The news: PayPal will use Rokt, an AI marketing service, to power its post-transaction advertisements for users in the US, per a press release.

What this means: PayPal, Venmo, and Honey users will now be served personalized ads after making peer-to-peer (P2P) and other transactions. PayPal can unlock more revenues by getting users to engage with ads within a trusted payment platform.

How we got here: PayPal has been scaling its AI and commerce media network capabilities. It partnered with Perplexity to expand conversational commerce opportunities and launched Ads Manager to give small businesses a chance to run their own retail media networks. 

A tie-up with Rokt marries PayPal’s impulses toward AI and advertising, knitting together both capabilities to juice incremental revenues out of every existing transaction.

Why this matters: US financial media spending will crack $640 million this year, per our forecast. Investing in new opportunities for ad placement can help PayPal compete with other major payment players that want to up their commerce media ad engagement: Both American Express and Mastercard announced ventures into the space during Advertising Week 2025.

Our take: PayPal has for years tried to improve Venmo’s profitability, and post-transaction ads could help accomplish that without changing consumers’ retail checkout habits. 

However, one of FMNs key selling points to advertisers and consumers alike is trust. While targeted ads may connect with some consumers, many others will likely find the experience intrusive or irritating. Platforms with FMNs should take care not to erode consumer trust—and down the line, loyalty—by pushing ads too aggressively too soon.