The eCommerce world has over the years become increasingly competitive. This has contributed to the gross need for sellers and brands to develop strong advertising strategies that enable them to reach their sales goals as well as to stand out against competitors.
Walmart’s marketplace has immensely grown over the last couple of years. The platform holds a huge window of opportunity for sellers seeking to grow their marketplace visibility. The Walmart marketplace offers sellers and brands the opportunity to reach a broad audience and boost their long-term visibility.
In this article, we will learn more about Walmart Advertising. We will dive into various ad types, campaign setup, eligibility, bidding models, and much more. Both new and experienced sellers will benefit from reading this.
What is Walmart Advertising?
Walmart Advertising is an eCommerce approach to advertising that allows sellers and brands to boost their visibility as well as to promote the discoverability of their products in the Walmart Marketplace. The Walmart platform offers Sponsored Product ads which qualify brands to appear on search page results, product pages, and category pages.
Advertising on Walmart.com is not only about boosting immediate sales; it also promotes longevity as it contributes to long-term success. When brands run successful ads, they can improve their organic ranking, collect more valuable data, and generate a higher rate of overall sales.
The Benefits of Advertising on Walmart’s Marketplace
There is a wide pool of benefits to using Walmart for advertising purposes. Outlined below are some key advantages to advertising on Walmart’s Marketplace:
- Increased Visibility: The use of Sponsored Product Ads on Walmart can help your products appear at the top of relevant search results, category pages as well as product pages. This promotes brand visibility which helps your brand to capture the attention of potential customers as well as to increase the prospects of making sales.
- Organic Ranking Boost: Walmart’s Flywheel Effect demonstrates the positive impact of advertising on organic rankings. The seller can improve organic rankings by running ads and generating sales, leading to both increased visibility and sales over time.
- Growth Potential: The Walmart Marketplace attracts millions of unique monthly online visitors and this provides sellers access to a broad customer base. A seller can tap into this broad customer base to expand business by leveraging Walmart’s advertising options.
- Data Collection: Walmart Sponsored Products allows the seller to collect valuable customer data. Insights that provide foundational information to optimize advertising strategies for the most efficient results can be collected through testing factors such as shipping speeds, copy adjustments as well as prices.
Who is Eligible to Advertise on Walmart?
Walmart Sponsored Products are available to marketplace sellers, vendors, and agencies. A seller’s products must be in stock to advertise on Walmart as well as to win the Buy Box. Additionally, the product should appear within the top 128 organic search results and be of the same category and product type as at least one non-sponsored product in the top 20 results.
Furthermore, there is the need to be a good-standing seller as well as to commit to a minimum ad spend of a minimum of $100 per day or $1,000 per month. The cost-per-click (CPC) rates however ultimately drive the total advertising costs.
How Bidding Works on Walmart
Unlike Amazon’s second-bid model, Walmart uses a first-bid model for advertising auctions. In the first-bid model, the auction winner pays the exact amount they bid, regardless of how high it is compared to the second-highest bid.
When setting up and optimizing bids, it is important to consider the target audience as well as the competition in the category. It is also of great importance to prioritize profitability as ROAS is the ultimate goal.
Manual Campaigns: Taking Control of Your Sponsored Products
For manual campaigns, sellers can handpick the match types (exact, phrase, or broad) as well as the keywords they want to place bids on. Walmart’s Keyword Analytics tool can help identify high-value keywords to target. Additionally, sellers can set individual CPC bids and adjust them as per need.
Manual campaigns are a lot more strategic. They require active management and maintenance but also offer a great deal of control which minimizes wastage on spend.
Automatic Campaigns: Maximizing Exposure and Reach
Automatic campaigns are the best ad type to start with. They are easy to set up as they are set up through a process of providing basic product information to the platform. The algorithm takes care of keyword management and bid adjustments to maximize impressions. Automatic campaigns are a strategic way to gather valuable data and explore new opportunities within the Walmart marketplace. Once the initial traction is gained, sellers can transition from automatic campaigns to manual campaigns for a precisely targeted approach.
Available Ad Types on Walmart
Walmart has multiple ad types to help sellers showcase their products. The three main ad types are:
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- Search In-grid: This type is based on the relevancy of keywords. Ads typically appear within the first 12 search results, category, and product pages.
- Buy Box: These Ads appear just below the buy box on a product page. The most significant benefit of this ad type is that it appeals to customers ready to purchase.
- Carousel: Carousel ads feature a scrollable carousel of similar items on category and product pages. This ad type allows sellers to showcase their products alongside related products, increasing visibility and potential sales.
Setting Up Your First Walmart Advertising Campaign?
To set up your first Walmart advertising campaign, you have two options: self-serve or third-party access. Get in touch with Bellavix to help you get started with Walmart advertising.
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