Client: PayPal

Rebrand

PayPal underwent major internal reshuffling throughout 2023 and 2024. The effect this had on creative was tremendous.

• New brand colors and layouts.

• Updated value propositions and proofpoints.

• More explicit low-funnel presentments.

• A more simplified overall program setup.

On the copy side, there was a great push to cut down excessive words and get to the point — fast. All without losing the core, single-minded message.

Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) email journey

Initially three emails with a wealth of information — so as to keep readers on the same page and prevent click-aways — we determined it’d be best to reduce to two emails to avoid redundancy. Also, we pared the information down to focus on a single-minded message and push toward readers taking action.

The emails shown below are only for Direct Merchants (Standard), but we did additional emails for Partners (BigCommerce, WooCommerce, etc.) and divided the Direct Merchants into Standard and Advanced.

The top three emails are from the old assets.

The bottom two are the updated assets. Email 1 from these are focused on BNPL awareness while Email 2 is focused on BNPL conversion.

Buy Now Pay Later banners

Newsfeed and Login CT banners, following the same streamlining rationale as the emails.

Unlike the emails, the old assets are on the left. New assets on the right.

Paid Media Value Prop

Creation of various paid social assets across numerous channels — Meta, DV360 Display, DV360 Native, Yahoo Native, and Google Discovery. Below are a limited selection.
There were 3 value propositions spread across each of these channels. Simplicity. Competitive Rates. Trust.

Simplicity

This is all about reduction of complexity for merchants looking for a payment processor. PayPal makes it easy with its all-in-one integration.

Competitive Rates

Just DV360 banners here, speaking to the comparitively low business fees that PayPal offers.

Trust

PayPal is a well-known brand used across the world. That level of popularity has been fostered by its extensive security and fraud protection features, which in turn creates a deep level of trust.

Rethink

In 2023, PayPal launched the “Rethink” initiative, a new creative platform whose communication strategy reframed messaging for Small-Medium Businesses (SMBs).

We wanted to show that we intuitively understood SMB challenges and had the business solutions to address them. PayPal’s offerings were positioned within this new creative approach, emphasizing the impact of small changes on driving big business results. Copy strategy used solutions-focused messaging and standardized two-beat headlines across assets, displaying the SMB benefit and corresponding PayPal feature in a punchy and conversational tone..

Funnel messaging was broken down into three segments based on key SMB concerns:

• Interoperability (“How difficult is it to integrate my website with PayPal?”)

• Trust (“Are transactions sufficiently protected from fraud”)

• Conversion (“Will PayPal really help me close more sales?”)

Mid-Funnel

Businesses here are aware of PayPal and are considering them for their business. We’d like them to try and understand how PayPal can help simplify their payments.

Messaging here gets into the more tangible benefits of PayPal, all in that casual Rethink tone. Vvisuals add a human touch by favoring lifestyle imagery over pure text.

We created assets for Facebook (feed + story), Instagram (feed + story), Yahoo Display, DV360, and Google Discovery across three segments — interoperability, trust, and conversion — with Google Discovery Interoperability assets shown below.

Lower Funnel

These are businesses who know PayPal can solve their payment needs. With these ads, the goal is for them to sign up via direct onboarding flow or via lead nurture flow/call in.

Messaging is granular, specifying benefits based on interoperability, trust, and conversion.

We created assets for Facebook (feed + story), Instagram (feed + story), Yahoo Display, DV360, and Google Discovery across Lead-gen and Direct Digital Acquisition (DDA) audiences while covering our three benefit segments. Below are FB in-feed ads for the three benefits.