Walmart Connect for CPG Brands: 2026 Playbook
Walmart Connect is Walmart's retail media business, and in 2026 it's one of the fastest-growing places for a CPG brand to allocate its advertising budget. It reaches shoppers on Walmart.com, in the Walmart app, inside Walmart stores and, increasingly, across TV, streaming and audio.
Treating Walmart as a clone of your Amazon setup costs you revenue. This playbook details how Walmart Connect works, what changed this year, and how to build campaigns around Walmart’s distinct search habits, in-store sales, and bidding system.
Key Takeaways
Walmart Connect grew 43% in the US in the second quarter of fiscal 2027 (excluding VIZIO), and Walmart added live TV, Spotify and more CTV audiences in October 2026.
Sponsored Search ads are sold on a cost-per-click basis through a second-price auction, where relevance and bid together determine the winner.
Stores still drive much of Walmart's CPG sales, so measurement needs to cover both in-store and online sales.
Walmart recommends a minimum daily budget of $100 for Sponsored Search campaigns. Display and off-site campaigns usually need more.
The strongest Walmart programs are built for Walmart's shoppers, auction and data rather than copied from Amazon.
What Is Walmart Connect?
Walmart Connect is Walmart's retail media network: the advertising arm that lets brands reach Walmart shoppers using Walmart's first-party data and measure the effect on Walmart sales. Brands can buy ads on Walmart's own site, app, and stores, and use Walmart audiences to buy media elsewhere.
The solution set covers five areas:
Sponsored Search: Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Videos in search and browse results.
Onsite Display: Display placements across Walmart.com and the app.
Brand Shop and Shelf: Branded destinations on Walmart.com.
Offsite media: Walmart audiences on CTV, social and the open web, bought through Walmart DSP and partner platforms.
Store ads: Digital screens, audio and experiential formats inside and around Walmart stores.
The reach behind it is hard to match. Walmart operates more than 4,600 US stores and serves about 150 million customers in its US stores and online each week. If you're new to the category, our overview of retail media strategies covers how networks like this fit into a media plan.
What Changed in 2026
Walmart Connect had a busy year. The changes most relevant to CPG brands:
August 20, 2026: growth continued to accelerate. In its second-quarter fiscal 2027 results, Walmart reported global advertising up 38% and Walmart Connect in the US up 43%, excluding VIZIO. More advertiser money is moving to Walmart, so search auctions in many categories will keep getting more competitive.
October 6, 2026: Walmart audiences moved into TV and audio. At its annual Partner Connect event, Walmart Connect announced that advertisers can use Walmart audiences on live linear TV through Warner Bros. Discovery, including TBS, TLC, truTV, HLN and Food Network, through a private marketplace deal in Walmart DSP. It also brought closed-loop measurement to Spotify's audio, video and display inventory.
October 6, 2026: more ways to buy. A CTV test with Yahoo DSP and Magnite moved into alpha, extending Walmart audiences to CTV inventory beyond VIZIO. Walmart also expanded access to Walmart Connect through Google Display & Video 360 and Yahoo DSP, along with new measurement tools for unified attribution and incrementality.
October 30, 2026: new evidence on search incrementality. Walmart Connect published a study of one food brand that cut its Search spend by nearly 95% for a week. We cover what it found in the measurement section below.
The direction is clear. Walmart Connect is growing from a search network into a full-funnel media business, and its measurement is following shoppers from screen to store.
Walmart Connect Ad Formats and How They're Bought
Each Walmart Connect format has its own placement, pricing model and eligibility rules. Most CPG brands start with Sponsored Search. Unlike first-price setups, Walmart runs Sponsored Products on a second-price auction where your bid and listing relevance determine placement, and you pay only the amount needed to clear the next competitor.
| Format | Where it appears | How you pay | Who can run it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sponsored Products | Search, browse, item, homepage and stock-up pages | Cost per click, second-price auction | Items that are in stock, winning the Buy Box and published on Walmart.com |
| Sponsored Brands | Top of relevant search results, with brand logo and products | Cost per click | Brand owners registered with Walmart Brand Portal |
| Sponsored Videos | Within search results | Cost per click | Brand owners registered with Walmart Brand Portal |
| Onsite Display | Display placements on Walmart.com and the app | Bid-based self-serve auction, with daily and lifetime budgets | Self-serve or managed advertisers |
| Offsite media | CTV, streaming audio, social and the open web | Programmatic, through Walmart DSP and partner platforms | Advertisers using Walmart DSP or a connected partner platform |
| Store ads | Screens, audio and experiential formats in stores | Varies by placement | Typically arranged with Walmart Connect |
Sponsored Products only serve when an item is in stock and wins the Buy Box. If inventory dips or another seller takes the box, your ad stops serving immediately, regardless of your bid.
Run Walmart as Its Own Program
Winning on Walmart requires tailoring campaigns to its specific shopper behavior and retail ecosystem. Five distinct areas demand their own strategy:
Keyword Structure
Walmart customers frequently search with weekly stock-up runs in mind, shifting between mobile apps and physical aisles. Pull your keyword targets directly from Walmart search term reports instead of importing an Amazon export file.
Separate brand, category and competitor terms into their own campaigns so you can bid and report on each. Walmart's own guidance is to start with 10 to 15 strong items in each campaign, which gives the algorithm enough clicks to learn. Keep those items to products that reliably win the Buy Box, since the rest won't serve.
Bidding
In a second-price auction, listing relevance dictates your winning clearance price. Maintaining detailed product descriptions, steady inventory, and high review counts lowers the effective cost of securing top placements.
Walmart offers Dynamic Bidding, which adjusts bids in real time to improve conversions. It's a sensible default for new campaigns while you collect data. Avoid copying Amazon bids across. Cost per click, competition and conversion rates differ by category and retailer, and a bid that's right on Amazon can overpay or underdeliver at Walmart.
In-Store Signals
In our experience, stores still account for most Walmart sales for many CPG brands, so in-store measurement should be part of the plan from day one. Walmart's closed-loop measurement connects ad exposure to Walmart sales across channels, so a search or display campaign can be judged on its effect in stores as well as online.
Walmart's October study shows what the split can reveal. When one food brand cut Search spend by nearly 95% for a week, digital sales dropped 35.1% while store volume remained flat. Blended reporting masks these shifts. Review digital and physical store sales as standalone metrics before evaluating total returns.
Off-Site Reach
Walmart DSP lets you reach Walmart shoppers away from Walmart, on CTV, streaming audio, social and the open web, and measure the effect on Walmart sales. The 2026 additions (Warner Bros. Discovery live TV, Spotify and broader CTV) make off-site a real upper-funnel option for CPG brands.
Establish consistent search volume before expanding off-site. If product listings lack reviews or lose the Buy Box, upper-funnel media directs traffic to pages that fail to convert. Solidify search performance first, then layer on off-site reach to attract new buyers.
Budget
Walmart recommends a minimum daily budget of $100 for Sponsored Search campaigns and warns that low budgets can cap out early in the day, missing peak shopping hours. Treat that as a floor for a meaningful test rather than a target.
We usually phase Walmart budgets in three stages:
Launch: Sponsored Products on your best-selling, Buy Box-winning items, with brand and category campaigns separated.
Expand: Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Videos and Onsite Display once search data shows which items and terms convert.
Extend: Off-site media and store ads, with incrementality testing built into the plan.
The right split depends on your category, margins and goals, so plan it against your own Walmart Connect cost targets and test before scaling.
How to Measure Walmart Connect
Attributed return on ad spend (ROAS) is the usual starting point. It measures the sales associated with your ads. Incrementality measures the sales your ads created that wouldn't have happened otherwise.
Walmart's October 2026 incrementality study of one anonymized food brand makes the case. In August 2026, the brand cut Search spend by nearly 95% for a week. Digital sales fell 35.1%, its share of new-to-brand customers dropped by about 8 percentage points, and sales recovered slowly as spending resumed. The analysis estimated $2.15 in incremental sales for every $1 of Search spend. These are results from one brand in one week, but they show what attributed metrics can miss.
We recommend tracking four measures together:
Attributed ROAS: your day-to-day efficiency signal.
New-to-brand share: how much revenue comes from shoppers new to your brand.
Online and in-store sales: reported separately and together.
Incrementality tests: planned holdouts or spend changes to confirm what ads add.
Premium placements can deliver on several of these at once. In our Walmart Connect homepage placement case study, a specialty food brand earned more than $196,000 in attributed sales at a 4.4x ROAS, with 36% of attributed revenue from new-to-brand shoppers.
Self-Serve or Managed?
Walmart Connect offers both. The Walmart Connect Ad Center is the self-serve platform for Sponsored Search and Onsite Display, where you control campaigns, bids and budgets directly. Managed service runs through Walmart Connect or one of the agencies and technology companies in its partner directory.
Self-serve suits brands with an in-house retail media team that can manage bids, search terms and reporting each week. Managed service suits brands that want senior strategy across several retail media networks without building that team. For Walmart Marketplace advertising, the decision usually comes down to who will own Buy Box health, search term work and measurement.
We run retail media management for CPG brands across Walmart, Amazon, Instacart, Target and Kroger, with the same senior strategist planning every network.
A Walmart Connect Launch Checklist
Before you scale Walmart Connect spend, confirm the basics:
Item health: your priority items are in stock, winning the Buy Box and published.
Brand Portal: your brand is registered, so you can run Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Videos.
Content: titles, images, descriptions and reviews are strong enough to earn relevance.
Campaign structure: brand, category and competitor terms are separated, with 10 to 15 strong items per campaign.
Budget: daily budgets meet Walmart's $100 recommendation and don't cap out early.
Measurement: online, in-store and new-to-brand results are tracked, with an incrementality test on the calendar.
If more than two of these are unclear, your Walmart program is probably running on autopilot.
Conclusion
Walmart Connect operates as a full-funnel media network spanning streaming screens, mobile devices, and physical checkout aisles. CPG brands capture the strongest returns by treating Walmart as a dedicated channel with custom keyword sets, distinct bids, and combined physical and digital measurement.
Ready to launch or reset your Walmart program? Our Walmart launch and review package covers item health, campaign structure, bidding, measurement and budget, with a clear plan for what to fix first. Let's talk about your Walmart program.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Sponsored Search ads are cost-per-click, so you pay only when a shopper clicks. Walmart uses a second-price auction, which means you pay just enough to beat the next bid. Your actual cost depends on your category, competition and product relevance.
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Walmart recommends a minimum daily budget of $100 for Sponsored Search campaigns to keep ads visible during peak shopping hours. Display, off-site and store campaigns typically need larger budgets. Check current requirements in the Walmart Connect Ad Center.
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Self-serve through the Ad Center works for brands with an in-house team that can manage bids, search terms and reporting each week. Managed service, through Walmart Connect or a partner agency, works for brands that want senior strategy and measurement across several retail media networks.
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Walmart is the retailer. Walmart Connect is Walmart's advertising business, which sells ads on Walmart's site, app and stores and uses Walmart shopper data to reach and measure audiences on other media, including CTV and streaming audio.