Walmart Inc. (NYSE:WMT) has renamed its ad business “Walmart Connect” and announce various strategic moves including a partnership with ad tech firm The Trade desk. The retailer is creating the infrastructure supporting its demand-side platform for marketers and it settles on Trade Desk DSP after almost a year of testing.
Walmart growing its ad business
The company said the moves will help it in its efforts to grow the segment in the next five years and take on rivals such as Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN). The Walmart Media Group claims to have a “massive reach” and “massive scale” to advertisers stating that almost 160 million customers visit its websites or stores each month. The company’s DSP is a walled-off Trade Desk version with exclusive Walmart inventory and data. It employs a Self-service model to offer buyers transparency this completing the transformation from the ad network-style Walmart Exchange that was like a block box to customers.
However, the segment still contributes a small part of the retailer’s revenue. The company indicated that last year the Walmart Media Group alongside fuel and financial services contributed only 1% of annual sales of around $524 billion. On the other hand, Amazon reported revenue from the sale of ad services of around $5.5 billion which is almost 6% of its total revenue
Leveraging Walmart shoppers data to target ads
Most importantly, despite the Walmart ad business being smaller the segment got a boost during the pandemic as most consumers bought groceries and did shopping online. Walmart Connect will leverage The Trade Desk’s technology to reach targeted audiences across media devices and formats. The DSP the companies are creating will use shopping data from Walmart for targeted ads beyond Walmart’s sites. Last year AdExchanger reported that the company was running two rival DSPs, which are Xandr and The Trade Desk.
Janey Whiteside the Walmart Chief Customer Officer said that they are confident that they will grow the business to be among the top ad platforms in the US in the coming years. She said added that the physical footprint was a major differentiator.