An Interview With PayPal Ads' Mark Grether
Published in partnership with PayPal Ads
The following interview was conducted by email
Mark, you really need no introduction, but most people probably know you joined Uber from Amazon when it was barely a glimmer in the eye of the advertising industry. What did you see that others didn’t? And, as someone originally from Germany, was your hope that you could add an umlaut back to the company name?
Ha — no umlaut ambitions, but I did see something that wasn’t obvious to most at the time: Uber was sitting on an incredibly unique signal set. You had real-time location data, purchasing intent, and a high-frequency, mobile-first experience. That’s gold for advertisers. We built Uber Ads around three core pillars: sponsored listings in Uber Eats, in-ride ads based on real-world context, and emerging placements in grocery and retail. The common thread was high intent and high attention. We were showing ads that enabled decisions in the moment. That’s the opportunity I saw: a chance to build a full-funnel commerce media platform from the ground up.
What made you decide to join PayPal — and what did you see in its advertising opportunity that others might have missed?
I’ve been reflecting on this as we head into Cannes and prepare some big announcements.
PayPal has something most companies only dream about: scale, trust, and data that actually moves the needle. We see around 25% of global e-commerce transactions with relationships across 400M+ active accounts and tens of millions of merchants. That’s a massive transaction graph, and arguably the most valuable commercial dataset because it’s cross-merchant. What others might have missed is that PayPal isn’t just a payment platform; it’s a two-sided ecosystem. That means we can power both signal and scale for advertisers, while staying true to our DNA of privacy, trust, and user control. To me, that's the foundation for a new kind of media business we’re building with ads that pay off.
Now that it’s developed somewhat since you joined, how do you describe PayPal Ads to someone unfamiliar with the space? What specifically is PayPal building — and how is it different from other platforms?
PayPal Ads is a commerce media platform powered by real purchase data. But the foundation of what we’re building is on PayPal’s “transaction graph,” a live, global view of how people actually spend across merchants. If you think about how Facebook reinvented social connections using the ‘social graph’ and TikTok reinvented a content-driven social network with the ‘interest graph’ – that’s what we’re doing to the commerce advertising business, reinvent it with transactions as the new cookie.
When you combine this with the fact that transactions allow us to bring in identity, it means we can target and measure unlike almost any platform currently available. We don’t need to rely on cookies or proxies. We use verified purchase behavior across millions of merchants to help advertisers reach real buyers, measure actual outcomes, and optimize media more intelligently.
When you combine this with the fact that we’re a horizontal platform sitting across tens of millions of merchants, including the PayPal, Venmo, and PayPal Honey brands, we have an incredibly interesting and unique opportunity. Ultimately, we need to do this in alignment with what users expect from our brand – trust. We’re building PayPal Ads with a privacy-first mindset – and we are never compromising that. That’s what sets us apart.
You’ve also worked on the agency side as well, co-founding WPP’s Xaxis. What’s the role of agencies for PayPal? They are of course involved in execution and measurement, but do you think the “transaction graph” is something that they will be focused on? Or is it the marketers that will focus on it more given the presumed value in connecting that to their own first party data?
We’re seeing excitement from both agencies and marketers about what PayPal can offer. For one, we are not merchant-specific so unlike other retail media networks, we look across tens of millions of merchants and can provide not just consumer insights but also report a more complete picture about a brand’s or product’s market share. This level of insight is incredibly valuable for both CMOs and CFOs.
Agencies are very excited about the transaction graph paired with curated media. We’ve got some exciting announcements coming on this front, including focusing on live events, direct integrations, and a few other key brand asks. The takeaway has been that there’s real demand for better, cross-merchant intelligence.
What kinds of advertisers are leaning into PayPal Ads right now? Are there specific verticals or types of brands where you're seeing early traction?
We’re seeing momentum from both endemic and non-endemic advertisers. On the endemic side (think retail, travel, D2C), merchants tap into our data to personalize ads, boost loyalty, and optimize spend across channels. While non-endemic brands like CPGs, they still want to reach high-intent shoppers in high-attention environments.
If you step back, all successful ads businesses have three things – they engage a coveted audience, at scale, in high-intent moments. About 7 in 10 Americans have a PayPal account and roughly half open PayPal multiple times per week. Venmo is mentioned every 9 seconds on social media, and 48% of Venmo users are Gen Z or Millennial. And this all happens at a critical consumer moment – when people are thinking about spending money and shopping.
The thing to keep in mind is that the PayPal brand was founded on one thing: trust. Our consumers trust us to keep their information safe, to recommend products and goods they’ll love, and to make shopping more effortless and instant. Whether you’re endemic or non-endemic, that’s the promise we’ve been bringing to market
You’ve said the CMO cares about incrementality, but the CFO cares about market share. We’d generally agree with that sentiment for many categories of marketers. How does PayPal Ads help brands answer both of those questions?
It’s one of the biggest advantages we have. Because we see transaction-level data across tens of millions of merchants, we can help brands measure both incrementality and market share — how much they sold but also how they’re doing relative to competitors.
For CMOs, we are focused on providing closed-loop measurement that isolates the incremental lift from advertising: who saw an ad, who converted, and how much was incremental versus baseline behavior. For CFOs, we are building visibility into share-of-wallet dynamics. We can show how your sales trend across merchants, how you stack up against category peers, and where your media dollars are truly moving the needle.
It’s attribution with insights into competitive dynamics. That’s the kind of intelligence that drives smarter planning, better optimization, and ultimately, more accountable marketing. And it’s what we’ll be bringing to our announcements going into Cannes this year.
Final question: what’s the last thing you paid for with PayPal?
Oh wow. I have two teenage boys, and we’re constantly shopping online. I’ve been using PayPal since I was in Germany because PayPal is one of, if not the, most trusted payment brand in the country.
But the last thing I purchased using PayPal was a pair of new sunglasses from Warby Parker. Cannes is almost here.