Today's shopping experience is highly fragmented; ecommerce continues to soar, inspiration is striking across multiple digital platforms, and in-store shopping has bounced back post-pandemic. Shoppers are increasingly discovering and purchasing products across touchpoints and brands need to deliver seamless and consistent customer experiences along the way.

In fact, 81% of surveyed Walmart customers said they will visit Walmart online first (vs. visiting a Walmart store) for shopping ideas and inspiration and 76% said they are likely to buy products in a Walmart store that they'd seen advertised online at Walmart.¹

A major challenge for brands is making those relevant connections with customers at scale across the shopping journey, wherever they are and whenever the moment is right. The need for data-driven, omnichannel media strategies that can close the measurement loop, so brands can understand the impact of their ad spend and optimize accordingly, has never been greater. 

Walmart Connect helps brands accelerate those omni touchpoints and move up the funnel through first-party customer insights and significant reach across multiple digital and physical destinations. This opportunity is picking up steam with advertisers and Display is a huge driver. That’s why we’ve been focused on growing and enhancing our Display capabilities – onsite and offsite - for advertisers of all sizes.

Tapping into the power of display

Sponsored Search will always be fundamental to your retail media strategies, highly effective at reaching a specific customer, for example one that is already searching or actively in-market for your brand or product. But this still leaves a major opportunity for retail media to play a key role further up the funnel. Building on top of your search strategy, Display advertising has the ability to influence new and existing customers and keep your brand top of mind as they discover, consider and purchase products, on and off Walmart properties.

Walmart’s robust first-party omnichannel insights help advertisers understand shopper behaviors, mindsets and intent across touchpoints. Through Display solutions, advertisers can activate precise targeting, helping to find the most relevant audiences at the right moments with the right message, whether that’s educational product information, a deal or promotion, or the launch of a new product. Depending on the platform, advertisers can find and connect with audiences using our precise targeting tools:

• Behavioral such as historical purchases, brand affinity, product or category propensity and in-market intent.

• Shopper attributes like demographics including geographic location or persona, such as new parents, sports enthusiasts, newlyweds, etc.

• Shopper journey contextual signals including keyword search history or run of site, reaching audiences across Walmart.com.

• Advanced targeting using custom audiences based on unique objectives, audience match with your own first-party audiences, build lookalike audiences or tailor your ads based on localized weather.

Through these comprehensive options for Display campaigns, brands can create meaningful connections with audiences further up the funnel before capturing them with search to help convert them online or drive in-store sales.

Understanding the landscape: Display Offsite vs Onsite

Display advertising encompasses multiple omni touchpoints and it’s important to understand the nuances of onsite vs offsite offerings and strategies.

Onsite display capabilities and access

Onsite display puts your brand and products front and center for customers as they are browsing Walmart.com and the app. Advertisers can access a wide variety of ad placements, including banners, homepage takeovers, custom brand pages etc., to help increase brand awareness and stay top of mind with customers as they are shopping across Walmart digital properties.

We know advertisers and partners have different campaign management and media buying needs, so we’ve built the tools so they can activate onsite display through self or managed service. They have the option to build, launch and manage their ads on their own or with their agencies and partners through Display self-serve via the Walmart Connect Ad Center. Or they can work with our team of experts to manage any type of campaign on their behalf.

Offsite display capabilities and access

Omnichannel customers are discovering products in multiple places, so we’re helping advertisers connect with Walmart’s customers wherever they are in their daily lives off Walmart’s properties, from across the web, social media to Connected TV. Creating these connections increases your reach to Walmart shoppers before they start their shopping journey on Walmart.com or in-store. 

Advertisers can reach Walmart’s audiences offsite through Walmart DSP, a standalone platform that combines the best-in-class technology, performance and inventory of The Trade Desk with the robust scale of Walmart’s unparalleled first party omnichannel data and audiences. Access the targeting, campaign management and measurement tools to drive omni connections and understand the impact on your Walmart omnichannel sales.

Closed-loop measurement: tracking sales online and in-store

Connecting with customers in retail environments helps brands reach customers when they are closer to the point of purchase. One of retail media’s core value props is the ability to provide advertisers with greater accountability for their ad spend by accessing data on ad-attributed sales.

Walmart Connect’s proprietary closed-loop measurement can attribute ad exposure to purchases both online and in-store. Advertisers can understand when and where display ad campaigns - onsite and offsite – influence shoppers to discover products and make a purchase. This data helps to inform and optimize future campaigns, helping you make the most impact with your advertising strategies.

Display campaigns also offer new buyer analysis, which reveals whether an ad-attributed sale is from new or returning customers by measuring attribution data from the previous 12 months. This helps understand the impact of your ad spend on upper funnel goals, such as brand awareness and audience reach.

Get in touch to learn more about our Display advertising solutions and how to get started!

Sources: ¹Walmart E-Commerce Claims Custom Survey", first-party data, Walmart Customer Spark Community, provided by Walmart Luminate; survey conducted by the Walmart Connect Media Insights Survey team, June 2023.