Making your business stand out on one of the world’s largest online marketplaces is not easy, but it can get easier with Walmart’s performance ads and the right strategy.
Whether new to the Walmart ad platform or looking to refine your strategy, this guide will show you how to make every ad dollar count.
If you’d like to focus on what you do best and leave the ad optimization to a Walmart PPC agency, our team at IG PPC can help. You do you, and we will do your Walmart advertising.
Get a free audit of your Walmart listings and campaigns, and let us help make your store more profitable.
TL;DR – Walmart Performance Ads Strategy
For the action-takers looking to get the advertising steps and run with it, here’s a summary:
- Take time to do the keyword research properly.
- Use Walmart’s built-in targeting options to reach the right customers.
- Create clear, engaging, and persuasive ad copy.
- Set competitive bids that will send your ads to prime locations.
- Set and monitor your daily budget to avoid overspending.
- Regularly review your return on investment (ROI).
- Analyze ad performance with Walmart’s analytics tools.
Below, we’ll discuss these steps in more detail and provide additional information and tips for maximizing your Walmart digital ad spend.
Make sure to read until the end, and you’ll walk away with a clear understanding of how to actually profit from your Walmart ads instead of pumping money into them without an ROI.
What Are Walmart Performance Ads?
Walmart performance ads are online advertisements that help promote your products on Walmart’s website.
These ads appear:
- In search results
- On product pages
- On other parts of the site/app
They aim to reach more potential customers and boost your visibility and sales. Once you set up a campaign and launch your ads, you’ll have to pay a fee for every Walmart visitor who clicks on one of them.
Why Should You Invest in Walmart Sponsored Ads?
Sponsored ads can put your products in front of millions of Walmart shoppers searching for just what you offer. But there’s more to it than just selling.
Here are some other unignorable reasons to consider:
- Increase Visibility: Walmart will highlight your products in search results and product pages, making them more noticeable to customers.
- Target Advertising: You’ll reach specific customers who are more likely to be interested in your products.
- Pay for Performance: You only pay based on your ads’ success when someone clicks an ad or makes a purchase.
- Gain Competitive Edge: As you become more visible on the platform, you’ll stand out from competitors and attract more buyers.
- Access Analytics: Walmart provides detailed reports to track ad performance. This allows you to adjust your strategies and achieve better results.
If you’re sold on these benefits, know you can enjoy them soon.
Schedule a free, no-strings-attached consultation today. We’ll show you how our Walmart ad specialists at IG PPC can optimize your performance and help you sell more smartly.
Types of Walmart Marketplace Ads
Deciding to rev up your sales on Walmart Marketplace with ads is only the first step. You must also pick one (or several) ad formats you’ll be using.
Read on to discover your options and see which one will help you reach your target audience more effectively:
1. Sponsored Products
These ads put your products front and center in search results and product pages. Walmart sponsored products are perfect for highlighting specific items with high-profit margins or during sales.
2. Sponsored Brands
As the name suggests, these will display your logo and a product selection at the top of search results. Use this type of Walmart-sponsored advertising to build brand awareness and drive traffic to multiple products within your catalog.
3. Display Ads
Designed to appear across Walmart’s website and app, display ads target specific audiences based on their browsing behavior. They’re ideal for reaching potential customers who haven’t searched for your product category yet.
4. Video Ads
Available for various placements, video ads grab attention and promote your offerings dynamically. Use them to demonstrate product features, benefits, and use cases in a way that’ll have your audience smash the “add to cart” button.
Cost of Advertising on Walmart Marketplace
When you advertise on Walmart, the last thing you want is to pour money down the drain with your ads.
The good news is that Walmart ads can be affordable and profitable if you know how to set them up and leverage their various aspects:
- Pay-Per-Click (PPC): The cost per click typically ranges from $0.30 to $1.50. However, it can go up to $3.00 or more per click in highly competitive niches.
- Daily Budget: You can set a daily budget starting at $10, but many advertisers choose budgets between $50 to $100 per day for effective campaigns.
- Total Campaign Budget: Depending on the campaign duration and goals, total budgets can range from $500 to several thousand.
- Bidding Strategy: You can choose between automatic bidding, in which Walmart sets your bids, and manual bidding, in which you control the bid amounts.
Now, you might wonder if expenses apply the same to all sellers. In practice, costs are subject to change based on market trends and seasonal demand.
Plus, some niches are more expensive than others for various reasons:
- Electronics: High competition due to the demand for gadgets and tech products.
- Fashion: Popular brands and trendy items often have higher advertising costs.
- Home Goods: High demand for furniture and appliances leads to increased competition.
- Health and Beauty: Premium products and popular brands increase costs in this category.
How to Get Started with Walmart Performance Ads
Managing a Walmart ad campaign is straightforward. However, you must understand the basics to set up optimized performance ads and maximize your ROI.
Follow our simple step-by-step guide to set up your first Walmart ad campaign:
1. Log In or Sign Up for Your Walmart Seller Account
You must be an active seller on the Walmart Marketplace to access the ads.
Create or activate your seller account and get approvals for your product listings. This gets you access to the Walmart Connect portal.
2. Set Up a Walmart Connect Account
Log in to your Walmart Connect portal using your seller account details. Then, fill out the application form and await approval.
Part of the review process includes assessing whether you are retail-ready, including having the required inventory level.
3. Set Up a Campaign
Once you get the approval, go to your Campaign Manager dashboard and create your first campaign.
Select your preferred ad type and define your campaign goals. For example, you could pick Walmart Sponsored Products to boost visibility and generate traffic to your listings.
4. Allocate Your Daily and Lifetime Budget
Define how much you are willing to spend daily on Walmart performance ads. Also, set your bid limit, which is the cost per click.
Your daily budget and bid amount determine the maximum number of clicks you can receive in a day.
For example, if your daily budget is $30, and your bid amount is $0.3, you can receive a maximum of 100 clicks within that period.
5. Optimize the Performance Ads
Tailor the Walmart ads to the target audience to boost visibility and reach. Conduct keyword research and incorporate high-intent search phrases into your ads to help them appear in relevant results pages.
Also, make the ad copy easy to scan, such as by formatting the benefits as a listicle.
6. Monitor and Optimize
Track essential performance metrics like impressions, click-through rates, and conversion. This lets you leverage the actionable insights from the data to refine your Walmart performance ad strategy.
For example, suppose you notice that ads with infographics are receiving more attention and clicks. You can incorporate infographics in other ads or refine the copy to boost engagement.
Implementing an effective Walmart performance ads campaign can be overwhelming, even for a seasoned seller. In addition to monitoring the campaign’s performance metrics, you must also stay updated about Walmart’s advertising guidelines.
At IG PPC, we can help you optimize your Walmart performance ads. We have a proven track record of assisting Walmart sellers in streamlining their performance ads strategies and boosting their ROI. Our team also leverages advanced analytics to track how your Walmart ads are performing and refine the strategy to optimize ad spend.
Schedule a one-on-one call with us today!
What is the Best Walmart Performance Ads Strategy?
To maximize your ad spending, you need a custom Walmart advertising strategy with laser-focused audience targeting, smart optimization techniques, and ad copy that jolts visitors and makes them realize how much they need your products.
Here’s a concise guide to optimizing your ads:
- Keyword Research: Find relevant, high-performing keywords for your products. Use tools like Helium 10 or even the Walmart search bar to find popular search terms and incorporate them into your ads.
- Targeted Ads: Focus on specific audiences likely to be interested in your products. Use Walmart’s built-in targeting options to reach the right customers – demographics, interests, location, device, behavior, etc.
- Compelling Ad Copy: Create clear, engaging, and persuasive ad copy highlighting your products’ benefits and features. You want to present your offerings as a no-brainer choice.
- Competitive Bidding: Set competitive bids to make sure your ads will appear in prime locations. Watch closely to adjust bids based on performance and competition.
- Daily Budget Management: Set and monitor your daily budget to avoid overspending while keeping your ads active.
- Track ROI: Regularly review your return on investment (ROI) to see if your ads are profitable.
- Regular Optimization: Analyze ad performance with Walmart’s analytics tools. Based on data insights, adjust keywords, bids, and targeting.
If you’re tired of spending without great returns or you’re just starting out and looking to make the most of your budget, the IG PPC specialists can help.
Book your free Walmart audit today. We’ll show you how to optimize your ads to reduce costs and get more sales.
Advanced Tips to Advertise with Walmart
Most online sources offer basic strategies for advertising on Walmart. While the tips are fairly effective for beginners, they cannot help you gain a competitive edge in highly competitive markets.
This section outlines advanced strategies to differentiate your product listings on Amazon:
Utilize Walmart’s First-Party Data
First-party data consists of information gathered by Walmart as users interact with its platform, including buyers’ demographics, order history, and browsing behavior.
You can leverage the data to personalize your ads strategy to a specific buyer persona. This helps increase the click-through rate and eventual conversions.
Implement Advanced Bidding Strategies
Integrate AI-driven optimization tools like Teikametrics and Optiwise for dynamic bidding. The tools monitor bid performance in real-time and adjust the price to optimize clicks.
Also, you can configure the tools to adjust the bids during peak shopping hours to increase visibility.
Leverage Walmart Demand Side Platform (DSP)
Invest in Walmart DSP ads to target potential buyers outside the platform. The feature lets you promote your offerings to a global audience but with localized ads.
For example, you can use geotagging to advertise portable heaters when they are in season in the UK while promoting different products in the Australian market during the same period.
Consider Variant Bidding
This strategy entails advertising different variants of the same product based on user demographics.
For example, you can leverage color psychology to recommend items in blue, green, and black shades to a primarily male demographic compared to blue, pink, purple, and green for predominantly female markets.
Optimize for Mobile Users
Mobile phones account for 77% of traffic to ecommerce websites and 68% of online orders. These statistics underline the significance of optimizing your Walmart performance ads for smartphones.
Use a mobile-first design when creating your ad copies to ensure they are responsive and deliver a consistent user experience across devices.
Walmart Advertising KPIs to Track
Always track your Walmart performance ads to determine their effectiveness and expected ROI.
Below are essential KPIs to monitor when running Walmart ad campaigns:
- Impressions: Track how many times your ads are displayed to shoppers to determine your brand’s visibility on Walmart. However, evaluate the impressions alongside other metrics like click-through rates (CTR) to establish actual engagement levels.
- Click-Through Rates: CTR measures how many ad impressions convert into clicks. A high CTR shows that your ads are compelling and encourage interested buyers to learn more about your offerings.
- Conversion Rate: This metric indicates how many people who clicked on your ads completed the target action (placed an order). This KPI is crucial for evaluating your campaign’s effectiveness.
- Return on Advertising Spend: Track the revenue generated for every dollar spent on Walmart performance ads. A product with a high ROAS score means the ads are converting into sales, which might warrant budget adjustments to accommodate more clicks.
How to Measure Walmart Advertising Costs Effectively
We recommend tracking your Walmart ad spend to help you calculate your ROI. However, we often receive questions from Walmart sellers about how they could monitor their advertising costs effectively.
In this section, we’ll outline proven methods for calculating how much you spend on Walmart performance ads:
1. Check Your Walmart Connect Dashboard
Walmart tracks and compiles your ad campaign data to help you monitor performance and refine your advertising strategy.
Log into your Walmart Connect and go to the Campaign Manager dashboard to access analytics about cost-per-click, total ad spend, and return on ad spend.
2. Download Ad Performance Reports
You can download Walmart on-demand reports for a quick overview of your campaign budget.
Below are examples of on-demand reports you can access from your Walmart Connect portal:
- Campaign Snapshot Report: Provides general information about each campaign, including a breakdown of your campaign ad spend.
- Keyword Performance Report: Records the average bid amount and cost-per-click for each keyword. You can use the data to calculate your advertising costs.
- Item Performance Report: Provides product-level data about your performance ad campaigns, including specific items’ cost-per-click and advertising ROI.
Utilize Third-Party Tools
Integrate tools like Helium 10 and Teikametrics to track your Walmart ad spend in real-time. You can download the budget reports daily or on-demand to adjust your ad strategy.
The tools also suggest how to optimize your bid amounts and budget for a positive ROI.
Check Billing Statements
Walmart often sends you a billing statement whenever they debit your account to pay for a click.
You can access the statements in the financial reports section of your seller dashboard.
Tips for Maximizing the Efficacy of Your Walmart Performance Ads
With every strategy, there’s room for improvement.
Here are some general tips for creating more effective Walmart ads and boosting your visibility, clicks, and conversions:
- Enhance Product Listings: Ensure your product listings have high-quality images, detailed descriptions, and accurate information.
High-quality product listings improve conversion chances, optimizing your average order value (AOV). Better listings can increase sales volumes and contribution margins (CM), making your funnel more scalable.
- Focus on Product Reviews: Encourage satisfied customers to leave positive reviews. Highlight these reviews in your ads to build trust.
Positive reviews can significantly boost conversion rates, potentially lowering your cost per acquisition (CPA) as your ads become more effective.
- Seasonal Adjustments: Modify your ads to align with seasonal trends and holidays, ensuring relevance and timeliness.
Aligning your ads with seasonal trends can lead to better conversion rates and more efficient use of your ad spend. This helps maintain a low CPA and high CM during peak periods.
- A/B Testing: Regularly test different ad elements such as headlines, images, and calls to action to determine what resonates best with your audience.
Successful A/B tests can reduce your CPA by ensuring your ads resonate well with your target audience, thus increasing the overall efficiency of your product funnel.
- Leverage Promotions: Use special offers and discounts in your ads to attract more clicks and drive conversions.
This strategy can temporarily increase your AOV, improve your CM, and make your ad spending more impactful.
- Monitor Competitors: Monitor competitor ads to understand their strategies and find opportunities to differentiate your ads.
You can maintain a lower CPA and ensure your product funnel stays robust and scalable by staying competitive.
Scratching your head between the AOV, CPA, CM, and all the other metrics? Optimizing your Walmart performance ads involves more than simply looking at the data. You must know how to interpret it and find “little hinges that swing big doors.”
At IG PPC, we’re experts in finding these hinges and doubling down on them to make your Walmart performance ads more profitable.
Book your free consultation today. One of our experts will hop on a call to show you how much money you’re leaving on the table and how to turn things around.
Common Walmart Advertisement Mistakes to Avoid
Here’s the deal: When you invest in Walmart advertising, you want to optimize the ad spend. However, you may encounter challenges that hurt the ROI of your Walmart performance ads.
Here are common pitfalls when implementing Walmart advertising strategies and how to mitigate them:
- Unoptimized Product Listings: Poorly designed ads can result in low click-through rates, while omitting high-intent keywords hurts your product listings’ visibility. Use rich media, especially for Walmart banner ads, to grab shoppers’ attention. Also, include high-volume keywords to help your product listings appear in relevant searches.
- Unrealistic Budgets: Setting an excessively low budget limits how many clicks you receive, while an unnecessarily high budget hurts your ROI. Set a reasonable budget that aligns with your advertising goals and adjust it based on performance insights.
- Overlooking Performance Metrics: Setting up campaigns and then not monitoring the performance results in passed-up opportunities for refining your ads strategy. Track essential KPIs, including impressions, click-through rates, and conversion rates.
- Overreliance on Manual or Automatic Campaigns: Excessive dependence on either manual or automatic campaigns causes you to miss out on the benefits of using the other option. Instead, combine both campaign types to deliver more impactful ads and increase audience reach.
- Setting the Wrong Bid Price: Low bids hurt your ads’ visibility as you are unlikely to win placement in prime areas like the search results page. In contrast, unreasonably high bids may win placement but will hurt your ROI. Use Walmart’s suggested bid as a guide for setting your price.
- Ignoring Seasonal Trends: Running generic campaigns across the year results in missed opportunities during peak seasons and wasted budgets during low-demand periods. Align your ads strategy with seasonal trends such as holidays or events like Black Friday to maximize sales.
- Running Unresponsive Ads: Disregarding mobile optimization locks out smartphone users, who form a significant chunk of online shoppers. Ensure your Walmart performance ads are mobile-friendly to encourage shoppers to browse your product listings on the go.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Looking to maximize your online sales through Walmart Performance Ads? At IG PPC, we optimize ad campaigns for maximum visibility and conversion.
Here’s a quick guide to common questions about Walmart performance ads:
What Types of Products are Best Suited for Walmart Performance Ads?
Products in high-demand categories like electronics, fashion, home goods, and health and beauty perform best.
These categories attract significant traffic and are ideal for maximizing exposure and sales through Walmart ads.
What are the Targeting Options for Walmart Performance Ads?
Walmart offers keyword, demographic, and interest-based targeting options.
These help you reach specific audiences likely to be interested in your products, enhancing the effectiveness of Walmart Performance Ads.
How Much Do Walmart Performance Ads Cost?
Costs typically range from $0.30 to $3.00 per click, depending on competition and keyword competitiveness.
Setting daily and total campaign budgets can help you manage your costs effectively and better control your ad expenses.
What is Walmart Ad Center and How Does It Work?
The Walmart Ad Center is a self-serving platform for sellers and brands to manage and track their performance ads.
Here’s a brief rundown of how it works:
- Create a campaign, including selecting an ad type, defining your target audience, and setting a bidding amount and budget.
- When customers search a product on Walmart, an auction takes place in real-time to determine which bids win and are displayed on the results page.
- The Walmart Ad Center tracks performance metrics and provides detailed analytics to help you refine your advertising strategy.
What Are the Steps to Set Media Connect Pricing for Walmart Ads?
Follow this step-by-step guide to set up Media Connect pricing on Walmart performance ads:
- Log in to your Walmart Connect portal.
- Create a new campaign and select Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, or Display Ads.
- Define your daily and lifetime budget.
- Pick your bidding strategy and set your bidding amounts.
- Select your preferred ad placements.
- Monitor performance and adjust your bid amount to remain competitive.
What is the Best Way to Optimize Walmart Ads Online for Mobile Shoppers?
Below are proven methods for optimizing your Walmart ads for smartphone users:
- Use a mobile-first design to ensure product titles, descriptions, and media are responsive to various screen sizes.
- Experiment with various ad formats to determine which ones work best on mobile devices.
- Use variant bidding to promote product variations that might appeal to mobile shoppers.
- Run ads during peak hours when mobile users are likely on their phones, such as during lunch-hour breaks and evenings.
Conclusion
Understanding the particularities of Walmart performance ads is crucial if you want your products to reach the right audience and generate sales.
Remember, the key to success lies in continuous improvement. Regularly analyze your ad performance, stay ahead of the competition, and adjust your campaigns based on data insights.
If you’re still unsure how to complete it all or would rather have someone else do it, let our experts at IG PPC step in.
Request a free audit today and discover how we can help you reach your advertising goals precisely and efficiently.
