PayPal’s official blog has just announced that it’s WHERE advertising platform has been rebranded as the PayPal Media Network. Roughly a year ago, eBay acquired local commerce company WHERE, one of the largest mobile location-based advertising networks, and the name change is indicative of further integration into the eBay/PayPal family.
The new PayPal Media Network name also describes the evolution of a multi-channel advertising platform offered to members of PayPal’s retail network. Mobile devices have been influencing all points of sale more and more, and Walt Doyle, GM of PayPal Media Network, states that “A consumer may begin their purchase journey in a store, on a phone, at their desktop, or on a tablet, then engage with the same brand or product across a multitude of different mediums and devices to discover, research, price check, etc. – The boundaries between the physical and digital world have disappeared and the purchase funnel has become a purchase pretzel! No longer is there e-commerce, offline commerce, m-commerce – there is simply commerce.”
The PayPal Media Network affords marketers opportunities to reach out to consumers on all fronts of evolving commerce, and have aligned with eBay.com, BML, Shopping.com and RedLaser, amongst others, to better target relevant and local advertising material. The WHERE (former) network presently reaches roughly 70 million customers ion the U.S. through affiliate networks, and has been expanding quickly through eBay. PayPal Media Network is just one of PayPal’s upcoming service capabilities the company will be rolling out, and will compliment PayPal’s new Here card reader system, a competitor of Square’s own Card Reader System.