Commerce media is one of the fastest-growing areas of advertising, but it’s not without challenges. Fragmentation, inconsistent measurement, and transparency issues have left advertisers investing heavily while searching for clarity.

Mastercard’s launch of its new media network, Mastercard Commerce Media, reflects these industry dynamics and highlights how the space is evolving beyond retailers to include new players.

Why now: Mastercard Commerce Media is a natural extension of the work the company has already been doing in card-linked offers and personalized promotions.

“This concept has been in the works for a while… It's really clear that there are still challenges that advertisers face, especially as they engage with different retail media providers,” said Nili Klenoff, executive vice president of commerce media at Mastercard.

For Mastercard, the opportunity lies in leveraging its scale, data, and partnerships to address advertisers’ most persistent challenges, with measurement being one of the biggest.

• Mastercard is emphasizing its card-linking technology, which can connect offers or ads to online or offline purchases.
• This capability “allows us to produce a correlation between the content that was served and the purchase that was ultimately made,” said Klenoff.

For advertisers, that could boost confidence in understanding campaign performance, which is an area where many networks still fall short.

Scale is another factor.

• Mastercard says it has 500 million consumers, with room to expand across its global payments network.
• For marketers, that reach could mean broader opportunities to connect with existing and new customers.

Safety first: Beyond measurement, Mastercard is highlighting its approach to brand safety and data responsibility. Campaigns will run within Mastercard’s owned properties and an expanding network of authenticated publishers, rather than the open web.

“We want to make sure that we do so in a way that’s brand safe for the advertisers, so we’re not in an open web type environment right now. These are authenticated, in many cases, card-on-file type solutions,” said Jill Moser, Mastercard’s senior vice president of commerce media.

That positioning reflects growing advertiser concerns about ad placement, wasted impressions, and consumer trust, which have become central to budget decisions.

The bottom line: Mastercard’s entry signals that commerce media is no longer confined to retailers. Payment networks, technology providers, and other intermediaries are also seeking roles in connecting brands with consumers.

The promise for advertisers is a more unified approach: Clearer attribution, broader reach, and a controlled environment. As Moser said, Mastercard Commerce Media aims to “take the guesswork out of advertising.”

But this development adds to an already crowded field.

Advertisers must assess how Mastercard’s offering fits into the broader mix of retail, commerce, and digital media networks, and whether its value is incremental or overlapping.

This article was prepared with the assistance of generative AI tools to support content organization, summarization, and drafting. All AI-generated contributions have been reviewed, fact-checked, and verified for accuracy and originality by EMARKETER editors. Any recommendations reflect EMARKETER’s research and human judgment.