Sam’s Club makes retail media network ads transparent — and shoppable
Sam’s Club is adding new features to its retail media network, including increasing the data available to advertisers and enabling customers to select products directly from ads.
The warehouse club retailer, a banner of Walmart Inc., is now providing advertisers participating in its Sam’s Club Member Access Platform (MAP) retail media network the ability to see what revenue is generated by which ads. This provides measurable return on ad spend (ROAS) for omnichannel campaigns and connects search and sponsored product ads to offline sales.
In addition, Sam’s Club now allows customers to add products to their online cart directly from MAP ads. New MAP features aimed at advertisers include the ability to target category or “browse pages,” in addition to previously available search and keyword targeting, as well as the ability to showcase “hero” products or new offerings in ads.
“We’ve seen advertisers reimagine their data and media strategies with these insights and capitalizing on our physical and digital reach, especially during the recent 40th Birthday celebration,” said Lex Josephs, VP and GM of Sam’s Club MAP. “We’re committed to exceeding performance goals of our advertisers and improving the member shopping experience. The in-club attribution insights show that we are succeeding on both fronts.”
Sam’s Club creates retail media network partner program
Sam’s Club has been bolstering its targeted ad capabilities. In April 2023, the retailer began offering retail media network members access to the MAP Partners Club. The organization of authorized third-party partners launched with three technology companies — CommerceIQ, Pacvue and Skai — and two managed service partners — Flywheel and Stackline.
Partners can help advertisers participating in MAP add features such as bidding and budget optimization, day-parting, and advanced analytics and insights to their campaigns. MAP participants can immediately buy sponsored product ads and promotional technologies provided by Commerce IQ, Pacvue and Skai, using a self-service interface. In addition, MAP advertisers can purchase Sam’s Club MAP ads via Flywheel and Stackline.
Sam’’s Club also recently began enabling MAP advertisers to attribute in-store purchases to their search ads. MAP collects real-time, first-party omnichannel data on customer transactions, including in-store, in-app and online.
And in February 2023, the retailer began making real-time, intelligently retargeted display advertising available across tens of thousands of sites on the open web through MAP. Provided in partnership with The Trade Desk and LiveRamp (RAMP), this offering leverages first-party member data, advertiser data and artificial intelligence (AI)-based, real-time behavioral insights from Sam’s Club.
Bentonville, Ark.-based Sam’s Club, a division of Walmart Inc., operates nearly 600 stores in the U.S. and Puerto Rico.