Marketplace Retail Media: how Mercado Libre, Zalando, eBay and Etsy sell ads to their sellers

The last row matters most. On a marketplace, sellers compete with each other for the same search results. Advertising lets them pay for position, so the platform must balance ad revenue against the fairness sellers expect from organic ranking. Etsy learned this in 2020. When it launched Offsite Ads, sellers with more than $10,000 in yearly sales were enrolled with no opt-out and charged 12% of each attributed sale. The mandatory model drew criticism from sellers, and the terms are set out in Etsy's own announcement (Etsy, 26 February 2020).

Only Amazon and eBay give a dollar figure for ads. The others give growth rates or fold ads into a wider line. Comparing growth rates across them is risky, because the bases differ in size and currency.

Amazon set the pattern every marketplace copies: sponsored listings in search, bought by sellers and brands through a self-serve auction. It is also the only marketplace whose ad line rivals a media company's, at $19.64 billion in one quarter (PPC Land, 29 October 2026). That line also includes display, video and Prime Video, and Amazon does not say how much comes from third-party sellers.

Amazon now sells that engine too. Its Retail Ad Service, in beta, lets multi-brand US retailers with a website or app show sponsored products from brands that do not have to sell on Amazon (Amazon Ads, accessed 9 November 2026). A marketplace weighing a vendor now has Amazon on the shortlist as well as specialist suppliers. The Amazon Ads profile covers buying.

Mercado Libre is the clearest case of a marketplace moving into offsite media. Its Q3 2026 release says Mercado Ads applies marketplace data and measurement to ads on social and streaming platforms, and names new partnerships with TikTok and Netflix (Mercado Libre, 4 November 2026). Brazil drove the quarter. For a seller, that means one budget can now reach shoppers both inside and outside the marketplace. The mechanics of that route are covered in offsite retail media explained.

eBay's ad business rests on volume. Nearly half of its listings carry a promotion, excluding Depop (Value Added Resource, 29 October 2026). The same report notes a slowdown: first-party ad revenue grew only three points faster than GMV in Q3, against fifteen points a year earlier. When most sellers already advertise, growth has to come from higher prices per click or new placements. That is a ceiling every marketplace eventually meets.

Etsy runs two ad products. Etsy Ads are sponsored listings on Etsy. Offsite Ads promote listings on other sites, and the seller pays a share of the sale only when an ad leads to an order. Etsy says most Etsy Ads revenue comes from sellers with less than $100,000 in yearly sales. It also deploys only part of the budgets sellers have already authorised (Value Added Resource, 31 October 2026). Better ad models can therefore lift revenue without adding ad slots.

Zalando's unit, ZMS, has run for ten years. By mid-2025 it had powered more than 3,700 brand partnerships and over 80,000 campaigns, and it ran more than 26,000 campaigns in 2024 alone (Zalando, July 2025). Unlike eBay or Etsy, Zalando sells brand-building media as well as sponsored products. Its partner page claims €4 billion-plus in attributed revenue for 2025 (company claim). The Zalando Marketing Services profile covers formats and buying.

Wayfair sells advertising to the suppliers whose products it lists, but it does not report ad revenue. On its Q1 2026 call, chief financial officer Kate Gulliver named "the retail media piece" as one of three drivers of gross margin (Wayfair Q1 2026 call, 30 April 2026). Wayfair's formats, tools and partners are not public, so it appears here without a figure.

A seller can work out the most it should pay per click from three numbers. The example below is illustrative and uses round figures.

If the auction clears above $0.50, each ad sale loses money unless it brings repeat buyers or ranks the listing higher later. Pay-per-sale models such as Etsy's Offsite Ads shift that risk to the platform, at the cost of a fixed share of the sale. Order-based pricing is spreading through vendors too. A Moloco customer, W Concept, credits a cost-per-order model for bringing 70% of its self-serve merchants into advertising within a year (company claim) (Moloco, accessed 9 November 2026).

Few marketplaces outside the largest build their own auction. Most license it. Three vendors focus on the marketplace case.

The three take different paths. Mirakl Ads sells to operators that already run Mirakl's marketplace software, so seller accounts and catalogues are in place on day one. Topsort sells the auction and ranking engine as infrastructure. Koddi adds a supply-side route, so outside DSPs can bid on sponsored listings. Mirakl Ads also announced a link with Broadsign in June 2026 to add in-store screens to the same campaign brief (PPC Land, 27 June 2026). A wider vendor comparison is in retail media network platforms compared and Kevel vs Topsort vs Criteo vs Mirakl.

1. Ad load. WARC cites research that Amazon, Home Depot, Macy's and Walmart each serve more than 20 ads per page (The Desk on WARC, 19 August 2026). Too many promoted results make search worse for buyers and sellers alike.
2. Auction transparency. The FTC and 22 states sued Amazon on 31 August 2026, alleging hidden reserve pricing in its sponsored ads auctions; Amazon disputes the claims (TechCrunch, 31 August 2026). Sellers on every marketplace will ask how prices are set.
3. Seller trust. Mandatory programmes with fixed fees can trigger seller backlash, as Etsy's 2020 launch showed.
4. Growth ceilings. eBay's narrowing gap between ad growth and GMV growth shows what happens once most sellers already advertise.

1. Value Added Resource, "eBay Q3 2026 Earnings: Strong Growth, Big Bets On Depop & Live Amid Layoffs" (29 October 2026). https://www.valueaddedresource.net/ebay-q3-2026-earnings/
2. Mercado Libre, "Third Quarter 2026 Financial Results" (4 November 2026). https://news.mercadolibre.com/en/financial-results-3erd-quarter-2026
3. Zalando SE, "Zalando delivers strong 2025 results, expects further acceleration in 2026", via EQS News (12 March 2026). https://www.eqs-news.com/news/corporate/zalando-delivers-strong-2025-results-expects-further-acceleration-in-2026-through-scaling-ai-innovations-and-announces-a-share-buy-back-of-up-to-300-million-euros/f8a75a56-bc84-436a-9e2b-9b35711eb5ec_en
4. Zalando, "ZMS turns 10: How Zalando's retail media unit helps fashion and lifestyle brands grow across Europe" (July 2025). https://corporate.zalando.com/en/brands-retailers/zms-turns-10-how-zalandos-retail-media-unit-helps-fashion-and-lifestyle-brands
5. Zalando Partner, "Marketing services (ZMS)" (accessed 9 November 2026). https://partner.zalando.com/services/marketing
6. Value Added Resource, "Etsy Q3 2026 Growth Accelerates As Search Changes, Advertising Revenue Rises" (31 October 2026). https://www.valueaddedresource.net/etsy-q3-2026-earnings/
7. Etsy, Inc., "Etsy Updates Advertising Offerings" (26 February 2020). https://investors.etsy.com/news-events/press-releases/detail/102/etsy-updates-advertising-offerings
8. PPC Land, "Amazon ad revenue growth drops to 11% after Prime Day moves to June" (29 October 2026). https://ppc.land/amazon-ad-revenue-growth-drops-to-11-after-prime-day-moves-to-june/
9. PPC Land, "OTTO Advertising posts 49% retail media growth after DSP and keyword targeting push" (27 March 2026). https://ppc.land/otto-advertising-posts-49-retail-media-growth-after-dsp-and-keyword-targeting-push/
10. Wayfair Inc., Q1 2026 earnings call (30 April 2026), transcript by The Motley Fool. https://www.fool.com/earnings/call-transcripts/2026/04/30/wayfair-w-q1-2026-earnings-call-transcript/