Empowering Small Businesses Through Smarter Advertising

By Helen Myers, Advertising Week Correspondent

Lauren Johnson, Deputy Editor of Retail Media and Commerce of Adweek, led a panel on how PayPal is working to uplift small businesses.

One year ago, PayPal launched its advertising system, and Dr. Mark Grether, SVP and GM of PayPal Ads, reflected on this milestone, as well as announcing the addition of PayPal’s Ad Manager, which allows the platform’s millions of SMB merchants to participate in retail. “The idea behind the launch of our SMB program is to democratize access to retail media,” he explained. The program also benefits advertisers as they can gain access to differentiated proprietary media.

This new feature allows merchants to buy ads on other merchant websites. SMBs can then tap into retail media budgets and drive profits, which can be reinvested in growing their business. Small business owners are often spread thin and have limited time to focus on advertising. PayPal’s service simplifies the marketing process and allows SMBs to allocate there time to production.

Tameika Lewis, Founder & CEO of the small business BklynBarSoap, said that she initially tried an organic approach to advertising, but couldn’t reach a wide enough customer base to support her expenses. She then tried running ads on major channels, but found them to be too complex, and she wasn’t seeing a clear follow-through or ROI. “As a small business owner, where does the money go? I don’t care if it’s 25 cents; I need to know where all my money is going. And it became a little bit more about gambling versus strategizing,” Lewis said. With never-ending to-do lists, advertising seemed more like a burden. “I don’t want to have to put too much brain power into running my ads. I want a system that works for me, not against me,” she said.

PayPal’s program has significantly aided Lewis and other small business owners by featuring a high level of transparency and simplicity in two main arenas. “The first step is we are enabling SMB merchants to get access to retail media budgets, meaning she makes money first. The second step is that the money she makes, she can then decide if she wants to reinvest it into the embassy program,” Gerther explained.

Personalization and relevancy are a big part of the program and AI assists in aiding all parties with these processes. “We have the data across all of them, so we can help the agency and the CMO to make the decision on how to allocate the spend across all the merchants and publishers. And that’s why I do think we have a unique opportunity in the marketplace to help both big brands, SMBs, and agencies become much more efficient and effective,” Gerther said.

Finally, Gerther explained another new feature, which is storefront ads. “Storefront ads give the consumer the opportunity to finish a transaction in the creative itself,” he said. This feature is beneficial for the consumer as they can make purchases within the creative with just a few clicks. Publishers will get access to retail media money while still keeping the consumers on the publisher’s website. As for small business owners like Tamika, “It helps them to actually broaden the reach, because now people need to come to her store or her website, as opposed to Tamika coming to them,” he said.