Walmart Advertising’s Self-Service Platform

Why Walmart Advertising?

Walmart generates over 100 million visitors per month on its eCommerce site. Major brands are looking to the retail giant for ways to capitalize on all of these potential customers throughout their entire consumer journey. Walmart has recognized this need and has been expanding its advertising business to compete with other major retail media players.

Self-Service Ad Solution Empowers Marketers

Earlier this year, Walmart introduced a self-service advertising platform that invites existing and new advertisers to manage their advertising accounts on Walmart Performance Ads. This platform empowers advertisers to optimize relevant keyword searches on Walmart.com to help their brands reach their marketing goals.

How does the self-service platform work?

The platform consists of Walmart Sponsored Products, a cost-per-click (CPC) based advertising solution that promotes Walmart SKUs through desktop, mobile, and app placements. These ad placements include search in grid, sponsored product carousels, and buy box banners. Walmart’s Sponsored Products have two types of targeting: Manual and Automatic. Manual targeting sets individual CPC bids for each keyword related to the advertised SKU set, and Automatic targeting sets CPC bids at a SKU or ad group level.

Available Ad Placements

1. Search in Grid

• Located on the SERP (see placement screenshot below).
• Sponsored Product ad placement located at the top of the search results page.
• To qualify for this placement, the item you are promoting must rank organically within the first three pages of the search results.

2. Sponsored Product Carousel

• Located on Item Pages, Category Pages, Browse Pages, and PDPs.

3. Buy Box Banner

• Located on the PDP.
• Sponsored Product ad placement located on the item page below the buy box.

With the features available within Sponsored Products, this tool can help increase visibility for new product launches, and visibility for the overall brand. It can also generate incremental revenue that will help brands reach their goals, and has the potential to positively impact overall organic rank. Since the self-serve platform is fairly new compared to the other retail media networks’ advertising platforms, Walmart is continually expanding the platform’s UI functionality to help brands scale their advertising programs.

Breaking News: New Feature Update!

Initially, Walmart’s self-service platform was limited in terms of keyword targeting capabilities. Walmart would provide a set of keywords that their algorithm deemed most relevant to the advertised SKUs selected, which made it difficult for an advertiser to expand on converting keywords. Recently, the platform rolled out bulk upload functionality that allows advertisers to upload their own set of keywords for Manual campaigns. This targeting update proves that Walmart continues to learn from other retail media leaders and is constantly growing as a platform to help brands meet their marketing goals.

For more information on how Walmart Sponsored Products can help your overall Walmart and retail media marketing strategy, contact Rise today.