PayPal Holdings (NASDAQ:PYPL) climbed 5% on Tuesday after the payments giant introduced PayPal Ads Manager, a new advertising platform designed to help small businesses generate additional revenue by monetizing their online traffic.
Set to debut in early 2026 in the United States, followed by rollouts in the UK and Germany, the Ads Manager aims to “democratize retail media” by giving small merchants access to tools traditionally reserved for major retailers. The service enables businesses to integrate an SDK within minutes, allowing them to display targeted ads on their websites — all without requiring advanced technical skills or long-term commitments.
The initiative taps into PayPal’s global network of small businesses, which make up 99.9% of all U.S. businesses and collectively process billions of transactions through the company’s platform. By leveraging this reach, PayPal believes Ads Manager could generate billions of new ad impressions across its ecosystem.
Unlike conventional digital ad platforms, PayPal Ads Manager will use the company’s proprietary transaction data and cross-merchant purchase insights to enable advertisers to target audiences based on real purchase behavior rather than browsing history. Merchants can also customize which advertisers appear on their sites and track performance directly through their PayPal Merchant Portal.
Although shares rallied on the announcement, PayPal’s stock remains down roughly 15% year-to-date, lagging behind broader market indices. Investors, however, view the new platform as a potential growth driver that could diversify PayPal’s revenue streams beyond payments.
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