Walmart is expanding its retail media business to include small sellers and international suppliers.
In addition, it opens Walmart Connect to brands that have not traditionally sold their products in its stores, such as auto dealers and financiers, known as “non-endemic” marketers.
What is Walmart Connect? Walmart Connect is Walmart’s rebranded media group, acting as the retail giant’s advertising division. It provides a platform for advertisers to connect with potential customers across multiple channels, including online, in-store and sponsored media across the web.
Walmart Connect Updates. The retail giant also announced several additional updates to Walmart Connect, including:
Walmart Connect will allow advertisers to place search ads with brand terms, including those targeting competing brands. Walmart will expand access to measure in-store sales results from online advertising and enable in-store campaign management through the Walmart Ad Center self-service platform. This will initially include purchases on the retailer’s TV wall in electronics departments. Walmart is expanding recent ad-to-buy pilot programs with Roku and TikTok, making them available to a wider range of advertisers. Walmart’s web and mobile platforms will now be accessible through Walmart’s programmatic ad marketplace, opening up opportunities for brands of all sizes. Walmart is introducing new self-service support tools for overseas suppliers. Additionally, to help smaller advertisers grow their brand pages, the retail giant is implementing machine learning capabilities for creative development and optimization.
why now After a successful year for Walmart’s advertising division in 2023, with revenue up 28% to $3.4 billion, the retail giant aims to incentivize advertisers to make full use of Walmart Connect, hoping to further increase advertising revenue.
Why we care The upgrades are expected to drive more competition among sellers using Walmart Connect, which in turn could drive up costs.
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What Walmart says. Rich Lehrfeld, senior vice president and general manager of Walmart Connect, said AdWeek:
“We’re in the early stages of testing, but we’re seeing big results. People are looking for big data signals, and retail media networks have that.” “We’re one of the largest auto care centers in the country. We see people buying luggage, which is a pretty strong signal to travel. It’s aggregate information [for advertisers] but the signal is quite strong.”
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