Why Walmart Connect Expanded Its Advertising Partnerships

Why Walmart Connect Expanded Its Advertising Partnerships

Walmart

As the 2022 holiday season kicks into high gear, retail analysts are watching closely how much consumers will spend during a time of inflation. But it’s equally fascinating to understand how people shop. Walmart Connect, Walmart’s fast-growing advertising arm, believes that holiday shopping online – indeed all shopping online — will increasingly happen via social media, television commerce (t-commerce), and livestreaming. That’s one reason that Walmart Connect has expanded its advertising partner program to encompass social apps such as TikTok and streaming platforms such as TalkShopLive.

What Is the Walmart Advertising Partner Program?

Walmart Connect wants to help businesses advertise across the digital world beyond Walmart.com. To do that, Walmart Connect’s partnership program works with platforms to help brands scale, automate, and optimize their Walmart Connect advertising. These include partners that make it possible for Walmart Connect to expand self-service advertising through an application programming interface (API). Those API partners can be found here.

The partnership program is becoming more important to Walmart as it positions itself as a strong retailer-based ad platform alternative to Amazon Ads. And Walmart says the program is increasingly delivering value. For example, when BirdRock Brands turned to Pacvue (an enterprise software suite for eCommerce advertising) to scale its manual Walmart Sponsored Products campaigns, BirdRock was able to help design a campaign that ultimately experienced a return on ad spend 11 percent greater than its target, and an 83 percent increase in sales quarter over quarter.

What Did Walmart Announce About Its Advertising Partner Program?

Walmart has added a slew of advertising partners known as innovation partners. According to Walmart, these innovation partners will provide test-and-learn opportunities with formats such as social, entertainment, and live streaming throughout the entire holiday season. The newly expanded offering includes additional touchpoints and channels to reach customers wherever they are with new ad formats:

  • TikTok: this partnership provides an opportunity for advertisers to connect with potential shoppers on the red-hot TikTok platform. As Walmart noted, more than 50 percent of TikTok users say they watch ads on their feed instead of scrolling past them. The first-to-market pilot between TikTok and Walmart Connect will provide advertisers with the opportunity to serve in-feed ads on TikTok. This will leverage TikTok’s sound-on full screen video format together with Walmart Connect’s targeting and measurement.
  • Snap: the partnership with Snap enables advertisers to buy ad units including augmented realityCollection Ads and Snap Ads through Walmart Connect and take advantage of the Walmart Connect’s geo-based measurement. This is the first time advertisers can buy Snap ad units through Walmart Connect and get in front of the unique Snapchat audience (75 percent of 13-34 year-olds in the U.S.), who hold over $1.9 trillion in spending power.
  • Firework: this partnership enables supplier-funded shoppable livestreams and short shoppable videos on Walmart.com/live. Walmart Connect is testing how brands can leverage Firework’s capabilities to create premium, engaging, mobile-first video experiences and, to start, has partnered with Johnson & Johnson and Procter & Gamble.
  • TalkShopLive: Walmart Connect is expanding its relationship with TalkShopLive to partnership enable supplier-funded shoppable livestreams on Walmart.com/live, TalkShopLive’s platform, brand and publisher sites, as well as across the web. Walmart Connect is testing how brands can amplify their content and connect with shoppers at scale. To start, it has already executed livestreams with Johnson & Johnson, Procter & Gamble, and Samsung, among others.
  • Roku: Walmart wants to help make TV streaming the next e-commerce shopping destination. Walmart touts Roku as America’s Number One TV streaming platform (citing Hypothesis Group research). So, Walmart has become the exclusive retailer to enable streamers on Roku to purchase featured products and have the transactions fulfilled by the chain. Walmart Connect will connect brands to customers through the Roku platform, and checkout will be seamless for customers, while advertisers receive insights on effectiveness via Walmart Connect measurement.

In announcing these partnerships, Walmart discussed how online search and shopping has become more diversified especially in the post-pandemic age. Seth Dallaire, Executive Vice President and Chief Revenue Officer, Walmart U.S., wrote in a blog post:

Consumers who turned to online shopping during the pandemic have chosen to stay there, with those returning to in-store relying on online research to guide their decisions. Consumers realized the importance of “connection” and were forced to adapt and connect in new ways including social feeds, livestreaming, mobile and more, specifically across video and connected TV. In fact, the predicted growth of social commerce from 10% of all e-commerce to 17% by 2025 will be driven by Gen Z and millennial consumers and nearly two-thirds (64%) of social media users — an estimated 2 billion social buyers — said they made a purchase on social media in the past year.

Now, Walmart Connect intends to do its part in connecting social media discovery to actual sales. So far, Walmart Connect’s partnerships have been hands-on in nature. Brands get custom reporting about their campaigns, based on activations on Walmart.com’s live shopping, TikTok, Snap, and Roku. But Seth Dallaire told Advertising Age that the partnership program expanding to the point where it would be more automated and widely available within Walmart Connect, so that brands could better target ads on social media and connected TV.

Contact True Interactive

To succeed with online advertising, contact True Interactive. Read about some of our client work here and our Walmart Connect expertise here.

For Further Insight

Why Walmart Connect Is Winning,” Tim Colucci, February 25, 2022.

Why Retailers Are Launching Ad Businesses,” Tim Colucci, January 11, 2022.

Walgreens Doubles Down on Its Advertising Business,” Tim Colucci, May 19, 2021.

Amazon Unveils New Ad Units Across Its Ecosystem,” Kurt Anagnostopoulos, May 4, 2021.

Why Macy’s Launched an Advertising Platform,” Tim Colucci, March 3, 2021.

Walmart Asserts Its Leadership in Advertising,” Tim Colucci, February 8, 2021.

The Roku Deal with Google: Advertiser Q&A

The Roku Deal with Google: Advertiser Q&A

Connected TV

The fight is over – for now. Connected TV provider Roku has reached a multiyear agreement with Google to keep YouTube and YouTube TV on its streaming platform. Thus ends a months-long standoff between Roku and Google that had resulted in Roku users losing access to YouTube TV (Google’s livestreaming service) and most likely the YouTube app. The deal will allow the 56.4 million active Roku accounts to continue to watch YouTube and YouTube TV without disruption. So, what does all this mean to advertisers? Let’s answer some questions:

Why does Roku matter to advertisers in the first place?

Roku matters because it’s a gateway to over-the-top (OTT) television viewing, which is gaining in popularity. OTT television refers to watching TV content that is streamed directly through the Internet – such as subscribing to a streaming service or streaming content from apps like YouTube on TV.

Approximately 2.3 billion people worldwide watch OTT content, and the number are growing. The OTT market will grow to $1.039 trillion by 2027, according to Allied Market Research. Of all the revenue made in the OTT market, 52 percent comes from advertising video-on-demand (AVOD). In short, advertisers are following the eyeballs.

You don’t need cable to watch OTT — but you do need a device like Roku.

Roku competes with devices such as Amazon Fire TV and Apple TV to offer audiences access to OTT. These devices collectively are known as connected TV. Roku is the most popular device, with a 37 percent share of TV viewing time in North America.

These devices control access to content on OTT. They need to support apps and streaming services in order for a viewer to get access to OTT. In short, connected TV devices wield considerable power. And Roku is especially popular because it sells smart televisions with built-in streaming technology along with devices that users can plug into TVs.

Roku makes most of its money selling ads on streaming channels and taking a share of the streaming services’ subscription revenue and ad inventory. In addition, Roku offers OneView, an ad-buying platform for TV streaming.

What was the problem between Roku and Google?

Roku had removed YouTube TV from its channel store in April as part of a dispute with Google over how search results were displayed on Roku’s platform. As a result, viewers could still watch the Google app, but access to the app was about to expire when Roku and Google reached a deal.

Roku alleged that Google interfered with Roku’s independent search results, requiring that it favor YouTube over other content providers. The company also claimed that Google discriminated against Roku by requiring search, voice, and data features not required of other connected TV devices.

As a result of Roku removing YouTube TV, an owner of a Roku device could not stream YouTube TV via OTT. The YouTube TV app allows subscribers to watch live TV channels online for a monthly fee. YouTube TV offers live streams of nearly 100 popular channels, including ESPN, CBS, Fox News, and CNN.

And, Google lost access to those viewers for its ad-supported YouTube TV service.

Why did Google and Roku reach an agreement?

Google was under pressure to reach a deal. Google would have lost out on millions of dollars in ad revenue in addition to the YouTube TV revenue that would have come from Roku. But Roku had motivation to reach an agreement, too. Competitors such as Amazon Fire TV and Apple TV carry YouTube. Roku could have lost customers to those competitors.

What were the terms of the deal?

Terms were not disclosed. We don’t know what concessions both sides made to restore access to YouTube TV for Roku viewers. Likely Google eased up on some behaviors that Roku deemed anticompetitive, but it’s hard to say exactly what might have happened.

What should advertisers do?

The news underscores why it is important for advertisers to understand the constantly evolving OTT and connected TV landscape. Connected TV makers are rolling out more ad units that increase revenue (for the connected TV devices) and reach (for advertisers). For example, Amazon is expanding advertising opportunities on Amazon Fire TV, which competes with devices such as Apple TV and Roku to stream content on connected TVs for millions of viewers. Amazon Fire TV is more than a connected TV provider. It’s a way for advertisers to reach people as they browse and discover new entertainment. One new ad unit, Sponsored Content Rows, is designed for businesses to promote content such as new shows and movies in the form of a row (or carousel) of sponsored content while people browse for shows on their connected TVs (akin to sponsored search results in a Google search engine results page).

Watch, learn, and capitalize on connected TV and OTT ad opportunities.

Contact True Interactive

Eager to capitalize on the opportunities connected TV can offer your brand? Contact us. We can help. Learn more about our connected TV services here.

For More Insight

Advertiser Q&A: Connected TV,” Tim Colucci