After Mastercard, American Express launches ‘Amex Ads’ commerce-media platform

New Delhi: American Express has entered the digital advertising space with Amex Ads, a new platform that enables marketers to reach authenticated, high-spending card members across Amex-owned properties, starting with AmexTravel.com. 

The company says the offering draws on its first-party data and privacy controls to deliver contextual ads to 34 million US consumer card members, with more Amex surfaces to follow. 

In early pilots, Marriott Bonvoy converted flight bookers who hadn’t yet reserved a hotel at 3x its target benchmark. At the same time, Tumi saw results 30% higher than its benchmark by reaching travellers during and after bookings on AmexTravel.com and via post-booking emails. 

Amex says measurement links ad exposure to both online and in-store sales to reduce attribution guesswork.

Amex positions the launch as an extension of Amex Offers, which it says drove $15 billion in global spend in 2024, including $13 billion in the US, and as a privacy-forward environment with brand-safety guardrails and authenticated audiences. 

The move follows Mastercard’s Sept. 30 debut of Mastercard Commerce Media, a network powered by permissioned data that the company says reaches 500 million enrolled consumers and serves 25,000 advertisers, with card-linking attribution across channels. 

Payment networks own rich, consented purchase signals and logged-in audiences, putting them in a strong position to offer deterministic targeting and closed-loop measurement, a mix that’s increasingly attractive as third-party cookies fade. 

For travel, retail and luxury brands, Amex Ads promises high-intent moments inside the booking journey, with outcomes tied to actual spend.