Powering Smarter and More Personal Advertising With Mastercard Commerce Media

Mastercard today unveiled Mastercard Commerce Media, a new digital media network that takes the guesswork out of advertising. As a payments network with a dedicated commerce media capability, Mastercard is leveraging its permissioned data, trusted reputation, industry-leading technology and connections to advertisers, publishers and consumers to power smarter, personalized commerce across the board.

With its existing base of 25,000 advertisers and significant reach to 500 million enrolled consumers, Mastercard Commerce Media operates both in owned channels as well as bank and other publishing outlets around the world. This capability uses proprietary insights from transactions processed by Mastercard — around 160 billion-plus in 2024 alone — and currently delivers a proven up to 22-times return on ad spend (ROAS) for advertisers across categories, including retail, travel, entertainment, dining, everyday spend and more.

"We understand how to connect advertisers to consumers and consumers to the products, services and experiences they value,” said Craig Vosburg, chief services officer at Mastercard. “Mastercard Commerce Media is a natural extension of the trusted connections we’re known for and the work we already do across our unique suite of services. That means we're not just well-positioned to bring a full-scale commerce media network to life — we're best-positioned."

Strategic relationships with Citi, WPP, American Airlines and Microsoft expand the foundation and future of the ecosystem. Mastercard Commerce Media gains a powerful force multiplier through its existing relationship with Citi, delivering both scale and impact. Through a growing collaboration with WPP, Mastercard can extend its footprint and connection to brands and buyers in the traditional media space. And as agentic commerce advances, Mastercard continues to partner with Microsoft with the aim of enabling Mastercard Commerce Media in Copilot Studio to redefine how commerce happens in real time, ensuring a connected experience whether a human or an agent is driving it.

Retail media networks have exploded in recent years; eMarketer projects retail media to be one of the fastest-growing areas through 2028, when spending will be close to $100 billion. But with limited insight into consumer preferences and inconsistent measurement across retailers and providers, advertisers are left questioning the value and efficacy of these channels. Mastercard Commerce Media’s distinct end-to-end approach, bolstered by wide merchant reach and the highest standard of attribution, solves those problems. And with Mastercard’s proprietary card-linking technology, advertisers can attribute conversion and incrementality whether the purchase is made in-store or online — something singular retail media and digital ad networks cannot provide.