Walmart Connect is the advertising arm of Walmart, and for many US brands it is the second network on the plan after Amazon. Walmart reaches shoppers across its website, app and physical stores, so an advertiser can influence people at several points on the path to purchase. That breadth is useful, but it also means there is more to understand before you spend: the formats, the buying options and the way store sales fit into measurement.
In short: Walmart Connect is Walmart's retail media network. It has four main product families: Sponsored Search on Walmart.com and the app, onsite display, offsite programmatic buying through the Walmart DSP, and in-store media. You can buy through self-serve tools or through Walmart's team, depending on your size and goals. It works best for brands with solid distribution at Walmart, healthy item pages and a plan to measure sales in stores as well as online.
1What Walmart Connect Is
Walmart Connect is Walmart's retail media business. It sells advertising built on Walmart's first-party data: what shoppers search for, add to cart and buy across online and store channels. Because so much of Walmart's volume happens in physical stores, the network is often described as strong for connecting digital advertising with in-store sales, which is harder to do on pure online marketplaces.
Advertisers include suppliers that sell to Walmart wholesale, and third-party sellers on Walmart Marketplace. The two groups can have different access routes and tools, so the first step is to confirm which account type applies to you. If you are new to the concept, our overview of retail media explains the broader model.
Walmart's shopper base is a good reason to look closely at it. The retailer sells groceries, household goods, general merchandise and more, so many categories can find an audience. Shoppers may also move between ordering online for pickup or delivery and buying in a store, which makes a combined view of the two more important than it is for an online-only marketplace.
2The Main Ad Formats
Onsite, Walmart Connect offers Sponsored Search placements (Walmart's sponsored product ads, sometimes called Sponsored Products) that promote items within Walmart search results and category pages, plus brand-level search placements and video formats where available. Sponsored Search behaves like Amazon's Sponsored Products: bids on keywords or automated targeting, with the ad pointing to an item page. Onsite display places banners and rich media on Walmart's site and app and supports audience-based targeting, including shoppers of competing products.
Offsite, advertisers can reach Walmart audiences on other websites, apps and connected TV through the Walmart DSP, Walmart's programmatic buying platform, which uses Walmart shopper data for targeting. Some brands also buy Walmart audiences through other DSPs. In store, Walmart Connect sells screens and other media in Walmart locations, typically negotiated with the Walmart team and often tied to specific campaigns or seasons. Names and eligibility change, so confirm the current product list and your account type in Walmart Connect's own documentation or with its team before you plan a budget.
Creative requirements deserve attention before launch. Onsite display and offsite placements each have specifications for sizes, file types and content rules, and creative that fails review delays a campaign. Build a checklist for each format, and keep a library of approved assets, so seasonal changes do not turn into a scramble. Product images in sponsored search must also meet Walmart's listing standards.
Think about timing too. Walmart runs major seasonal moments, and sponsored search competition builds ahead of them. Plan budgets, content updates and stock levels weeks before the peak, not during it, and agree with your team how quickly bids can change when something sells out.
3How Buying Works
Smaller advertisers and many marketplace sellers can start with self-serve tools, setting budgets, bids and targeting themselves. Larger suppliers often work with Walmart's sales team to plan managed campaigns, especially for display, offsite and in-store media, and may agree commitments in advance. Agencies and partners can operate on a brand's behalf, subject to Walmart's access rules.
Most campaigns follow the same rhythm. You define the goal, choose products and audiences, set a budget, load creative, launch, and then review reports and adjust. What matters is a clear structure: separate campaigns for brand terms, category terms and competitor terms make it easier to see what is working. Our Walmart Connect management service handles this setup and optimization for brands and agencies.
Agencies should confirm early who owns the account relationship and the data. In some setups the brand holds the account and grants access to an agency, in others the agency holds a seat. Spell out reporting access, data ownership and what happens if the agency relationship ends. These points are simple to settle at the start and awkward to fix later.
4Targeting and Measurement
Targeting draws on Walmart's shopper data. Advertisers can reach people by search intent, by what they have bought, or by audience segments built from that purchase history. Walmart also provides reporting that links ad exposure to sales, and the available views typically distinguish online sales from in-store sales where Walmart can connect them.
As with every retail media network, reported sales are attributed sales. They show purchases that followed an ad, not necessarily purchases the ad caused. For a fuller picture, run holdout tests, compare against baseline, and use clean room tools where available. We cover these approaches in retail media incrementality testing and clean rooms and attribution.
Walmart sells both its own first-party (1P) items from suppliers and third-party (3P) items from Marketplace sellers, and the buying tools you use depend on that distinction: suppliers generally plan with Walmart Connect's team or a partner, while Marketplace sellers typically start in the self-serve tools. The table below gives a quick view of the main areas. Treat it as a starting checklist and confirm current details with Walmart or your partner, since products and eligibility change over time.
5Walmart Connect at a Glance
| Area | What it covers | Who it suits | Things to check |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sponsored Search | Promoted products in Walmart search and category pages, bought by keyword or automatic targeting | Nearly every advertiser, as a starting point | Item content, price competitiveness and stock levels |
| Onsite display | Banners and brand messaging on Walmart site and app | Brands building awareness or conquesting competitors | Available audiences, creative specs and minimums |
| Offsite programmatic (Walmart DSP) | Walmart audiences reached on other sites, apps and connected TV | Brands that want reach beyond Walmart | Access route, reporting detail and overlap with other buys |
| In-store media | Screens and displays in Walmart locations | Brands with strong store distribution and bigger plans | Store coverage, timing and how store sales are measured |
A useful way to judge any Walmart campaign is to ask what job it does. Sponsored search defends and grows sales of items that shoppers already look for. Display builds consideration and can win attention from shoppers of competing brands. Offsite extends reach to people while they are away from Walmart, and in-store media supports the moment a shopper stands in front of the shelf. Mixing those jobs in one campaign makes results hard to read, so keep each job in its own structure with its own goal. For example, a snacks brand might run Sponsored Search on its top ten items, a display campaign aimed at shoppers of competing brands, and a separate offsite test, each with its own budget and success measure.
New advertisers often ask how much to spend to learn something useful. There is no fixed answer, but the principle is to spend enough on a few well-chosen items and terms to collect meaningful data, then expand from what you learn. Spreading a small budget across a whole catalog usually teaches nothing, because no single item gets enough exposure to show a trend.
Finally, set expectations with stakeholders. Walmart results build over weeks, not days, because new campaigns need time to gather data and listings need time to gain ranking. Report progress against the goals you agreed at the start, flag what you plan to test next, and be open about what the data cannot yet tell you. That honesty keeps budgets stable while the program matures.
6Practical Tips for Brands and Agencies
Start with the item page. Walmart ads send shoppers to your listing, so accurate titles, strong images, clear descriptions and competitive pricing do more for results than extra bids. Keep inventory healthy too: an ad for an out-of-stock item wastes spend and can hurt ranking.
Treat Walmart as its own channel, not a copy of your Amazon plan. Shopper behavior, category mix and search habits differ, and Walmart's store base means some products respond more strongly to in-store and local activity. Build keyword lists from Walmart's own search data, and test audiences rather than assuming they match another network.
- Separate brand, category and competitor campaigns so you can read the results clearly.
- Review search term reports often and add negative keywords for irrelevant traffic.
- Coordinate promotions, pricing and ad bursts so they land together.
- Set a single owner for feeds, content and bid changes to avoid conflicting edits.
- Compare online and store results separately when the data allows.
Lastly, review results in context. A change in Walmart sales can come from pricing, promotions, assortment, store resets or seasonality as well as advertising. Keep a log of those events next to your ad reports, and compare periods fairly. A simple record of what changed and when often explains results that otherwise look puzzling, and it protects the ad budget from being blamed or credited for things it did not do.
7Running Walmart Alongside Other Networks
Few brands advertise on Walmart alone. Usually it sits next to Amazon, Instacart and one or two category-specific networks. The challenge is consistency: each network has its own console, reporting and terminology. A shared planning calendar, common naming for campaigns and agreed definitions for metrics keep the work comparable.
When the plan grows, check whether your current team can keep up with creative, feeds, pacing and reporting for every network. Our post on managing multiple retail media networks describes what to put in place, and our guide to the major retail media networks shows how Walmart fits against other options. For hands-on help, see our retail media marketing services, which cover onsite, offsite and in-store activity for agencies and brands.
