According to PYMNTS.com, PayPal is leveraging its massive data trove to directly challenge advertising giants like Google and Meta. The company’s new ad program uses a “transaction graph” connecting signals across 430 million consumer accounts and tens of millions of merchants to track the entire purchase journey. Senior vice president Mark Grether stated the platform is built on “real commerce data, not modeled intent,” aiming to show which campaigns actually drive sales. Early results are promising, with Ulta Beauty reporting a 20% increase in transaction spend during a campaign using PayPal’s insights. To ensure objectivity, PayPal has launched a partnership with third-party firms like Experian and TransUnion to independently validate results. The program is launching for U.S. advertisers, with rollouts in the UK and Germany expected to follow.
The Big Bet on Transaction Data
Here’s the thing: everyone in advertising talks about closing the loop between ad spend and actual sales. But it’s incredibly hard. Most platforms track clicks, views, and “add-to-carts” within their own little kingdoms—the so-called “walled gardens.” PayPal’s argument is basically, “We own the final, most important step: the payment.” They see the money actually move. That’s a powerful claim. By stitching together a search on one site, a Venmo payment to a friend for advice, and the final checkout, they’re trying to map a shopper’s real-world path in a way a social media platform simply can’t. It’s a compelling pitch, especially for performance marketers who are tired of fuzzy attribution.
Why Now, and Who Wins?
So why is PayPal making this push now? Look, their core payments business is under pressure from all sides—Apple, Stripe, you name it. They need new, high-margin revenue streams, and advertising is about as high-margin as it gets. This is a classic “use what you have” strategy. They’re sitting on a goldmine of purchase data and finally decided to monetize it aggressively. The immediate beneficiaries are big brands and retailers, like Ulta Beauty, who crave certainty. But the bigger play is positioning PayPal as an essential, objective measurement layer for the entire digital ad industry. If they can get brands to trust their sales lift data more than Google’s or Meta’s, that’s a huge wedge. It’s a smart, if ambitious, repositioning from a “checkout button” to an “intelligence engine.”
The Crucial Trust Factor
But let’s be skeptical for a second. The entire pitch hinges on objectivity. Advertisers are rightfully wary of a platform marking its own homework. That’s why the partnership with Experian, TransUnion, and Kantar is actually the most critical part of this announcement. It’s not just a nice-to-have; it’s the foundation. Without those third-party validations, the whole “we see the truth” claim falls apart. PayPal isn’t just selling ads; they’re trying to sell trust. They’re saying, “Don’t just take our word for it—here’s an independent auditor.” If they can make that stick, it changes the conversation. It moves them from being just another ad platform to being a kind of arbitrator of what really works. That’s a much more powerful, and lucrative, place to be.
