PicPay, Brazil's third-largest digital bank, offers its 68 million users an ecosystem that includes digital wallets, person-to-person payments, a financial marketplace, and an in-app shopping platform.1 To grow revenue beyond its core financial services and increase engagement within its ecosystem, the company launched PicPay Ads. This new business connects brands and merchants with highly targeted advertising opportunities—relying on its valuable first-party data and an attentive high-traffic app to achieve this.
PicPay needed a dependable solution to power its ad business, increase ad revenue, and support expansion goals—all while protecting first-party data and preserving the user experience. To ensure a seamless financial journey, PicPay also needed to tailor ad experiences to match users’ interest and intent.
Creating ads with flexibility and precision
To meet these requirements, PicPay Ads chose Google Ad Manager to build a sophisticated, scalable advertising business. Ad Manager allowed PicPay to control the ad experience with flexible formats, use its first-party data, and connect advertisers with audience segments that fit their campaign objectives.
PicPay used custom native ad formats to create ads that match the look and feel of the PicPay app, blending naturally with the app’s transaction flow. Publisher-provided identifiers (PPID) allowed PicPay to use anonymized user IDs, powering detailed modeling and targeting with its first-party data—all in a privacy-safe way. Additionally, key values helped PicPay create audience segments based on user profiles and transaction categories, building powerful, privacy-compliant audience personas.
Higher engagement and significant revenue increase
Google Ad Manager helped PicPay turn its high app traffic and user engagement into significant growth for its ad business across open auction, direct sales, and Programmatic Guaranteed.
Advertising revenue for PicPay Ads increased 10x from 2023 to 2024, and more than doubled in 2025.2 Research showed that 70% of PicPay users frequently clicked on ads,3 and 84% found the ads relevant.3 The ads also successfully drove action, with 65% of users reporting that these ads directly influenced their shopping decisions.3
Looking ahead to greater choice and targeting for advertisers
PicPay is expanding its ad business using Google Ad Manager features that work with its first-party data, including audience extension.
Audience extension helps PicPay open up more inventory for advertisers by connecting them with relevant, high-intent audiences beyond PicPay’s app. Together, these features empower advertisers and agencies to run more sophisticated campaigns, reaching highly engaged audiences with greater precision and scale.
