• by Laurie Sullivan , Yesterday

PayPal has introduced PayPal Ads Manager, which enables small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) to become their own retail media networks.

The network, introduced on Tuesday, is intended to help SMBs generate new revenue streams by creating billions of advertising impressions, according to Mark Grether, senior vice president and general manager of PayPal Ads.

The retail media network ad model has worked mainly with major retail enterprises like Walmart, Target and others with substantial traffic, advertising expertise, and technical resources.

That will change in early 2026 when PayPal's Ad Manager in the U.S. allows SMBs to create their own network, followed by availability in the United Kingdom and Germany shortly after.

PayPal Ads Manager will allow SMBs to launch and manage their own ad campaigns powered by PayPal's transaction graph.

Grether believes PayPal can enable SMBs to participate in the same high-margin advertising model that is powering growth at some of the largest companies in the world.

Small businesses can use the solution to acquire consumers across PayPal-owned properties as well as social channels, using solutions including PayPal Storefront Ads.

Through the campaign management platform, businesses can run coordinated ads across multiple platforms from one dashboard and as use AI-powered creative tools that can help businesses generate professional ad campaigns without requiring design expertise or large marketing teams.

Advertisers must opt-in, integrate an SDK and select advertising preferences. There is no upfront cost or no minimum commitment to use PayPal Ads Manager. 

PayPal will then automatically place and serve the relevant ads based on those preferences and other factors, eliminating the need for SMBs to manually select ads to publish. When shoppers begin to see the ads, small businesses can control and monitor their performance in their PayPal Merchant Portal.

PayPal works with tens of millions of merchants across more than 200 global markets, according to Grether.