Walmart Connect Expands Its Off-Site Media Offerings

Earlier this year Walmart renamed its media business Walmart Connect (formerly known as Walmart Media Group). Now the retailer announced it’s expanding its offsite media opportunities at scale by introducing a new demand-side platform offering, Walmart DSP. 

Walmart DSP was built in partnership with the world’s leading independent DSP, The Trade Desk. The new, standalone platform combines the technology of The Trade Desk with the scale of Walmart’s first-party omnichannel data, allowing advertisers to drive more effectiveness with their overall media spend. Suppliers can broaden their reach and engage with customers wherever they are, and bring them back to the Walmart ecosystem.

“As the world’s leading retailer, we are thrilled to be partnering with such a prominent figure in the AdTech space to pioneer a new frontier in digital advertising and offer advertisers an open, transparent, and objective platform while upholding privacy standards,” said Rich Lehrfeld, SVP, Walmart Connect.

Walmart DSP will be available for select suppliers by the end of October, in time for the holiday shopping season. When it goes live this fall, marketers and advertisers will be able to access numerous platform capabilities powered by Walmart’s omnichannel data which include:

• Connecting with the right customers at the right time: Reach specific audiences with increased precision by leveraging Walmart’s past purchase and predictive audience segments, as well as brand level shopping behavior data from across the entire Walmart ecosystem, including the website, app and 4,700 physical stores.
• Unlimited access to The Trade Desk’s inventory across multiple channels: Complete access to the Trade Desk’s inventory including display, streaming video, mobile, audio and CTV, which will allow advertisers to manage multiple campaigns within the same platform.
• Closing the measurement loop across digital and in-store experiences: Connecting online-to-offline sales by leveraging Walmart’s purchase data to measure both online and in-store transactions and link these to specific media tactics to make campaign optimizations and inform future strategies.

“Even though the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the growth of e-commerce sales last year, more than 80% of the total retail sales in the U.S. are still happening offline,” said Lehrfeld. “By connecting and measuring both online and in-store performance, the Walmart DSP can offer targeting, reporting, and omnichannel insights down to a granular level. We really want to make it easier and simpler for brands and advertising agencies to partner with us through programmatic and self-serve solutions, and Walmart DSP is the latest release in our product innovation pipeline to deliver on that goal.”