Walmart has quietly become one of the largest retail media networks in the US, and most of its top marketplace sellers now advertise on it. If you sell on Walmart and are not running ads, or you are running them without a plan, you are leaving high-intent shoppers and sales on the table.
Here is a complete Walmart advertising strategy: the ad types, how to set up your first campaign, a five-step plan to scale profitably, and the mistakes that quietly waste budget. We manage Walmart and Amazon PPC for growing brands, so this is the same approach we use in real accounts.
TL;DR — the short version
What is the best Walmart advertising strategy? Start with Walmart Sponsored Products on your best-selling, Buy Box-eligible listings, build campaigns on keyword and first-party data, then layer in Sponsored Brands, video, and display as you scale. Optimize weekly and judge results on profit and total advertising cost of sale rather than raw ad sales. The winners treat Walmart advertising as a profit system rather than a set-and-forget spend.
Why Advertise on Walmart
Walmart Connect is Walmart’s advertising arm, and it reaches shoppers who are already on the platform ready to buy. That buyer intent is what makes retail-media ads convert better than top-of-funnel channels.
A few things make Walmart worth your budget:
- ●High-intent shoppers: people searching Walmart are shopping to buy, so ads meet them at the moment of decision.
- ●Rare first-party data: Walmart combines online browsing with real in-store purchase history, which powers targeting you cannot get elsewhere.
- ●Less crowded than Amazon: advertiser competition is lighter, so clicks can cost less and visibility comes easier for the same effort.
- ●Proven adoption: most top Walmart Marketplace sellers advertise with Walmart Connect, a sign the channel works for serious brands.
Walmart Connect Ad Types
Walmart Connect offers several ad formats that map to different stages of the shopping journey. Knowing what each does helps you build the right mix.
- ●Sponsored Products: cost-per-click (CPC) ads that appear in search results, browse pages, and item pages, and they are the core format for driving sales. Walmart’s Sponsored Products show in placements like the search grid, carousels, and the Buy Box, and our Walmart Sponsored Products guide goes deeper on each one.
- ●Sponsored Brands: keyword-targeted ads with your logo, a headline, and several products at the top of search, available to registered brand owners for brand awareness.
- ●Sponsored Videos: short video ads in search results that show a product in action, strong for items that benefit from demonstration.
- ●Onsite Display: visual ads across Walmart’s homepage, search, category, and item pages, with behavioral and demographic targeting, covered in our guide to Walmart display and banner ads.
- ●Offsite and DSP: programmatic ads that follow Walmart audiences beyond Walmart’s own properties, useful for retargeting and reach.
Walmart groups Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, and Sponsored Videos under Sponsored Search, which is where most sellers start.
What You Need to Start Advertising on Walmart
Before you launch, make sure your account and listings are ready. Walmart advertising rewards sellers who get the basics right first.
- ●An active Walmart Marketplace account in good standing, set up in Walmart Connect Ad Center.
- ●Published, in-stock listings that are eligible to win the Buy Box, since ads point shoppers to your product page.
- ●Optimized product content: clear titles, strong images, a competitive price, and reviews, because a listing that does not convert wastes ad clicks.
- ●A budget and a goal: decide whether you are chasing visibility, sales, or ranking before you spend.
How to Set Up Your First Walmart Campaign
Setup runs through Walmart Connect Ad Center, and your first campaign should be simple. Start narrow, learn, then expand.
- ●Sign in to Ad Center: access it through your Walmart Seller Center account or your ad partner.
- ●Start with Sponsored Products: pick your best-selling, Buy Box-eligible items rather than the whole catalog.
- ●Choose your campaign type: automatic to let Walmart find keywords, or manual to bid on terms you choose, and many sellers run both.
- ●Set bids and budget: start within a sensible range and give the campaign enough budget to gather real data.
- ●Launch and monitor: let it run a few days to learn, then start optimizing on the numbers.
A 5-Step Walmart Advertising Strategy
Setting up ads is easy, and making them profitable is the work. Here is the five-step strategy we use to turn Walmart spend into growth.
Optimize Your Listings Before You Spend
Ads drive traffic, and your listing has to close the sale. Sharpen your titles, images, price, and reviews first, because a poor page turns paid clicks into wasted budget.
Start With Sponsored Products on Your Best SKUs
Put your budget behind proven winners rather than your whole catalog. Your top-selling, Buy Box-eligible products already convert, so they give ads the best chance to profit while you learn the platform.
Build Campaigns on Keyword and First-Party Data
Walmart’s auction pairs your product’s relevance with your bid, so the right keywords matter. Use search-term reports and Walmart’s first-party data to find the terms that convert, the same discipline as Amazon keyword research, and negate the terms that only burn spend.
Layer In Brand, Video, and Display to Scale
Once Sponsored Products are profitable, add Sponsored Brands and video to own more of the search page, then use display and Walmart performance ads to remarket to shoppers who did not buy. Each layer widens reach without abandoning the profitable core.
Judge Everything on Profit Over Ad Sales
A low advertising cost of sale (ACoS) feels good, but total advertising cost of sale (TACoS) tells you whether ads are growing the business. Track spend against total sales and margin, using the same TACoS discipline that keeps Amazon campaigns honest.
What a Winning Walmart Campaign Looks Like
Seeing the strategy in practice helps. Here is what a healthy Walmart advertising setup looks like for a mid-sized brand.
Picture a home-goods seller with ten products. They put Sponsored Products behind their three best sellers, run one automatic campaign to discover keywords and one manual campaign for the proven terms, and negate the searches that never convert.
As those campaigns turn profitable, they add a Sponsored Brands campaign to capture the top of search and a display campaign to remarket to shoppers who viewed but did not buy. Every week they prune wasted spend and shift budget to the winners, and they measure the whole thing on TACoS rather than chasing a low ACoS.
The result is not a single hero campaign, it is a tuned system where each format does one job and the budget flows to what profits.
Common Walmart Advertising Mistakes
A few mistakes reliably drain Walmart budgets. Avoid these and your spend works harder.
- ●Running only manual or only automatic: automatic finds new keywords and manual controls the proven ones, so you want both working together.
- ●Advertising the whole catalog at once: spreading budget across every SKU starves your winners, so concentrate spend on products that convert.
- ●Spending without a plan or negatives: budget with no structure and no negative keywords leaks money on searches that never sell.
- ●Ignoring the listing: ads cannot fix a weak product page, so fix conversion before you scale spend.
- ●Chasing a low ACoS: the goal is profit and growth, so judge campaigns on TACoS and total margin.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Conclusion
A strong Walmart advertising strategy is not complicated, but it is deliberate. Get your listings right, start with Sponsored Products on your best products, build on keyword and first-party data, scale into brand and display, and judge every move on profit.
Walmart’s ad platform is still less crowded than Amazon’s, which means the sellers who build a real strategy now capture cheaper attention before everyone else piles in. The tools are there, and the edge is in how you use them.
If you would rather have a hands-on team run your Walmart advertising and Amazon PPC as one profit-focused system, that is what we do. Get a free audit and we will show you exactly where your spend can work harder.
Isaac Gross is the founder and CEO of IG PPC, a hands-on Amazon and Walmart PPC agency for 7 to 9 figure brands. An Amazon seller since 2015, he founded IG PPC in 2019 and the firm now manages billions in annual Amazon sales.
