As the largest retailer in the country, Walmart's U.S. sales growth was over 6% in the fiscal year 2022, with net sales of around $393 billion. The brand value of this company does not need to be explained, and it is easy to see why Walmart advertising should be a core part of every brand’s strategy today.

From being the top eCommerce retailer - apart from Amazon - and having served more than 150 million customers every week for years now, you cannot scroll past any content piece that talks about branding success without reading the name Walmart.

In this blog, we will cover topics like why Walmart should be part of your advertising strategy, advertising options like Sponsored Products, and 7 best practices for successful Walmart advertising.

Why Walmart Should Be Part of Your Advertising Strategy

As the economy recovers from the impact of the global pandemic, Walmart did a phenomenal job of bouncing back and kickstarting the “new normal”. Across millions of households with the option of both delivery and in-store shopping, the website and app present a number of opportunities for your brand to promote your products.

Although adding another platform can feel like a headache, Walmart’s benefits far outweigh its costs, and the investment is more than worthwhile. Both your organic presence on its various pages and paid advertisements allows consumers to explore what you have to offer and choose to spend their money on your products.

With the right combination of strategy and quality, you can boost brand loyalty and powerful KPIs like conversion rates and customer lifetime value in the long run. The platform makes it easy for shoppers to scroll, search, and shop among tens of millions of products listed on it.

Walmart Advertising Campaigns

Once you know why advertising your brand on Walmart is non-negotiable, the next question to answer is how to do that. Walmart advertising has moved to a second-price auction model (similar to Amazon) where the top bidder pays $0.01 more than the second-highest bidder. This ensures that as an advertiser, you always get the maximum ROAS for every campaign you choose to run on the platform.

Walmart’s Sponsored Products are another effective method that most advertisers leverage in order to improve visibility on high-traffic pages. Placements including Buy Box, Search In-grid, and Product Carousels attract motivated shoppers ready to purchase. Walmart adds tags like “best seller” and “popular pick” on top search results, both paid and organic, which gives your product bonus points in the eyes of the shopper.

Once you have a new or returning consumer on your product detail page, your content, including your product images, videos, description, and reviews, should all convince them to add the product to their cart.

7 Best Practices for Walmart Advertising

Ready to get started building Walmart advertising campaigns? It is important to note that you can’t simply copy your Amazon campaigns to create your Walmart advertising strategy. As a very different platform, Walmart requires its own ad strategy. Here are a few best practices to guide your strategy:

1. Budget rigidity is a bad idea - Having the space in your campaign budget to adjust according to the customer response, competitor campaigns, and other market conditions when the campaign is live is not a luxury. Don’t make the mistake of allotting every last dollar beforehand. Keep some spare in case of a last-minute dip or rise in sales of a particular product. Being intentional with your budget setting ensures you don’t get swayed and overpay for bids.
2. Walmart Connect is your best friend - Utilize both on-site and off-site placements for your advertising using display products from Walmart Connect. A well-rounded brand presence across the website, app, and social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest builds precious recall value.
3. Make your consumer’s choice an obvious one - It’s simple - your consumers like to feel like they are in control. So, when it comes to the product’s colors, the shipping duration, and product sizes, give them the choice to “customize” their purchase. This makes the shopping experience feel more luxurious and reduces the chance of abandonment.
4. Define the KPIs that matter to you - With tons of metrics available and more data than you could utilize, it’s vital for your brand to recognize and pinpoint the KPIs that will help you reach your goals. These could be of many types and measure many things like your output, efficiency, quality, visibility, and productivity.
5. Your targeting could use an upgrade - No matter when you last did a refresh, elements like keyword research and targeting need to be updated. With every campaign, every season, and every launch, your focus should shift to the consumers’ search patterns. A new trend we are seeing is the rise in search for non-branded keywords, and brands taking advantage of this are already seeing massive returns. Remove non-converting keywords to save money and find new ones to target instead of recycling the same old ones every time.
6. Launch early, test frequently - Brands new to the platform may not know this, but you save a ton of headache by simply being ahead of the game. Your competition might not, but you should launch your campaigns and build up your relevancy score beforehand. This also means you can employ dayparting strategies and win bid placements later.
7. Your performance data has power - Durability can be an often-overlooked aspect of your ad placements, and you really don’t need to use all SKUs in all campaigns. Instead, focus on analyzing data you collect at the page placement level and establish your “Hero SKUs” too.

It can feel overwhelming to add Walmart strategies to your brand’s portfolio, but research will tell you that it can be easy to optimize and statistics are proof that they work. Walmart’s advertising platform has a lot of unique features to offer, and automation technology can help suppliers of all sizes to make their mark and turn profits.

These 7 practices can help you build your awareness and also increase organic ranking for your products. To learn more about Walmart advertising and find the resources you need to succeed at it, book a demo with Pacvue today.

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