Joshua Dreller
Sr. Director, Content Marketing @ Skai
Retail media advertising is today’s third-largest digital channel, and eMarketer now forecasts US ad spending to jump in the channel by 31.4% to $40.81 billion this year. As more brands continue to increase their investments, marketers must efficiently scale their programs even with the increased pressure of more competition.
Just a few short years ago, retail media marketers could focus almost all of their budget on bottom-funnel ads to navigate users to their product detail pages. But, as the channel has grown, marketers need more sophisticated approaches to drive performance. This is why one of the ways that marketers are evolving their retail media strategy is with a more holistic, full-funnel approach in order to reach consumers at every key inflection point across the customer journey.
As one advertising expert in a recent Forbes article explains:
There are no shortcuts. Brands still need to work their way through the marketing funnel. The basics apply today just as much as they have in the past. If it was easy to launch a brand, run some ads, and drive 5X ROI, then everyone would do it. It takes marketing savvy, time, energy, money, and patience to develop a good brand and a good marketing system.
Walmart Connect’s Sponsored Brands ads help marketers engage users throughout their journey
Every year, 90% of American households rely on Walmart for a range of must-buy products from a variety of brands and sellers, both large and small. But when consumers visit Walmart.com, they don’t always know what they want. Walmart data indicates that customers want buying suggestions, and Walmart’s search platform helps them discover products that meet their needs.
This is a massive opportunity for retail marketers.
Retail media advertising, like Walmart advertising, works amazingly well at the bottom of the funnel to drive interested consumers to relevant product detail pages if they know exactly what they want. But, when used correctly, it can also build awareness and consideration at the top-/mid-funnel to expose new users to a brand and get into consideration sets just as customers are starting their journeys.
One of those full-funnel retail media ad formats is Sponsored Brands. This is not a new ad placement; Walmart Connect renamed them from their previous iteration, Search Brand Amplifier. This is better aligned to the broader retail media space as Sponsored Brands have become the standard terminology for this type of ad type across the channel’s other retail publishers.
Sponsored Brands offer unparalleled visibility on the search results pages
“Sponsored Brands are an integral part of the retail media marketing plan,” says Claudia Virgilio, Skai’s Global Vice President of Strategic Partnerships. “Already one of the most important publishers in the space, Walmart Connect continues to evolve and innovate in ways that help marketers reach their massive online audiences and impact purchase behavior.”
What Are Sponsored Brands: Walmart Connect 101
Sponsored Brands appear above the search listings and include your brand logo, custom headline, and up to four advertised items with shoppable links. Featured items automatically populate based on their relevance to the customer’s search query, availability, and quality of item page content. The main logo link sends customers to the advertiser’s choice of search page or browse page, while item links send customers to individual item pages.
As with all Sponsored Search ads, you pay only when customers click your ad. Sponsored Brands can significantly benefit smaller brands, new brands, and brands with new products that may not yet have high organic search rankings at Walmart. This format is also ideal for promoting seasonal and higher-priced products.
Recently, a CPG foods brand used Skai to run their Walmart Connect Sponsored Brands ads (SBA). The launch of SBA in tandem with ongoing campaign optimization helped to increase ROI by 9% and conversion rate by 8%.
Use Sponsored Brands to:
Increase Awareness
- Reinforce brand image
- Inspire item discovery
- Help reach customers beyond the existing user base
- Gain brand share of voice
Inspire Conversions
- Launch new or seasonal items
- Improve visibility of items with modest search rankings
- Help boost the performance of higher-priced items
Sponsored Brands are also now available to Marketplace sellers that meet Walmart Connect’s eligibility requirements. Walmart suppliers and eligible Marketplace sellers can launch and manage their Sponsored Brands campaigns via Walmart Ad Center or through Walmart Platform Partners.
Walmart Connect + Skai for full-funnel retail media success
As part of Skai’s omnichannel marketing platform, our Retail Media solution empowers brands to plan, execute, and measure digital campaigns that meet consumers when and where they shop. Built with best-in-class automation and optimization capabilities, our unified platform allows you to manage campaigns on 30+ retailers including Walmart Connect, all in one place.
Client results include:
- 461% increase in ROAS and 57% increase in page traffic for Bondi Sands
- 92% increase in the share of voice for a Fortune 500 CPG brand
- 72% increase in revenue for VTech
- 1,390% year-over-year sales growth for Kamado Joe
For more information, please schedule a brief demo to see our Walmart Connect Sponsored Brands support and other retail media functionality for yourself
