McDonald's Builds an Ad Network, Chasing a $1 Billion Business

McDonald's wants a $1 billion advertising business. On Wednesday, the company announced plans to build its own media network, joining retailers like Amazon and Walmart in the race for high-margin ad revenue.

The groundwork is already laid. Since August, 450 of McDonald's company-owned U.S. restaurants have displayed ads for other companies on their digital drive-thru order boards as part of a pilot. The program has not yet reached the franchisees who operate the rest of its roughly 14,000 U.S. locations.

"Commerce media is one of the fastest-growing areas in advertising, and it's expected to reach more than $100 billion in the U.S. alone by 2028," Morgan Flatley, McDonald's global chief marketing officer and executive vice president of new business ventures, told investors during a presentation. "It's an opportunity to generate revenue for the system with little in the way of additional cost, no operational complexity and no disruption to our customer experience."

Why McDonald's Is Betting on Ads

The timing matters. Costs for key inputs like beef are climbing, and the chain plans to invest billions of dollars in restaurant upgrades over the next decade. A steady stream of high-margin ad revenue would help offset both pressures.

McDonald's would be a pioneer in the restaurant industry for creating its own media network. CFO Ian Borden argued that the company is uniquely positioned to succeed.

"We have one of the most valuable brands of any company of our size and scale in any industry," Borden told CNBC. "We serve about 85% of the U.S. population at least once a year, so we have reach that's quite unique, and we have 14,000 locations across the U.S., which means we're in every community, and we're connecting with every consumer."

The Retail Playbook

Retailers have already proven the model. Amazon reported $68.6 billion in advertising service sales in 2025, just under 10% of the company's overall revenue. Amazon's ads run across its shopping pages, Prime Video, lockers, the live streaming platform Twitch, and third-party apps and websites.

Walmart does not disclose specific sales for its advertising unit. But the company said Connect, its U.S. ad business, grew sales 43% in its fiscal second quarter. The network places ads on Walmart's app, website, inside its more than 4,600 U.S. stores, and on outside apps like Instagram. Walmart also bought TV maker Vizio in late 2024 with an eye toward expanding its ad business.

Announced at Investor Day

McDonald's unveiled the media network at its investor day, hosted at the company's Chicago headquarters. Executives also shared more detail on plans to grow sales through costly restaurant upgrades and better food quality.

If the pilot scales beyond company-owned locations to the full U.S. footprint, McDonald's would control ad inventory across thousands of drive-thru screens reaching the vast majority of American consumers — a position that took Amazon and Walmart years of acquisition and infrastructure spending to build.