Walmart Connect Partners With Snap, Roku And TikTok To Measure Online Shopping Ads
Walmart introduced a series of “Innovation Partners” that can support measuring how social media and CTV ads affect sales. For the first time ever, the retail giant is expanding its ad reach beyond its own eCommerce platform. Walmart Connect announced a new “Innovation Partners” category. This category will include video-specific measurement deals with TikTok, Snap, Roku, Fireworks, and TalkShopLive. This partnership will help to measure any sales that come from ads.
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Expanding their ad business
In recent times, Walmart has expanded impressively and has a $2 billion ad business. As Walmart’s ad business rebranded to Connect last year, it’s added new partners and ad tech companies since settling on The Trade Desk as a DSP tech provider. Advertisers and brands can buy ads with Walmart data through The Trade Desk, Walmart’s ad platform. The company added eCommerce search ad specialists such as Pacvue, Skai, and Flywheel Digital as partners in 2021. The Walmart Connect program also welcomed 14 additional analytics and ad optimization companies in July.
In the expansion mode, the retail media platform partners with TikTok and Snap to measure social commerce, Roku for CTV ads, Firework, and TalkShopLive for live shopping content. Seth Dallaire, executive vice president and CRO of Walmart, wrote in a post,
“As the media funnel continues to collapse, advertisers are realizing the opportunity to reach shoppers on leading platforms where they are increasingly spending their time.”
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The Innovative Partners
Walled gardens like Roku, TikTok, and Snap aim to demonstrate their ad platforms’ value.
The Snap agreement is a “first-of-their-kind type partnership”. It will bring advertisers Snap Ads, Collection Ads, and Snap AR with Walmart Connect geo-based measurement of omnichannel sales lift. This is the first time advertisers can buy Snap ad units through Walmart Connect and get in front of the unique Snapchat audience (75% of 13-34 year-olds in the U.S.), who hold over $1.9 trillion in spending power.
TikTok and Snap will not have their inventory available through The Trade Desk’s Walmart DSP. They are walled gardens and as a result, no outside programmatic trading desks are allowed.
The first-to-market pilot between TikTok and Walmart Connect will provide advertisers with the opportunity to serve in-feed ads on TikTok, leveraging the impact of TikTok’s sound-on full-screen video format together with Walmart Connect’s targeting and measurement.
Unlike other walled gardens, TikTok’s ad platform is widely regarded as under-attributing its own revenues. Whereas, other walled gardens generally over-attribute in their own favor. The reason behind this is that TikTok uses last-click attribution and a session-length attribution window, so it will miss sales if users don’t click and convert immediately.
Walmart recently partnered with Roku to make TV streaming the next e-commerce shopping destination. Streamers can purchase featured products fulfilled by Walmart directly on the streaming TV platform. Walmart Connect will connect brands to customers through the T-commerce platform on Roku. Advertisers will receive insights on the effectiveness of Walmart Connect measurement.
Walmart is also working with live video platforms with sponsored brand placements- TalkShop Live and Firework to produce online sales programming on Walmart.com. Walmart is testing the new service on brands such as J&J, P&G, and Samsung, among others. The program on Walmart Connect’s advertising platform is not automated but a managed service. Brands will get the performance reports of how ad campaigns influenced sales on TikTok, Snap, and Roku.
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A tight race
With its ad platform, Walmart competes with Amazon, which has also invested in live shopping programs. In addition, Amazon’s roaster of talent streams sales events, most prominently on holidays and Prime day. Roku and Pinterest have already partnered with Kroger to enter the market, and Kroger’s own ad business has been expanded with PubMatic and Magnite.
Marketers and publishers are keen to discover how consumers react to social media advertising by making purchases or engaging with it. Even though social commerce is still in its infancy, Walmart’s partnerships with social media platforms show that they are proving that their ads do lead to sales. Rich Lehrfeld, Walmart SVP and GM of the Walmart Connect group told AdExchanger,
“Over time you’ll see our partnerships starting to expand into different areas that are really what our advertisers, or what we call our customers, as well as suppliers and sellers are asking us to do because they love our measurement.”
Advertisers can leverage Walmart’s unparalleled first-party omnichannel data to deliver measurable sales performance. Furthermore, it integrates with several PPC management tools that are used by eCommerce businesses.
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