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Commerce

June 10, 2026

 

The moment is the medium

One shift across four industries demonstrates how advertising should collide with experience.

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Nili Klenoff

Executive Vice President, Mastercard Commerce Media

Advertising was built on a simple foundation: Capture attention and convert that to sales. That may have worked in the days of leaflets and billboards, but as technology evolves and attention fragments, brands are looking for a new playbook.

Consumers no longer spend their time following a tidy path from discovery to purchase; they move fluidly between apps, laptop screens and the real world. They’re checking sports scores while they eat breakfast, ordering dinner on their way home from work in a rideshare, playing a game on their phone while they binge-watch a new series, or popping into a store to try on an outfit they saw on social media before they buy it.

Attention alone isn’t enough — because there’s not enough of it to go around. Brands must recognize when someone is ready to act, understand what they need in the moment, and connect them to it. The future of advertising will belong to those who can capture real-time signals and respond with trusted, relevant content in the moment it’s needed.

This isn’t simply a creative challenge. To make the most of these moments, brands need data that’s rooted in real behavior and a way to measure what works. That’s why we launched Mastercard Commerce Media, a digital media network designed to identify moments of intent, activate more relevant experiences across digital channels, and measure outcomes using privacy-safe, consented insights derived from billions of transactions that cross the Mastercard network each year.

We’re pioneering these frontiers of advertising with a growing set of publishing partners. Uber is connecting brands to consumers as they move through the world. Yahoo is turning everyday web experiences into measurable outcomes. Paramount is embedding commerce into premium streaming experiences, and Xsolla is powering interactive, opt-in engagement in gaming environments. Together, these collaborations reflect how commerce media is expanding beyond traditional retail environments, and how data, activation and measurement can work in concert to turn moments of intent into meaningful action.

I recently sat down with their leaders to discuss how they’re reshaping the next era of advertising. 

 

The best advertising meets people in the flow of their lives in intuitive ways. That’s why the principles underpinning our network — trust, precision, reliability — are shaping how we help brands connect with consumers.

Nili Klenoff, Mastercard
Nili Klenoff

    

In mobility and delivery, Uber is redefining how brands connect with consumers in motion.

“Uber is woven into daily routines, from commutes to meals to cultural moments,” said Kristi Argyilan, the company’s global head of advertising. “That creates an opportunity for brands to show up in a way that feels useful and relevant.”

People open Uber with the purpose to go somewhere or order something, which makes it a powerful, high-intent environment where brands can show up in a way that feels useful and relevant. But the key is making advertising additive to protect the user experience — that’s why context and timing are so important. For example, there’s often a surge to pubs and bars during major sporting events: “Why not pair the moment of going out with friends to watch a game with getting a discount on your favorite player’s jersey that can be used at a later date?” Argilyan said. “The best advertising feels like it belongs in the moment.”

Marketers still underestimate that commerce media is not just a performance channel or a retail tactic, she added. “It is becoming one of the most influential parts of the media ecosystem because it connects attention to action.”

 

The next chapter is about real-world behavior. How people move, eat, shop, and live. Platforms built around behavior have a unique role because they are part of daily routines and real-time signals.

Kristi Argyilan, Uber
Kristi Argyilan

    

Yahoo is expanding how intent is understood and measured across the open web.

“We tend to think consumers live in channels, but in reality, they live in moments,” said Yahoo Chief Revenue Officer Rob Wilk. Those moments span news, finance, sports, search and communication, often all within the same day. That creates a broader view of intent that includes the signals that precede it: researching a financial decision, following a team, planning a trip. “What advertisers are really asking for is a complete view of the journey — not just that a transaction happened, but what influenced it.”

By combining that view of engagement with Mastercard’s activation capabilities and closed-loop attribution, Yahoo is closing a long-standing gap in advertising by connecting what people interacted with to what they actually went on to do. “As a metric, ad spend is too transactional,” Wilk said. “We look at it instead as investment — which means brands are right to expect a return.”

When powered by real signals and intelligence, ads become more relevant, timely and helpful. But it only works if it’s built on trust: being transparent about why something is shown to them and delivering clear value in return. When that balance is right, advertising stops feeling like a message and starts feeling like a service worth investing in.

 

Good advertising, especially in the world of AI, is going to feel more like a utility. It’s going to be providing a service that you want or need. Ads must maintain this notion of utility in order for people to care.

Rob Wilk, Yahoo
Rob Wilk

    

Paramount is creating new opportunities to marry commerce with premium streaming for advertisers.

“The conventional wisdom was that TV only provided reach and awareness, but in fact, long-form television is a powerful anchor for driving real advertiser outcomes,” said Leo O’Connor, executive vice president of Digital & Streaming, Paramount Advertising. “Technology has compressed the distance between inspiration and action, so brand marketers can meet someone right where they are in the purchase funnel.”

But that all depends on getting the experience right. In high-attention environments, commerce has to feel intentional. “If someone is there to be entertained, they may not be in the mindset to shop,” O’Connor said. “The key is making engagement feel organic to the content, the context and the moment.”

Paramount, home to Paramount+ and Pluto TV, is using signals like content type, time of day, device, viewer mindset and personalization to better understand when and how to introduce relevant ad experiences. Formats like pause ads, mobile-driven engagement and opt-in interactions in streaming are creating new ways for people to act when they’re ready.

Mastercard’s insights add a critical layer of intelligence to help inform when and how experiences should appear and then measure the outcomes they drive. “When you marry what people saw with what they purchased, you unlock a feedback loop that’s incredibly powerful,” O’Connor said. “It helps us understand what’s working and deliver more value to brands over time.” 

 

You need to have that perfect alchemy to inspire someone to act. We know our viewers better than anyone, and we continue to get smarter to understand the right signals that drive intentional commerce.

Leo O'Connor, Paramount

    

In gaming, Xsolla is turning play into participation.

Gaming environments are deeply immersive and increasingly mainstream, yet many marketers overlook this highly engaged channel.

“Gaming is such a powerful channel because people are really leaning in,” said Lauren Baca, global vice president of Marketing at Xsolla Advertising & Rewards. “They’re looking for experiences that enhance gameplay, rather than interrupt it.”

That has led to the rise of opt-in, rewarded models, where users choose to engage with brands to unlock in-game currency, access content or explore offers that are relevant to them. With the right level of personalization, gamers are empowered to choose the experiences that feel tailored, transparent, and valuable on their own terms.

By integrating commerce directly into those experiences and combining live, in-game behavior with opt-in identity and declared, first-party intent, brands can build the relationships players actually choose — not just ad placements they design. “This participation model can drive such powerful growth,” Baca said. 

 

We’re giving consumers a choice. They opt in, choose the ads that matter to them and get rewarded, so brands actually enhance the purchasing journey instead of interrupting it.

Lauren Baca, Xsolla
Lauren Baca

    

The new advertising stack

There’s a consistent pattern across it all: As signals become more real-time and behavior-based, media is moving closer to moments of intent. We’re going to see advertising and experiences continue to blur, which creates both risks and rewards for brands. They have to show up in ways that feel, timely, relevant and useful. Miss the mark with experiences that feel out of place or out of touch, and they’re turning off potential customers.

The next era of advertising won’t be defined by who can reach the most people, but by who can deliver relevance and drive action in the moment. In a world of nonstop signals, it means knowing which matter, making them useful, and understanding what made a difference. Commerce media can be that compass.