Advertising on Walmart: Is it Worth the Investment in 2021?

Updated: Aug 2021

While Amazon may currently control the lion’s share of the online retail marketplace, Walmart has dominated the retail industry for decades. Though Amazon officially surpassed Walmart as the world’s largest retailer in 2019, Walmart recently acquired an online tech platform – Polymorph – in an attempt to compete with Amazon in the digital ad space and reclaim its former position.

Additionally, Walmart launched its self-serve ad platform that enables advertisers to directly purchase on-site adverts within the company’s marketplace. In the announcement of this offering, Walmart stated, “Today, we’re kicking off 2020 with the launch of our Walmart Advertising Partners program to expand advertisers’ direct access to their Sponsored Products campaigns, an auction-based marketplace, giving them more transparency and control. Brands will now be able to increase visibility with Walmart’s diverse, sizable audience of shoppers.”

How to take advantage of Walmart’s growing eCommerce presence

Amazon is still the undisputed eCommerce leader, though there are several reasons Walmart.com is a good investment for retailers.

Build historical performance for future growth. There may be a negative return on most ad types currently on offer on Walmart.com. However, sellers need to invest, test, and build historical performance in order to benchmark future growth.

Stronger organic presence. Paid advertising on Walmart can enforce your organic presence and increase discoverability and visibility.

Boost new seller performance. New sellers and products can utilize digital advertising to boost their early sales performance.

Aid struggling SKUs. Low-performing SKUs on Walmart can get higher visibility through targeted ads.

Walmart’s advertising platform difference

Advertising on Walmart.com is different from advertising on Amazon or Google. There are variations in its algorithms and the way that Walmart treats brands.

Here are some main differences:

• Organic listings are impacted by advertising performance. If you have ads for the same product that get clicks and views you can push a product to higher organic listings.
• Most brands on Walmart aren’t given their own exclusive page as they are on other eCommerce platforms. If you’re on a product detail page and you click a brand, the site will do a google search for that term and send you to the results page, as opposed to Amazon, which sends you to the brand page.
• Search functionality isn’t as strong on Walmart.com as it is on other online marketplaces, and it is more difficult to be discovered organically if you don’t have boosters like the 2-day shipping badge.

How to advertise effectively on Walmart

To get the most value from your Walmart advertisements, we recommend making careful use of automated campaigns. Automated campaigns have the potential to take off very quickly, as they are eligible for more placements, so don’t set and forget – check on your campaign after 3 days.

If you’re running manual campaigns, start with keywords from the Suggested Keywords tab. They’re listed in descending order, so starting with the top of the list will give you better results than the ones below – and probably better than any long-tail keywords you add yourself.

If you can set aside an advertising budget, consider it a test. It may not perform as well as Amazon or Google, but it will serve as a good benchmark for future performance.

Walmart is not yet at the level of Amazon and Google, however, there are still benefits to exploring this market to gain both immediate value and future rewards. If you set realistic expectations as to what Walmart.com can deliver and are open to experimentation, it’s possible to receive reasonably large returns on your ad spend on this platform.

If you have any questions or want us to help you on your Amazon journey, don’t hesitate to contact the BellaVix Team. 

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