Walmart Marketplace advertising is becoming a challenge for brands with every passing year. Reason? The growing competition. Every new seller is entering the market with proactive strategies and unique products that compete with the market share of your relevant products.

What do you do in this regard? Well, you press hard on the throttle of your ad optimization because achieving organic placements is time-consuming. Leveraging Walmart Banner Ads is one of the smartest moves you can make. But what are they, and how do we optimize for them? Let’s have a look.

If you’d like to focus on the core parts of your business and leave the ad optimization to experts, IG PPC can help. Get a free audit today and see how to improve your store’s profits.

What is Walmart Marketplace Advertising?

Walmart Marketplace advertising is a powerful practice that enables sellers to promote their products on Walmart’s online marketplace. This allows them to reach a vast audience of millions of active shoppers. Imagine if your product could be viewed and purchased by people of every age and race around the world – that’s what effective Walmart advertising strategies do.

The advertising is done through Walmart Connect, which is the platform’s self-service advertising tool. Sellers can create and manage ads over here.

How to Run Walmart Ads?

Running Walmart ads is a step wise process.

1. Set up your campaign: Start by selecting the products you want to promote. Set a budget that aligns with your goals and choose your ad format, such as sponsored products or banner ads.
2. Target the right audience: Walmart Marketplace offers targeting options, allowing you to focus on specific keywords and devices (e.g. mobile and desktop). Optimizing these settings increases the chances of your ads reaching the most relevant audience.
3. Bid and optimize: Determine your bidding strategy based on your budget, competition, and expertise. Walmart Connect allows you to set manual bids or use automated bidding to optimize your ad placements. Regularly monitor your campaign performance and adjust to improve results, such as refining keywords or reallocating the budget to top-performing Walmart advertising ads.

Types of Walmart Marketplace Ads

Walmart marketplace ads come in 3 different types, each designed to help boost visibility and drive sales.

1. Sponsored Products

Walmart Sponsored Products are pay-per-click (PPC) ads that promote individual products within Walmart’s search results and have the “Sponsored” tag with them. They appear as search in-grid, carousel, and buy box ads.

Benefits for customers: Helps customers discover relevant products quickly, especially when searching for specific items.

Benefits for sellers: Increases product visibility, driving more traffic and potential sales directly to your listings.

2. Sponsored Brands

Sponsored brand ads feature a brand’s logo, a custom headline, and multiple products. They typically appear at the top of search results to provide prime visibility.

Benefits for customers: It allows them to explore a brand’s product range and helps them find trusted products from known sellers.

Benefits for sellers: Enhances brand recognition and drives traffic to a broader range of products. This increases the likelihood of multiple sales.

To be eligible for this ad placement, you must be a part of Walmart’s Brand Portal, have at least 3 products to promote within a single ad and be based in the U.S., U.K., Hong Kong, China or a pre-approved seller in India (at the time of writing).

3. Sponsored Display

These ads are displayed through Walmart’s Display Self-Serve (DSS) platform or Demand-side Platform (DSP), both on-site and off-site.

The on-site ads appear within search results, browse pages or as a marquee on top of Walmart pages. While the off-site ones are shown on social media platforms like Facebook and e-commerce websites.

Benefits for customers: It introduces shoppers to new and related products as they browse, making it easier to discover products of interest.

Benefits for sellers: It provides extensive reach and helps to get sales from Walmart and other websites.

What Are Walmart Banner Ads?

Walmart banner ads are large, visually appealing ads that appear in prominent locations on Walmart’s website, like the top of search results or on the right side of the page. These ads are designed to capture attention and promote brand awareness, special promotions, or key products.

Typically used by brands with large advertising budgets, they can be very beneficial for promoting a new product or introducing a seasonal sale.

How Walmart Banner Ads Help You Get More Sales?

Advertising on Walmart involves diverse practices. Banner ads are a powerful tool for driving sales. Let’s examine some of the ways they do this.

• Prime visibility in high-traffic areas: These ads are strategically placed in the most visible areas of Walmart’s website. These high-traffic locations ensure that a large number of potential customers see your products.According to Walmart Connect, 52% of customers feel that Walmart ads help them discover new, interesting products.
• Enhanced brand awareness: Banner ads do more than just showcase a single product – they promote your brand as a whole. By consistently appearing in prominent positions, your brand becomes recognizable to shoppers. This leads to higher trust and improves the brand’s recall value.\
• Promotion of special offers: They are an excellent way to highlight special promotions, discounts or seasonal campaigns. We all know how competitive the holiday season becomes for sellers – Christmas, New Year and all. By drawing attention to the limited-time offers mentioned in these ads, you can create a sense of urgency to prompt purchasing.
• Measurable performance: One of the major advantages of Walmart Banner ads is the ability to track their performance in real time. With access to detailed analytics, you can see which ads are driving the most clicks and sales. After all, we all know this quote, right?—what gets measured gets improved.

Schedule a free audit call today. We’ll show you how our Walmart specialists at IG PPC can optimize your banner ads performance.

Walmart Banner Ads Best Practices and Tips

To maximize the effectiveness of your Walmart Banner ads, implement these tips.

1. Design with impact in mind: Your banner ad design should be visually compelling and instantly grab attention. Use high-quality images, bold colors and concise messaging to make sure your ad stands out. Think of it as a digital billboard – you have only a few seconds to capture the viewer’s attention.
2. Prioritize relevance: Utilize Walmart’s targeting capabilities to ensure your banner ads reach the right audience. Segment your ads based on factors like devices, shopping behavior, and search terms. Ryan King, the CEO of BlueRyse, describes a simple method to find targeted search terms in Walmart; “go to the relevant category, sort the results by best sellers, pinpoint the top 10 results, and scrape their keywords/search terms through a specific tool.” Ta-da.
3. Test and optimize: Regular A/B tests different elements of your banner ads, such as headlines, images, and CTA buttons. Analyze their performance data to identify what works best and double down on that.
4. Use strong CTAs: Your CTA should be clear, catchy, and action-oriented. For example, “Discover your new favorite” is better than the simple “shop now” CTA.
5. Align with your overall marketing strategy: This means your Walmart banner ads should be consistent with your broader marketing efforts. The messaging. The tone. The visuals. All of it. You don’t want to confuse your customer, right?

IG PPC takes pride in following all of the best practices of Walmart online advertising. Our team of specialists offer tailored strategies for each brand. Book your free audit today and see for yourself.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Before we call this a day, let’s have a look at some popular questions you have about Walmart banner ads.

What is the Cost of Advertising on Walmart Marketplace? 

The minimum monthly ad spend for Walmart online advertising is $1000 if you’re running a self-serve campaign. If you’re running a managed campaign, a commitment of $25,000 may be required. Also, keep in mind that there are no setup or hidden fees on the marketplace for sellers.

What Are the Costs Associated With Walmart Banner Ads?

The costs for Walmart Banner ads vary based on factors like the campaign’s duration and the targeting options (manual or automatic). It can range from a few dollars to higher amounts depending on the visibility and competitiveness of the placement.

We at IG PPC run your banner ads in a way that maximizes profitability.

How Effective Are Walmart Banner Ads Compared to Other Advertising Methods?

Walmart Banner ads are highly effective due to their prominent placement on high-traffic pages like the homepage. They offer broad visibility, which drives clicks and enhances brand awareness.

What Are the Design Requirements for Walmart Banner Ads?

Some of the design requirements for Walmart Banner ads include the following:

• Using approved fonts and font sizes
• Keeping the file size under the maximum size allowed
• Adhering to supported file formats like JPEG and PNG
• Adding minimal text and bold visuals – not clustering

Conclusion

There you have it – the Walmart Banner Ads guide. Remember, the key to success lies in testing different variations, analyzing the data, and doubling down on what works. 

If you’re still unsure how to do it all, let our experts at IG PPC step in. Request a free audit today to see how we can help with your brand’s ad performance on Walmart.