quoted in the release:
“Small businesses are the backbone of our economy, but they've been locked out of the retail media revolution that's transforming how major retailers generate revenue. PayPal Ads Manager changes that equation entirely. We're enabling small businesses to participate in the same high-margin advertising model that's powering growth at some of the largest companies in the world..”
I wouldn't say they've been “locked out” of participating in retail media. Small businesses have had the opportunity to place display and affiliate ads on their website for quite some time.
In my humble professional opinion (from a guy who's laser focused on keeping up with this industry), this whole announcement completely missed the boat on demonstrating the value that PayPal is bringing to the table.
Let's not act like this is “brand new” and “revolutionary” — because it's not — but it doesn't have to be in order to be extremely valuable.
Positioning it as “first time, never before existed” hinders PayPal from headlining what's really important — which is how their retail media network provides more accurate targeting, more efficient budget allocation, and a closed-loop attribution system for continued optimization. They buried the lede.
In other words… “Why PayPal Ads versus ______?”
I've been a vocal supporter of PayPal building an ad network because I encourage competition in the retail media ad space, as it can lead to more competitive pricing for advertisers. However…
“You can't give me gravy and tell me it's jelly, cause gravy ain't sweet.”
In other words… Talk about the merits of your product in a real, honest, and transparent way. The industry is eager to embrace your ad network as a viable alternative to existing ones.
Odd positioning aside, I think it's great that they're doing this because I support competition in the retail media ad space, and with PayPal's extensive transaction graph, its retail media network has the ability to spend advertiser dollars effectively with highly targeted advertisements, assuming they can get enough businesses on board as publishers to create a network effect.
Here's a brief recap of PayPal's recent advertising efforts:
- May 2024 – PayPal launched its first advertising initiative, PayPal Ads, alongside its PayPal Advanced Offers platform, letting brands target consumers using its transaction graph and show personalized offers across PayPal-owned surfaces such as the PayPal app and website, checkout and confirmation pages, PayPal e-mails, and its Honey browser extension.
- Aug 2024 – PayPal expanded the model with the PayPal Publisher Program, partnering with media outlets like The Independent, LA Times, and Blavity to show sponsored offers next to content.
- Oct 2025 (this week’s news) – PayPal Ads Manager is the next phase, creating a self-serve portal for merchants to opt in as inventory providers and for advertisers to run campaigns directly through PayPal’s network. The new “Ads Manager” announcement essentially formalizes PayPal's ad business into a true retail media network, giving small merchants an entry point to earn money from ads and scaling PayPal’s reach across third-party storefronts instead of just PayPal’s own products and publisher partners.