Walmart is the largest retailer in the world, and for suppliers, that reach isn’t just a selling opportunity — it’s an advertising one too.
Walmart Connect is Walmart’s retail media platform, giving suppliers and marketplace sellers the ability to put their products in front of the right customers at the right moment — whether they’re searching on Walmart.com, browsing the app, or walking through a store. With more than 150 million weekly shoppers and $4.4 billion in ad revenue in fiscal year 2024, Walmart Connect has grown into one of the most powerful retail media networks in the country.
As an official member of the Walmart Connect Partner Network, 8th & Walton is uniquely positioned to help suppliers navigate this platform — combining deep Walmart expertise with formal recognition within Walmart’s retail media ecosystem.
In this guide, we’ll walk you through everything you need to know — what Walmart Connect is, how it works, the advertising options available, how to get started, and how to use it effectively as a Walmart supplier.
Walmart Connect is the media division of Walmart, built to help suppliers and marketplace sellers reach Walmart customers through targeted advertising across digital, in-store, and off-site channels. Think of it as Walmart’s answer to retail media — a platform that turns Walmart’s massive shopper data into a precision advertising tool for the brands that sell there.
Formerly known as Walmart Media Group, the platform was rebranded to Walmart Connect in 2021 to reflect its broader ambition: connecting brands with customers across every touchpoint in the shopping journey, not just on Walmart.com.
What makes Walmart Connect different from a traditional digital ad platform is the data behind it. Because Walmart operates both online and in thousands of physical stores, it has access to a rare combination of online browsing behavior and real in-store purchase history. That first-party data powers every campaign on the platform — helping your ads reach shoppers who are already in a buying mindset, rather than just browsing the internet.
Campaigns are managed through Walmart Connect Ad Center, a self-serve platform where suppliers can build, launch, and optimize campaigns with full visibility into performance. Whether you’re running your first sponsored product ad or managing a full-funnel omnichannel strategy, Ad Center is where it all happens.
Here are the advantages of working with Walmart Connect:
Walmart Connect offers a range of ad formats designed to reach customers at every stage of the shopping journey — from initial discovery all the way through to purchase. Here’s a breakdown of what’s available:
Sponsored Products are the most widely used ad format on Walmart Connect, and for good reason. These cost-per-click ads appear throughout Walmart’s search results, category pages, and product detail pages, putting your items in front of customers who are actively searching for products like yours. Within Sponsored Products, there are several placement options:
Sponsored Brands ads appear at the top of search results and feature your brand logo alongside up to four products with shoppable links. You can also add a Custom Image that displays prominently on the Walmart app — a valuable placement that takes up significant screen space and appears in addition to your brand logo.
This format is especially valuable for smaller or newer brands that don’t yet have strong organic search rankings, as it provides immediate top-of-page visibility and helps build brand recognition alongside product sales.
Sponsored Videos are short video ads that appear within search results, helping your brand stand out in a crowded feed. They’re particularly effective for products that benefit from demonstration — anything where showing beats telling — and for showcasing alternative use cases that help shoppers see your product in a new light.
Walmart buyers increasingly want to see suppliers highlight these alternate uses, making Sponsored Videos a strategic format beyond just driving direct sales. They work well alongside Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands as part of a broader search strategy.
Onsite Display ads use eye-catching visuals to reach shoppers across Walmart’s site and app — on the homepage, search pages, category pages, and item pages.
Unlike Sponsored Search, which targets customers actively searching for a product, Onsite Display uses Walmart’s first-party data to reach customers based on their browsing and purchase history, making it a strong tool for building brand awareness and driving consideration earlier in the funnel.
Walmart Connect also allows suppliers to reach Walmart shoppers beyond Walmart’s own properties. Through partnerships with platforms including The Trade Desk, TikTok, and Roku — part of Walmart Connect’s Connected TV (CTV) strategy —offsite media campaigns use Walmart’s first-party data to target Walmart customers as they move across the broader web, social media, and streaming platforms.
It’s a powerful way to reinforce your message and drive shoppers back to Walmart.
For suppliers selling in physical Walmart locations, in-store advertising options include digital screens, self-checkout kiosks, television wall placements, and in-store audio. With over 170,000 digital screens across more than 4,700 United States stores, these placements offer a unique opportunity to influence purchase decisions at the exact moment a customer is in the aisle.
Walmart Connect now also offers In-Store Demos through the platform, giving suppliers another hands-on way to engage shoppers directly at the point of purchase.
Brand Shop is a virtual storefront on Walmart’s site that lets eligible suppliers tell their brand story, showcase their full product assortment, and create an always-on destination for customers to explore. Shelf acts as a shoppable landing page that supports specific media activations. Both are self-serve tools available through Ad Center.
One of the most compelling aspects of Walmart Connect is the quality of the data behind its targeting. Because Walmart operates at the intersection of online and in-store shopping, the targeting options available here go deeper than most digital advertising platforms. Here’s what suppliers can work with:
Keyword targeting allows you to serve ads to customers based on the specific search terms they use on Walmart.com. You select the keywords most relevant to your products, set bids for each, and your ads appear when customers search those terms. This is the most direct way to reach high-intent shoppers — people who are actively looking for what you sell.
If you’re new to Walmart Connect or want to gather data before going fully manual, automatic targeting is a good starting point. Walmart’s algorithm selects keywords and placements on your behalf based on your product information and category, testing what works and building a performance foundation. It requires less hands-on management and can surface keyword opportunities you might not have thought to target manually.
Behavioral targeting uses Walmart’s first-party purchase and browsing data to reach customers based on what they’ve actually done — what they’ve bought, searched for, and engaged with — both on Walmart.com and in physical stores. This is one of Walmart Connect’s most powerful differentiators, giving suppliers access to targeting signals that most ad platforms simply don’t have.
Contextual targeting places your ads alongside relevant content and product categories, reaching customers who are browsing in spaces related to your product, even if they haven’t searched for it directly. This is particularly useful for driving discovery among shoppers who might not know your product exists yet.
Walmart Connect allows you to build and target specific audience segments based on demographics, life stage, and shopping patterns. Want to reach households with young children, frequent grocery buyers, or customers who recently purchased in your category? Audience targeting makes that level of specificity possible.
Keyword retargeting allows you to re-engage customers who have previously searched for relevant terms on Walmart.com but didn’t convert. These are warm audiences — shoppers who have already demonstrated interest — making them some of the highest-value customers you can reach.
Run of Site targeting places your display ads broadly across Walmart’s site and app without restricting to specific audiences or keywords. It’s a useful tool for maximizing reach and brand awareness when your goal is visibility at scale rather than precision targeting.
Walmart Connect Ad Center is the self-serve platform where you build, launch, and manage your campaigns. Getting started is more straightforward than many suppliers expect. Here’s how to do it:
Getting your first campaign live is just the beginning. The suppliers who see the strongest returns from Walmart Connect aren’t necessarily the ones with the biggest budgets — they’re the ones who approach the platform strategically and refine their approach over time. Here are the best practices that separate strong performers from the rest:
Yes. Walmart Connect is Walmart’s own retail media division — it’s not a third-party platform. It was built and operated by Walmart to give suppliers and marketplace sellers a direct way to advertise to Walmart’s customer base using Walmart’s own first-party data.
Walmart Connect launched under its current name in 2021, when Walmart rebranded its advertising division from Walmart Media Group to Walmart Connect. The rebrand reflected the platform’s growing ambition to connect brands with customers across digital, in-store, and off-site channels — not just on Walmart.com.
Primarily, yes — Walmart Connect is designed for suppliers and marketplace sellers who are actively selling products on Walmart. That said, Walmart has begun offering off-site media options to non-endemic brands, meaning companies whose products aren’t sold at Walmart but whose offerings are relevant to Walmart customers.
For most suppliers reading this, however, Walmart Connect is squarely focused on helping you advertise the products you already sell there.
Walmart Connect uses an auction-based pricing model, meaning costs vary based on competition, category, and the ad format you’re using. Sponsored Search ads are cost-per-click, so you only pay when someone clicks on your ad. On-site display campaigns operate on an effective cost per thousand impressions model, meaning you pay per thousand impressions. Walmart recommends a minimum daily budget of $100 for Sponsored Products campaigns to maintain visibility and give the algorithm enough data to optimize.
There’s no single fixed cost — your spend is ultimately determined by your budget, your bids, and how competitive your category is.
Walmart Connect Ad Center is the self-serve platform where suppliers and marketplace sellers build, launch, and manage their Walmart Connect campaigns. You access it at advertising.walmart.com using your Supplier Center or Seller Center credentials.
Ad Center gives you full control over campaign setup, targeting, budgets, bids, and performance reporting — all in one place. It’s separate from Seller Center, which is used to manage your marketplace account more broadly.
Both platforms are retail media networks built on first-party shopper data, but there are meaningful differences. Walmart Connect’s biggest advantage is its omnichannel reach — because Walmart operates thousands of physical stores in addition to its digital properties, it can connect online ad exposure to in-store purchase behavior in a way Amazon simply can’t.
Walmart also tends to have a lower cost-per-click in many categories, making it a more efficient entry point for suppliers who are newer to retail media advertising.
Not necessarily. While Walmart recommends a minimum daily budget of $100 for Sponsored Products to build momentum, you don’t need an enterprise-level budget to see results. Starting focused — with a handful of strong products, a clear goal, and a manageable budget — is a more effective approach than spreading a large budget thin across too many campaigns at once.
Walmart Connect is a powerful platform — but like most things at Walmart, getting the most out of it requires more than just setting up an account and running a few ads. It requires understanding how advertising fits into your broader Walmart strategy, how your listings affect your ad performance, and how to interpret the data coming back at you.
That’s where 8th & Walton comes in — and we’re now an official member of the Walmart Connect Partner Network.
We’ve spent decades helping suppliers navigate every dimension of the Walmart business — from supply chain and accounting to ecommerce, retail media, and everything in between. Our team brings over 300 years of combined Walmart experience to every client engagement, and our inclusion in the Walmart Connect Partner Network reflects our deep expertise in helping suppliers build and execute advertising strategies that drive real results.
We understand how Walmart Connect fits into the bigger picture of supplier performance, and we know what separates suppliers who see real returns from those who spend without results. As a fixed-fee, non-commission firm, our recommendations are always in your best interest — not driven by ad spend incentives.
Whether you’re just getting started with Walmart Connect, trying to improve the performance of existing campaigns, or looking for a more strategic approach to retail media as part of your overall Walmart account, our team can help you move forward with confidence.
We also offer training resources for suppliers who want to build internal capability — including courses that cover Walmart’s advertising tools, ecommerce execution, and the broader Walmart ecosystem.
If you’re ready to make Walmart Connect work harder for your business, we’d love to talk.
Walmart Connect has grown from a relatively new advertising platform into one of the most significant retail media networks in the country — and for Walmart suppliers, it’s becoming harder to ignore.
The combination of Walmart’s unmatched shopper reach, powerful first-party data, and a growing suite of ad formats means there are more ways than ever to put your products in front of the right customers at the right moment. Whether you’re trying to launch a new item, defend your search placement, build brand awareness, or drive in-store sales, Walmart Connect has tools built for each of those goals.
The suppliers who will get the most out of the platform are the ones who approach it strategically — with strong listings, clear objectives, and a willingness to learn and adjust over time.
If you’re not yet advertising on Walmart Connect, now is a good time to start. And if you are, there’s likely more performance available to you than your current campaigns are capturing.
Either way, 8th & Walton is here to help you get there.