What you should learn from this new product release about the future of Retail Media Networks

PayPal just announced the launch of PayPal’s Transaction Graph Insights & Measurement program, providing merchants & advertisers with a unique, cross-merchant view into real shopper behavior, campaign effectiveness, and data-driven recommendations to grow their business.

In the official press release, PayPal’s Transaction Graph Insights & Measurement is said to create the full dimensionality of a consumer purchase, and with full sales signal integrity and accuracy.

The announcement builds on the introduction of PayPal Ads Manager, which allows the tens of millions of small businesses that use PayPal to become their own retail media networks and generate new revenue streams. As the October 2025 release stated, “with 99.9% of all businesses in the U.S. being small businesses, PayPal Ads Manager will help small businesses create billions of new advertising impressions for brands of all sizes by utilizing a fast-growing and highly profitable segment of digital advertising.”

Reading this progression of product announcements, you might conclude that PayPal’s January 2026 announcement of Transaction Graph Insights & Measurement signifies the launch of “yet another” Retail Media Network (RMN). Hardly. The significance of this announcement is that it highlights a structural shift in how retail media performance may ultimately be measured and validated.

Three key takeaways are visible to our inquisitive eyes:

1. It reinforces that transaction-level data is becoming the gold standard for attribution. As brands scrutinize incrementality and true business impact, measurement models based solely on impressions or retailer-contained signals are increasingly insufficient. PayPal’s transaction graph demonstrates how persistent identity and verified purchase data can provide a more defensible view of advertising outcomes.
2. Next, the new product accelerates pressure toward RMN standardization. As commerce media expands beyond individual retailers into broader ecosystems, advertisers will push for comparable metrics, consistent definitions of incrementality, and clearer distinctions between influenced versus captured demand. This dynamic strengthens calls for industry-wide measurement frameworks rather than bespoke, network-specific reporting.
3. Ultimately, PayPal’s move intersects directly with emerging Media Rating Council (MRC) style measurement debates. Just as the Media Rating Council has historically played a role in defining viewability and audience standards, the rise of retail and commerce media is prompting new questions about what constitutes a valid exposure, a measurable outcome, and an attributable sale. Transaction-based measurement models could meaningfully inform future guidance on retail media accountability.

In short, PayPal’s announcement is not about expanding ad inventory—it is about redefining the measurement expectations that retail media networks will increasingly be held to.