PayPal decides to develop a PayPal Ads platform

PayPal has announced new managerial appointments to develop a PayPal Ads solution. This PayPal Ads will be a new advertising platform to strengthen the company's consumer value proposition. 

Specifically, as reported by the company in a statement, Mark Grether has been named senior vice president and general manager of PayPal Ads; and John Anderson, as senior vice president and general manager of the Consumer Group. Grether and Anderson will report to Diego Scotti, executive vice president, general manager of the Consumer Group and Global Marketing and Communications.

PayPal has highlighted long-standing relationships with millions of consumers and merchants that make the company “uniquely positioned to create an advertising platform rooted in commerce.” Grether will join the company to build an advertising business that will help merchants get smarter to sell more products and services effectively while allowing consumers to discover more of what they like.

PayPal Ads will use customer data to create a dynamic, personalized platform that will drive a better return on ad spend for marketers while delighting consumers with compelling offers.

PayPal recruits the head of Uber Advertising 

Grether joins PayPal from Uber, where he served as vice president and general manager of Uber Advertising. Under his leadership, Uber Advertising grew to a $1 billion business with more than 500,000 advertisers worldwide. He successfully led the acceleration of the company's global advertising business, helping marketers, brands and other advertisers reach Uber's highly engaged user base in its Mobility and Delivery divisions

Prior to Uber, Grether led product strategy for Amazon's advertising business and was CEO of Sizmek, one of the world's largest independent advertising platforms, which was sold to Amazon in 2019. Previously, Mark was co-founder and global COO of WPP's Xaxis.

“Commerce and advertising are deeply connected, and we believe the advertising platform we're building at PayPal will become a must-have marketing channel for merchants large and small. I'm thrilled to have Mark join our team and lead this important work,” said Scotti.

On his side, Anderson has spent more than 20 years at the intersection of technology platforms and payments. He will be responsible for PayPal's consumer business, including product strategy for PayPal and Venmo globally. Anderson joins PayPal from Plaid, where he was Head of Product and Payments and oversaw significant growth of Plaid's suite of payment products. Prior to Plaid, John spent a decade at Meta in numerous product and leadership roles, including head of product for Oculus, head of Facebook Japan, and head of the payments, commerce and risk product and operations teams.