Chase Media Solutions for DTC Brands: The 2026 Performance Playbook

Chase Media Solutions is JPMorgan Chase's first-party media network, launched April 2024, letting brands buy audiences built from real card transaction data across more than 80 million Chase card customers. It matters for DTC brands in 2026 because targeting is based on what someone actually spent at every merchant, not one retailer's shopper file or a modelled interest segment. Attribution closes on card settlement, so you read incremental spend lift instead of clicks.

By Nand Patel, Founder, New Public Media.

Quick answer: Chase Media Solutions is JPMorgan Chase's advertising network built on 80M+ US card customers and their verified spend data. Brands buy cashback offers in Chase Offers plus offsite programmatic through Yahoo DSP. DTC brands with USD 250K+ annual budgets and repeatable category purchase patterns should test it in 2026.

What Is Chase Media Solutions and Why It Matters in 2026

Chase Media Solutions is a bank-issued media network: JPMorgan Chase sells advertising against its own customer relationships, using card transaction history as the targeting layer and its owned surfaces as the inventory. It launched in April 2024 with more than 80 million Chase card customers addressable, larger than the loyalty file of every US retail media network except Amazon and Walmart.

Bank-issued media is a separate category from retail media, and the difference is the data boundary. Kroger sees what you bought at Kroger. Chase sees the settled transaction at Kroger, Target, your competitor, and you, across every merchant that accepts a card. That is category-level in-market signal no single retailer can reconstruct.

Why the transaction graph beats the shopper graph

A retail media audience answers "who buys this category in our stores." A Chase audience answers "who buys this category anywhere, how often, and have they ever transacted with you." For a DTC brand with no retail distribution, that second question is the whole game.

Key takeaway: Chase Media Solutions is the first US ad platform at 80M+ scale where the targeting input is verified cross-merchant spend, not one retailer's basket data.

How Chase Media Solutions Works: The Data, The Inventory, The Formats

Chase Media Solutions builds an audience from card spend, serves an offer inside Chase's owned channels, then measures resulting spend against a matched control. Four surfaces are buyable in 2026.

Chase Offers in the mobile app. The original and still dominant unit. A merchant-funded cashback offer (typically 5 to 15 percent back) appears in the offers carousel of the Chase app, which tens of millions of customers open weekly. One tap activates it against their card.

Chase.com and email. Logged-in web sessions and Chase's marketing email file. Lower volume, higher intent.

Offsite programmatic through Yahoo DSP. Part of Chase's offsite expansion, this activates Chase-built audiences against open-web display, video, and CTV through Yahoo DSP. It is the cheapest entry point and the only way to test Chase audiences without a managed minimum.

Sponsored placements and video. Added in the 2026 expansion beyond cashback, with a self-serve API for larger advertisers.

Key takeaway: Chase Offers cashback is the highest-converting unit, but the Yahoo DSP integration is how brands under the managed spend floor reach Chase audiences in 2026.

Chase Media Solutions vs Retail Media Networks: When Each Wins

Chase wins when you need cross-merchant in-market signal and cannot get shelf placement. Retail media wins when conversion happens on the retailer's site and you need to defend a product page. Brands we run use both.

Our guide to retail media networks for DTC brands covers the onsite side, Amazon DSP the largest offsite pool, and Target Roundel the closest single-retailer analogue.

Key takeaway: Chase and retail media are not substitutes. Chase buys in-market intent that no retailer can see; retail media defends the shelf you already have.

What DTC Brands Are Getting Right on Chase Media Solutions

The early adopters that performed treated cashback percentage as a media variable, not a discount. Chase's launch cohort included Air Canada, Whataburger, and Solo Stove, and the pattern is consistent: a simple percentage-back offer, a wide category audience, and 8 to 12 percent funded back rather than the 3 to 5 percent finance usually approves.

Solo Stove is the cleanest DTC case: high average order value (USD 250 to 500 on core fire pits), seasonal demand, and a category where Chase can find people who bought competing outdoor gear but never transacted with Solo Stove. Whataburger and Air Canada show the frequency play instead, targeting customers who transacted once in the last 12 months then went quiet.

Key takeaway: Brands funding 8 percent cashback or more on high average order value products see the strongest results, because the offer has to overcome merchant switching friction.

How to Build Your Audience Strategy Using Chase Transaction Data

Build audiences around spend behaviour you can name, not demographics. Chase segments on category spend, merchant-level spend, frequency, recency, and average ticket. That produces five plays worth running in a first 90 days.

1. Category in-market, never bought from you. 2+ category transactions in the last 6 months, zero with your brand. Core prospecting audience, usually 60 to 70 percent of test budget.
2. Competitor switchers. Repeat spend at a named competitor. Higher cashback here (12 to 15 percent) to break an existing habit.
3. Lapsed reactivation. Transacted with you 9 to 24 months ago, then silent. Cheapest incremental revenue in the account, typically 2 to 3 times the prospecting lift rate.
4. Cross-category expansion. Adjacent spend that predicts your category: pet food buyers for pet supplements, premium coffee buyers for kitchen hardware.
5. High average ticket concentration. Category spend in the top quartile by ticket size. Fewer people, better unit economics, the one segment where 5 percent still works.

Sizing the segments

Do not launch a segment under roughly 500,000 matched customers, or activation volume is too thin for the matched-control read to reach significance inside 90 days. We size prospecting at 2 to 5 million.

Key takeaway: Lapsed reactivation is the highest-lift Chase play and the one most brands skip, because it looks like paying for customers they think they already own.

Want our team to test Chase Media Solutions for your brand? Book a call and we will scope a 90-day audience plan against your current paid mix.

Creative and Offer Design for Chase Offers Placements

A Chase Offer is not an ad, it is a one-line proposition inside a banking UI, so the terms carry the performance. You get a logo, merchant name, a percentage or dollar-back value, and a short qualifier line. No headline test, no video, no body copy.

The three components that move performance

Cashback percentage. 5 to 15 percent is the working band. Below 5 percent, activation collapses in competitive categories. Above 15 percent, contribution margin breaks without a spend cap. We start most DTC tests at 10 percent with a maximum-back cap.

Minimum spend qualifier. "10 percent back on USD 75 or more" protects average order value. Set the threshold 15 to 25 percent above your current average order value, not at it.

Expiry window. 30 to 60 days from activation. Shorter windows raise urgency but cut redemption on considered buys.

Your landing experience still matters. The customer taps the offer in the app, then arrives at your site days later through normal channels, and redemption drops if the site does not restate the offer. Our performance marketing services add a post-activation landing state.

Key takeaway: In Chase Offers you are not testing creative, you are testing three numbers: percentage back, minimum spend, and expiry window.

Measurement and Attribution: Reading Card-Level Lift Reports

Chase reports incremental spend lift by comparing an exposed, activated cohort against a matched control of statistically similar cardholders who never saw the offer. Because both are measured on settled card transactions at your merchant identifier, the report captures purchases that never touched a trackable click.

The math: incremental revenue equals exposed cohort spend per customer minus control spend per customer, times exposed cohort size. Divide media cost plus funded cashback by that for true incremental cost of acquisition.

Comparing Chase numbers to your other channels

Do not compare Chase incremental ROAS to Meta platform-reported ROAS. Meta's number looks better while being less true. Compare Chase lift to your own holdout or geo-lift results, or to modelled incrementality in your MMM, using the framework in our guide to DTC attribution without cookies. The honest caveat: closed-loop card attribution only sees Chase cardholders, so it is a clean read on a subset, not the whole business.

Key takeaway: Card-level lift versus a matched control is the strongest attribution in paid media today, but it measures only the Chase-carded slice of your customers.

Budget, Minimum Spend, and How to Start in 2026

Managed partnerships sit around a USD 250,000 to USD 500,000 annualized floor, reflecting custom audience builds and closed-loop measurement. Self-serve access through Yahoo DSP carries no comparable commitment, so you can test audience quality for USD 20,000 to USD 40,000 first. A 90-day managed test we structure like this:

1. Days 1 to 15. Audience build and offer approval: two prospecting segments, one reactivation.
2. Days 16 to 60. Live at 10 percent back with a minimum spend qualifier, matched control held out from day one.
3. Days 61 to 75. First lift read. Kill the weakest segment, raise cashback on the strongest.
4. Days 76 to 90. Second read plus incremental cost of acquisition versus blended paid.

Budget funded cashback separately from media. At 10 percent back on a USD 120 order you pay USD 12 per redemption on top of media, and finance needs that line before launch. US brands can start with our digital marketing agency US team.

Key takeaway: Test Chase audiences through Yahoo DSP for USD 20,000 to USD 40,000 before committing to the USD 250,000+ managed floor.

Should Your Brand Be on Chase Media Solutions Right Now?

Run Chase Media Solutions if four things are true: your category has repeatable card-visible purchase patterns, average order value is above roughly USD 75, contribution margin can absorb 8 to 12 percent cashback, and Meta and Google already run efficiently enough that you need a new audience source rather than a cheaper one.

Skip it if average order value is under USD 40, the product is a one-time purchase with no repeat pattern, or total paid budget is below USD 500,000 a year. At that size Yahoo DSP is the only sensible entry, and Meta prospecting is usually cheaper per acquisition anyway.

Key takeaway: Chase Media Solutions is an incremental-reach buy for brands that already maxed out efficient demand on Meta and Google, not a first or second channel.

Frequently asked questions

What is Chase Media Solutions?

Chase Media Solutions is JPMorgan Chase's first-party advertising network, launched April 2024. It lets brands target more than 80 million Chase card customers using verified card transaction data, serving merchant-funded cashback offers inside Chase Offers in the mobile app, on chase.com, in email, and offsite through a Yahoo DSP integration. Attribution runs on card-level incremental spend lift against a matched control group.

How much does Chase Media Solutions cost?

Managed partnerships are reported to start around USD 250,000 to USD 500,000 annualized, covering audience construction, offer management, and closed-loop measurement. Brands also fund the cashback itself, typically 5 to 15 percent of each qualifying order. Smaller tests are possible through the Yahoo DSP integration for roughly USD 20,000 to USD 40,000, which gives access to Chase audiences without the managed commitment.

Is Chase Media Solutions better than retail media for DTC brands?

It is different, not better. Chase sees spend across every merchant, so it finds in-market buyers who have never purchased from you, which retail media cannot do. Retail media wins when conversion happens on the retailer's site and you need to defend a product page. Brands with USD 1M+ paid budgets typically run both, funded from separate lines.

Sources: JPMorgan Chase newsroom, Yahoo advertising, Digiday.