PayPal Leverages Massive Data Trove to Create Retail Media Network

PayPal announced in a press release Tuesday (Jan 6) the launch of its Transaction Graph Insights & Measurement program, designed to give merchants a “full-funnel” view of consumer spending habits across the internet.

By tracking actual verified purchases rather than just clicks or impressions, PayPal says is positioning itself as a more accurate alternative to the “walled garden” ecosystems of traditional tech giants.

The new program uses a “transaction graph” that connects signals across 430 million consumer accounts and tens of millions of merchants. According to the company, this allows advertisers to see the “full dimensionality” of a purchase journey that other platforms might miss.

For instance, while a social media site might only see a user’s interest in a product, PayPal can track the entire process: a consumer searching for a product on one site, paying a friend via Venmo for a related expense, and ultimately completing a purchase through PayPal’s checkout. The initiative includes an interactive analytics dashboard for brands to visualize these shopper journeys and a measurement suite to report on campaign attribution and sales lift.

Mark Grether, senior vice president and general manager of PayPal Ads, noted that the shift toward data-driven precision is essential for brands. “The era of the empowered shopper demands advertising solutions built on real commerce data, not modeled intent,” Grether said.

“Unlike walled-garden platforms that only see activity within their own ecosystem, or measurement solutions that rely on modeled data, PayPal’s Transaction Graph connects verified purchases across tens of millions of merchants. This means you can see which campaigns actually drive sales, not just clicks or impressions.”

Early results suggest the strategy is gaining traction. Ulta Beauty, the nation’s largest specialty beauty retailer, reported a 20% increase in transaction spend via PayPal during a campaign using these insights.

To ensure the data is viewed as objective by the industry, PayPal has also launched a partnership program allowing third-party firms, including Experian, TransUnion and Kantar, to independently validate campaign results. The program is available for U.S.-based advertisers, with rollouts in the United Kingdom and Germany expected to follow.

This data play follows a partnership with generative AI search engine Perplexity last June, which embedded the payment platform into Perplexity and provided personalized results based on the user’s previous PayPal history.