Every year, Walmart Connect continues to be a leader in Retail Media, and 2023 is no different. Walmart Connect considered partner and consumer feedback as they enhanced their services and platforms in 2023. To prepare you for what to expect in the new year, we’re reviewing the significant advancements made in 2023.
Improved Search Algorithms
As with any other online marketplace, the strength of your search capabilities make or break your platform. Walmart Connect made significant Sponsored Search platform upgrades which helped advertisers gain better visibility in the marketplace while consumers found it easier to get the right products.
Streamlined Search Activation
Walmart Connect has simplified the activation process for users and API Partners within the Walmart Ad Center. These new capabilities allow advertisers to quickly:
- Grant or revoke user and API Partner access
- Easily transition from one API Partner or agency to another
- Work with multiple API partners via one account
These advancements allow advertisers to set up and run their ads faster than ever before. Enhanced access privileges also allow for greater control of their campaigns.
Simplified Optimization Flow
Walmart Connect updated the All Keywords Page within the Ad Center to allow for a more straightforward, streamlined process. With this improvement, sellers can analyze, strategize, and optimize full campaigns in a fraction of the time. They achieve this through built-in sorting, advanced filtering functions, and all the necessary metrics on one screen.
With everything in one place, sellers can optimize their ads more efficiently than ever. Walmart Connect lets you change bids, select keywords, and enable or disable keywords and campaigns simultaneously.
Sellers live or die by the strength of their reports—the more accurate and detailed the data, the greater the strategy they can build. Thankfully, Walmart empowered sellers by expanding their new-to-brand insights reports to include Sponsored Products.
New-to-Brand Attribution Expansion
This new system measures and quantifies Walmart brand sales from customers who had yet to purchase from the seller at Walmart during the prior 12 months. The offering is currently available for Sponsored Brands campaigns and launching and expanding New-To-Brand for all placements, including In-Grid, Buy Box, Carousel, and Video.
Advertisers experienced several benefits from this move. It is now easier to determine keywords that draw in new customers — and cull those underperforming for awareness campaigns. The update provides deeper insight into customer loyalty and the brand strengths with which they align. Lastly, it is easier to calculate future ROI with a more detailed breakdown of the customer acquisition cost.
Further Walmart Connect’s reporting improvements include focuses on purchase attribution. This update identifies products attracting new-to-brand customers for Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands, available at the campaign, ad group, and item levels. Reporting shows retail data 3, 14, and 30 days after the campaign starts, during flight, and after the campaign ends.
Advertisers can now learn which product sales are driven by which campaigns. Sellers can go even deeper into their reports by identifying new ad opportunities and engaging new-to-brand customers.
Introducing Dynamic Bidding
Dynamic bidding is a smart bidding strategy designed to help Sponsored Products advertisers save time and effort and maximize sales.
With dynamic bidding, Walmart Connect’s platform adjusts cost-per-click bids up or down in real-time based on the likelihood that a customer will purchase the item if the ad appears in their search. Advertisers must opt into dynamic bidding and can turn it off or on at any time.
Now, there’s less guesswork for advertisers and more success! Through crucial data points and machine learning, it is easier to make informed adjustments. Streamlining the process even further, Walmart Connect’s platform adjusts bid prices automatically, reducing the need for manual effort. Lastly, and most importantly, sellers can save time without the need to monitor active campaigns for their performance regularly.
Sponsored Videos
There’s a new, premium ad solution designed to improve the visibility of advertised items within search results!
Walmart’s Sponsored Videos advancements help boost brand awarenessand discovery of new products. This feature is available to all brand owners registered with the Walmart Brand Portal. Advertisers can upload videos and launch and manage their campaigns through the Walmart Ad Center or a participating Walmart Connect Partner Network API Partner, or even through Walmart Connect’s Managed Services.
Whichever avenue you choose, you can captivate your audience through visual storytelling that shows off the value and benefits of your products. By combining Sponsored Videos with your other sponsored campaigns, you become more discoverable while positioning your brand’s products in a captivating, compelling way.
Search term impression share report
A new report will help Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands advertisers understand how often their ads serve against valuable keywords and how these impressions compare to their competitive set. The key metrics Walmart Connect decided to focus on include:
- Impressions (Numerical)
- Search term Impression Share (Percentage)
- Search term Impression Rank (Numerical)
- Top of Search – Impression Share (Percentage)
- Top of Search – Impression Rank (Numerical)
Advertisers can then better plan keyword-search terms to help improve campaign performance and overall share of voice. They can achieve this through strategic planning and a deeper understanding of competitive ads and how they retain impression share.
Advanced Insights for the Walmart Connect Partner Network
Walmart Connect will unlock additional metrics for their valued partners, so partners can help Walmart advertisers improve the performance of their Sponsored Search campaigns. Granular details create a more robust understanding of your performance and future opportunities. Advance insights are be available for
- Price
- Availability Status
- Average ratings
- Published Status
- Inventory Count
- Review Count
Out-of-Budget Support
Running low on budget can lead to missed opportunities. Walmart Connect’s out-of-budget features are designed to identify and minimize missed opportunities in your top-performing campaigns through data-driven insights and recommended budgets.
These features allow you to see which campaigns are out of budget or at risk. In addition to this snapshot, you can get personalized recommendations and insights based on your specific historical data, campaign performance, and customer interactions. Never doubt what steps to take next!
Lastly, Walmart Connect made their recommendations easy to apply, so you can focus more on growing quickly.
Bulk Operations Expansion
Walmart Connect recognizes the importance of sellers’ time and has implemented another way to improve the campaign management process. Advertisers can simultaneously upload multiple items and/or up to 5,000 keywords to one or more groups in their Sponsored Productscampaigns.
These are the bulk operations changes:
- Add new items or keywords to existing campaigns.
- Adjust bids, status, and match types of keywords in existing manual campaigns.
- Adjust bids and status of items in existing automatic campaigns.
- Enable inactive items or keywords.
- Disable active items or keywords.
- Download bulk sheets to adjust and upload updates at once.