With Advertising Week looming, the announcements are announcing!
To that end, Mastercard has announced the launch of a new media network appropriately named Mastercard Commerce Media. (We do love the shift from “retail media” to “commerce media.”)
Mastercard, of course, brings some serious scale to the table. The company works with 500 million enrolled customers and, at least in 2024, processed more than 160 billion transactions. That data, tethered to purchase behavior, forms the foundation of Mastercard’s new media network. According to the company, they will help advertisers “tailor content using both past purchase behavior and real purchase signals.”
But what are the channels included in this offering? To simplify, we broke them out in a table using ChatGPT:
And, according to Mastercard, Mastercard Commerce Media is already delivering for early advertisers. The company is claiming up to a 22x return on ROAS across buyer categories, ranging from retail to travel, dining, and entertainment.
Why This Matters:
Any company with scaled first-party data and a media footprint is now a candidate to build a media network. (Even Chuck E. Cheese, FFS.) So, Mastercard fits the bill: it has its own channels, sure, but much wider reach through bank partners and merchants worldwide.
As commerce media and media network spend is expected to exceed $100 billion by 2027, Mastercard’s entry into this space underscores how financial services firms are well-positioned in this space. (See Western Union, PayPal, etc.) They can compete with retailers and other media network offerings given their interoperability and access to payments data. That’s great for targeting, yes, but also for attribution. Mastercard, for example, can link campaigns to in-store and online transactions through its card-linking tech.
Experts React:
Of course, we had to include this one from Eric Seufert. Granted, this is about OpenAI, but it’s a company-agnostic phrase, at this point.
Our Take:
Is anyone else surprised that Mastercard has only just launched media network? The move feels a bit late but the offering is impressive, so the interest/demand will be there.
By the way, anytime a major player like Mastercard enters the media network/commerce media space, adtech tends to benefit in some way shape or form. These companies rarely build offerings on their own. It will be interesting to see who Mastercard partners with to strengthen its capabilities.
Final thing: Mastercard also says it’s working with Microsoft to integrate Commerce Media into Copilot Studio, hinting at future agentic commerce use cases. Pretty cool.
