Walmart Connect for sellers and brands: Sponsored Products and more

This guide is built from Walmart Connect's official pages: Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, Easy campaign set up and Campaign optimization. If you also sell on Amazon, our Amazon Ads guide covers the equivalent products there; for your own shop, see the ecommerce launch checklist.

Who can advertise

Campaigns run in the Walmart Connect Ad Center. Walmart's pages give three ways in: "Sign in with your Seller Center or Supplier Center account, or set up your campaign through your preferred ad partner." In other words:

• Walmart Marketplace sellers use their Seller Center login.
• Suppliers who sell to Walmart use Supplier Center.
• Agencies and tech partners in the Walmart Connect partner network can run campaigns for you.

Sponsored Products is open to sellers and suppliers. Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Videos and Onsite Display are each "available to eligible brand owners and authorized brand representatives", so a reseller of other brands' products is usually limited to Sponsored Products.

Sponsored Products

Walmart calls Sponsored Products "The simplest way to advertise with Walmart Connect." The ads promote individual items and appear "in high-visibility placements like search, browse, and item pages across the Walmart site and app." Walmart lists these placements:

• Search in-grid: in the search results for relevant keywords.
• Carousels: across search, browse and item pages.
• Buy Box: on pages where customers decide to purchase.
• My Items in-grid and Stock up: for customers already familiar with your products.

"Sponsored Products ads run on a cost-per-click model, sending customers directly to your product detail page."

Sponsored Brands

Sponsored Brands appear at the top of relevant search results and browse pages, "featuring your brand logo, message and up to four products". Walmart notes the browse placement is "available on browse pages on desktop and mobile web only". You can add "up to ten items in each campaign", and Walmart's algorithm picks up to four to show. Clicks, also charged per click, can go to the search results page, a product page, or your Brand Shop or Shelf. New campaigns are submitted for review before they run.

A Brand Shop is a free virtual storefront that, according to Walmart Connect's About page, "Eligible Walmart suppliers and eligible Walmart Marketplace brand owners can build, launch and manage".

Sponsored Videos

Walmart's Sponsored Videos page describes them as "a keyword-targeted placement" in search results, again cost per click and linking to your product page. Walmart says they "run between five and 45 seconds". To create one, you upload the video, choose Sponsored Videos, add the items with shoppable links, then add keywords and bids and submit for review. Walmart's advice in Get more from Sponsored Search: show the product "within the first few seconds".

Onsite Display

Walmart's small business solutions page says Onsite Display ads "appear across Walmart's digital properties, from homepage to checkout", in formats Walmart calls Gallery, Brand Box, Marquee, Skyline and Tile. Targeting options are:

• Contextual: categories relevant to your products.
• Behavioral: customers' Walmart online and in-store shopping history.
• Keyword: custom keywords people search for.
• Run of Site: the broadest visibility.

Walmart also sells offsite media and in-store ads, mainly to larger advertisers.

Automatic and manual campaigns

Sponsored Products campaigns use either automatic or manual targeting. Walmart recommends automatic for a first campaign: "Choose Automatic targeting as it's the simplest way to get started. The system selects keywords for you, and tests search terms to find out what works best."

In a manual campaign you choose the keywords and bids yourself. Walmart says it provides "product type level suggestions for Automatic campaigns and keyword level suggestions for Manual campaigns." To find keywords, it points to the Keyword Performance Reports and the Keyword Planner in Ad Center. A common pattern, the same as on Amazon, is to let an automatic campaign run, then move proven search terms into a manual campaign where you control the bid per keyword.

Bidding and what decides placement

Ads are sold in an auction: "Walmart's auction pairs your product's relevancy with your bid to determine visibility." Walmart's set-up page lists the factors behind placement:

• Relevancy to what the customer is looking at;
• Bid amount, whether it is competitive;
• User reviews, how many and what scores;
• Two-day shipping eligibility.

For a first campaign, Walmart suggests Dynamic Bidding, which makes "real-time bid adjustments". It also suggests matching bids to each item's margin, price point and competitiveness, and raising "bids or placement multipliers" on proven campaigns. Walmart notes the top search position matters: its data shows add-to-cart rate in position 1 is "on average, 6x higher than positions 2-10." Walmart publishes no average cost per click; Ad Center suggests bids for your products and keywords.

Budgets

You set a daily budget and a total budget with start and end dates. Walmart's pages say:

• "A minimum daily budget of $100 is recommended to help maintain visibility during peak shopping hours". This is a recommendation, not a required minimum; budgets that are too low "may cause campaigns to cap out early in the day".
• If you spend the total budget early, the campaign stays live until its end date, but "your ads will not serve until you increase your daily budget."
• An ended campaign can be restarted with "Restart & Extend", which adds 5 days using the remaining budget.

Walmart also recommends 10 to 15 best-selling items per campaign and "at least 30 days" before judging it.

Reporting and measurement

Ad Center shows campaign results in one place, including attribution and campaign insights, and you can generate reports "as per the attribution window"; Walmart's own figures use a 14-day attribution window. Its measurement page says its "closed-loop measurement" ties ad exposure to sales "on Walmart's site and in stores", using Walmart's purchase data.

Walmart's guidance on metrics: "Look to return on ad spend (ROAS) as your guide — not your goal". Work out your break-even ROAS per item, and judge a first campaign on impressions, clicks and relevance before ROAS. Its four optimisation levers are budget, bids, keywords and products.

Get your listings ready first

Walmart calls this retail readiness and names three essentials: "high- quality listings, Buy Box placement, and fast delivery." It suggests aiming for a Listing Quality score "of 80–100% in Seller Center", winning the Buy Box on price, and meeting two-day or one-day delivery, for example with Walmart Fulfillment Services. Ads send shoppers to the product page, so weak listings waste clicks.

How we start a Walmart campaign

This is our own practice, not Walmart's guidance:

• We check Listing Quality, Buy Box and reviews for the chosen items before any spend.
• We start with one automatic Sponsored Products campaign of the 10 to 15 best sellers, with dynamic bidding.
• After about 30 days we move converting search terms into a manual campaign with keyword bids based on each item's margin.
• We agree a break-even ROAS per item with the client before judging results.

If you want help with marketplace or ecommerce advertising, see our services.

Frequently asked questions

Who can advertise on Walmart Connect?

Walmart Marketplace sellers (through Seller Center), suppliers (through Supplier Center) and agency partners. Sponsored Brands, Videos and Onsite Display need eligible brand owners or authorised representatives.

How much do Walmart Sponsored Products cost?

They are cost per click, priced by auction. Walmart recommends a daily budget of at least $100 for visibility, but publishes no average cost per click.

Should I use automatic or manual targeting on Walmart?

Walmart recommends automatic for a first campaign. Manual lets you choose keywords and bids, with keyword-level suggested bids.

What is the Walmart Connect Ad Center?

Walmart's self-serve platform for creating, managing and reporting on Sponsored Search and Onsite Display campaigns. You sign in with your Seller Center or Supplier Center account.

What decides where my Walmart ad shows?

Relevancy and bid, plus factors Walmart lists such as reviews and two-day shipping eligibility.

For how the main retail media networks compare and where to start, see Retail media networks.

For other retail and shopping ads, see our guides to Google Shopping campaigns, Microsoft Shopping campaigns and Instacart Ads.