In a Milestone for Marketers, Skai Launches Support for Walmart Connect Display Reporting

Retail media is growing up — and when we say up, we mean up the funnel.

While retail media upper-funnel ads are not new, they are clearly the 2024 priority for retail media networks (RMNs). Whether that means more on-site display innovation, off-site ad placements, or data integration partnerships, marketers have expressed a deep interest in investing in full-funnel RMN solutions, and retailers are more than happy to oblige. 

Skai is committed to helping its clients maximize the full-funnel retail opportunity. That’s why today, we’d like to share a major milestone. We are among the first few Walmart Connect partners to release support for Walmart Onsite Display ad reporting and Walmart DSP offsite display reporting via The Trade Desk.

This enables Skai clients to make better — and more informed — decisions on where and how to invest with Walmart Connect.

Walmart’s upper & mid-funnel opportunity

Walmart shoppers are increasingly discovering and purchasing products across multiple touchpoints, and brands must create consistent customer experiences to engage them along the way. Making relevant connections with customers at scale across the purchasing journey — whenever and wherever they may be — is a significant challenge for brands. But how do you get your customers to reach the point of purchase at Walmart? Marketers can best scale their programs by investing in middle and upper-funnel display strategies both off and on Walmart’s site to drive consideration and awareness. 

While marketers can find upper-funnel ad opportunities across the web, according to Walmart Connect, there’s an incredible opportunity to impact and influence consumers within its own ecosystem. 81% of customers said they would visit Walmart online first for shopping ideas and inspiration, and 76% are likely to buy products in a Walmart store that they’d seen advertised online at Walmart.com. 

However, capitalizing on this opportunity requires data to support it, which is why Walmart Connect’s full-funnel reporting represents a significant milestone in retail media’s maturity.

Benefits to Skai clients using Walmart Connect display ads

This advancement in reporting enables partners like Skai to offer more transparency for brand advertisers to better understand their on-site and off-site Walmart display ad performance. 

With these added insights, Skai clients will be able to:

Better plan display ads across the customer journey. This data will aid marketers in planning their Walmart Connect campaigns across the funnel. Upper-funnel ads tend to have lower conversion rates, so only by seeing the impact of these ads and measuring its impact at each point of the funnel will marketers be able to grow their programs.

Measure holistic campaign effectiveness. The closed-loop reporting provided by Walmart Connect helps marketers tie ads to sales outcomes, both online and in-store. This comprehensive understanding of their display campaigns’ impact on consumer purchasing behavior enables better decision-making in every phase of the campaign: planning, creative, targeting, and optimization

Access unified data. Previously, these two reporting streams were accessed in different locations than standard Walmart Connect ad performance. With this innovation, marketers can now see their display data side-by-side with the rest of their campaigns, enabling faster time to insight. 

Justify investments. With more transparency into which display campaigns drive actual sales, advertisers can strategically allocate their budgets with confidence that they are making the right decisions and identify actionable insights at scale.

Ultimately, it’s about making better decisions

Skai’s third annual 2024 State of Retail Media report shows that upper funnel measurement continues to be a decision-making challenge. The ability to better measure upper funnel impact (36%) was one of the top needs cited when we asked marketers what would accelerate their investments in retail media.

Skai’s new support for Walmart onsite and Walmart DSP offsite display ad reporting provides new transparency and insight for our clients to make better-informed decisions as they navigate the mid- and upper-funnel within Walmart Connect’s ever-evolving ecosystem. Given the imminent deprecation of third-party cookies, marketers will rely more on closed ecosystems like Walmart Connect, which makes this advancement in upper-funnel reporting even more needed. 

Experts agree.

“We expect advertisers to rely more on walled gardens… to drive audience targeting, given their intimate knowledge of consumer affinities and their wide reach.” – from the McKinsey article, The Demise of Third-Party Cookies and Identifiers 

Skai clients who would like more information about this announcement should reach out to their client success team.

If you don’t currently work with Skai and would like to see our cutting-edge retail media innovation for yourself, schedule a brief demo today.

With Skai’s Retail Media solution, you can manage campaigns on Walmart and 100+ retailers, including Amazon, Target, and Instacart, alongside major publishers across paid search, paid social, and apps.