Walmart adding creative partners to retail media network

Walmart is expanding the range of partners associated with its Walmart Connect closed-loop media business.

Walmart Connect offers advertisers the ability to serve personalized, time- and context-specific ads across customer touchpoints including media placements on in-store TV walls and self-checkout screens, Walmart digital properties, mobile devices, and corporate events.

Starting in June 2023, the discount giant will make creative partners available to self-serve advertisers participating in Walmart Connect. As part of this expansion, Walmart is renaming its Walmart Connect partnership ecosystem as the Walmart Connect Partner Network.

Walmart Connect Partner Network creative partners, such as VidMob, WhyteSpyder, Kaizen Ad, It’sRapid.ai, and The Mars Agency, will offer a variety of creative services to support Walmart Connect’s self-serve ad platforms, subject to eligibility requirements. Creative partners will offer managed services and proprietary technology such as:

• Item set-up and detail page optimization for sponsored search campaigns.
• Video creation and editing – such as for sponsored videos.
• Display content support, across available placements and formats.

The Walmart Connect Partner Network also includes:

• Solution partners: Suppliers and sellers have 19 API partner options – formerly known as Walmart Platform Partners – to help scale, automate, and optimize search campaigns. The most recent API partner is Helium10. Creative partners will also now join the solution cohort.
• Service partners: More than 80 agencies help Walmart advertisers plan, buy and optimize media through Walmart Connect.
• Technology partners: Walmart Connect works with a variety of partners to offer offsite placements, like Meta and Pinterest, and capabilities, such as The Trade Desk. For example, Walmart Connect partnered with The Trade Desk to create a standalone demand-side platform called the Walmart DSP, which combines The Trade Desk’s technology and performance with Walmart’s first-party, omnichannel customer data.

Other enhancements Walmart has made to Walmart Connect in the past year include introducing its new Innovation Partners program, which provides what the discount giant calls “test and learn” opportunities with social, entertainment, digital TV commerce and livestreaming, in time for the 2022 holiday season.

In addition, Walmart partnered with e-commerce management platform CommerceIQ to offers automated management of sponsored product and sponsored brand amplifier advertising for CPG brands that target its customers via Walmart Connect.

“These partners can help to increase advertiser growth at Walmart by optimizing ad creative to connect with customers wherever they are in their shopping journey.,” Diana Finster, head of agency and technology partnerships for Walmart Connect, said in a corporate blog post. “Access to these services will become even more essential to Walmart’s self-serve advertisers as we introduce new ad experiences across our full-funnel, omnichannel solutions.

Based in Bentonville, Ark., Walmart operates more than 10,500 stores and clubs under 46 banners in 24 countries and e-commerce websites.