Citi launches advertising business built on card spending data

Citi launched Citi Commerce Media on September 23, entering the advertising market with a business that uses insights from more than 70 million U.S. customers and 6.5 billion annual transactions. The bank says advertisers can use those insights to understand audiences and measure campaign results. Card transactions give Citi a view of spending across merchants, extending beyond the customer activity a single retailer can see. The launch puts Citi alongside JPMorgan Chase and Mastercard, which also use payment information in advertising products. Card data does not necessarily identify every item a customer bought, limiting what a transaction alone can tell an advertiser.