Walmart Connect: How Walmart Advertising Works for Brands

Walmart Connect is Walmart's retail media and advertising business. It lets brands and Marketplace sellers buy ads on Walmart.com, the Walmart app and other placements, targeted with Walmart's online and in-store shopping data. Most brands start with Sponsored Products, which is pay per click and shown in search results and on item pages, then add Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Videos and display.

What is Walmart Connect?

Walmart Connect is to Walmart what Amazon Ads is to Amazon. It sells ad placements across Walmart's digital properties and, for larger advertisers, placements off Walmart and in stores. Walmart describes its advantage as data: it uses online and in-store transaction data to reach audiences and measure results in a closed loop, from ad exposure to purchase.

There are two ways in. Walmart Marketplace sellers sign in to the Walmart Connect Ad Center with their Seller Center account and run self-serve campaigns. Suppliers who sell to Walmart wholesale sign in with their Supplier Center account. Either can also work through a Walmart Connect partner. Walmart says Sponsored Search has no setup or monthly fees: you choose a budget and pay when a shopper clicks.

What ad types does Walmart Connect offer?

Ad type	Where it shows	How you pay	Who can use it	Best for
Sponsored Products	Search results, browse pages, item pages and carousels on the Walmart site and app	Cost per click	Marketplace sellers and suppliers	Everyday sales and launch velocity
Sponsored Brands	Top of search results, and browse pages on desktop and mobile web	Cost per click	Brand owners and authorized brand representatives	Brand defense, launches and new-to-brand buyers
Sponsored Videos	Video placements in search results, targeted by keyword	Cost per click	Brand owners and authorized brand representatives	Showing the product in use at the moment of consideration
Onsite Display	Banner formats such as gallery, marquee, brand box, skyline and tile on Walmart's site and app	Set per campaign	Advertisers eligible for display	Awareness, category conquest and sending traffic to a Brand Shop

Sponsored Products

Walmart's auction pairs your product's relevance with your bid to decide who shows. You can run automatic targeting, where Walmart chooses the searches, or manual keyword campaigns. Walmart recommends choosing best-selling products with high-quality listings, because they are the most likely to convert.

Sponsored Brands

Sponsored Brands show your logo, a headline and up to four products at the top of search. A campaign can include up to ten items, and Walmart's algorithm picks the most relevant four to feature. You choose where the click lands: a search results page, a product page, or your Brand Shop.

Sponsored Videos

Sponsored Videos run between five and 45 seconds, appear in search as shoppers scroll, and are targeted by keyword. You upload the video, add the items it promotes, then set keywords and bids.

Onsite Display

Display ads reach shoppers with behavioral targeting (based on Walmart online and in-store shopping history), keyword targeting, contextual targeting in relevant categories, or run of site for the broadest reach.

Sources, checked September 25, 2026: Walmart Connect, Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Videos, Onsite Display; Walmart Marketplace, Sponsored Search.

How is Walmart Connect different from Amazon Ads?

	Walmart Connect	Amazon Ads
Core search ad	Sponsored Products, cost per click	Sponsored Products, cost per click
Brand ads	Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Videos for brand owners	Sponsored Brands and video for brands in Amazon Brand Registry
Display and off-site	Onsite Display, plus offsite and in-store options	Sponsored Display and the Amazon demand-side platform (DSP)
Data behind targeting	Online and in-store Walmart purchases	Amazon shopping, browsing and streaming signals
Where you manage it	Walmart Connect Ad Center	Amazon Ads console
What ranks an item	Relevance plus bid, with price and delivery speed feeding conversion	Relevance plus bid, with conversion history feeding rank

The practical difference: many categories have fewer serious bidders on Walmart, so the same budget can buy more visibility, but the item page has to win on price and delivery speed, because Walmart shoppers compare hard. For a wider view across retailers, read retail media networks explained.

How do you launch a Walmart Connect campaign?

1. Check retail readiness. Complete attributes, strong images, competitive price, fast delivery (Walmart Fulfillment Services or two-day seller fulfillment) and at least a few reviews. Walmart publishes its own retail readiness checklist for this reason.
2. Sign in to the Walmart Connect Ad Center with your Seller Center or Supplier Center account.
3. Start with Sponsored Products. Run an automatic campaign on your best sellers to learn which searches convert, and a manual campaign on the keywords you already know.
4. Harvest and exclude. Move converting search terms into manual campaigns, and add non-converting terms as negative keywords.
5. Add Sponsored Brands once you have several items to show, to defend your brand name and reach category searches.
6. Add Sponsored Videos when you have short product videos, usually the same vertical clips you use on Amazon and TikTok Shop.
7. Review weekly. Adjust bids by search term and placement, pause products that are out of stock or uncompetitive on price, and move budget to what sells.

How do negative keywords work on Walmart?

Since July 29, 2026, Sponsored Products manual campaigns, and automatic campaigns using fixed bidding, support negative keywords in two match types. Negative exact match blocks your ad only when the search exactly matches the term. Negative phrase match blocks any search that contains the full phrase in the same order. You can add them to new campaigns or to ad groups in existing campaigns.

Source, checked September 25, 2026: Walmart Connect, Introducing negative keywords for Sponsored Products, July 29, 2026.

How much should a brand spend on Walmart Connect?

There is no fixed Sponsored Search minimum for Marketplace sellers: you set a budget and pay per click. The right number depends on what you are trying to do. A launch budget has to buy enough clicks to earn sales and reviews, so it usually runs at a higher advertising cost of sales (ACoS, ad spend divided by ad-attributed sales) than a mature campaign. Once organic rank takes hold, the target moves toward profit.

Set the ceiling from margin, not from benchmarks: price, minus Walmart's referral fee, fulfillment and product cost, is the most a sale can spend on advertising before it loses money. Our Walmart selling guide lists Walmart's referral fees by category, and our WFS guide covers fulfillment costs.

The most common failure we see is underfunding. A brand spends heavily on Amazon advertising and a token amount on Walmart, gets a trickle of sales, and decides Walmart does not work. Fund the launch properly, measure it on total Walmart sales and new customers, then tighten.

How do you measure Walmart Connect?

• Return on ad spend (ROAS) and ACoS by campaign, product and search term. Walmart defines ROAS as total attributed sales revenue divided by ad spend.
• New-to-brand sales. Walmart reports these for Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Videos, which is the clearest sign the ads are reaching new customers.
• Total advertising cost of sales (TACoS): ad spend divided by all Walmart sales, not just ad-attributed sales. If TACoS falls while sales grow, ads are building organic rank.
• Organic rank on your core searches, to see whether paid sales are lifting organic position.
• In-store impact, for suppliers whose products are also on Walmart shelves, through Walmart's closed-loop measurement.

Walmart publishes its own averages for advertisers, such as the average return on ad spend Marketplace sellers see on Sponsored Products. Treat those as Walmart's marketing, not a forecast. Your number depends on your category, price, reviews and delivery speed.

What should suppliers, manufacturers and CPG brands know?

Brands that sell to Walmart stores as suppliers, including manufacturers and consumer packaged goods (CPG) brands, can reach Walmart Connect through Supplier Center and often have access to more formats, such as offsite and in-store media. Two things matter most. First, coordinate with your buyer: retail media spend is increasingly part of the joint business plan. Second, keep Marketplace and wholesale separate in your reporting, so you know which ad dollars moved online sales, which moved store sales, and which simply moved sales from one to the other.

What mistakes do brands make with Walmart Connect?

1. Advertising items that are not retail ready. Missing attributes, weak images, uncompetitive price or slow delivery waste clicks.
2. Copying Amazon campaigns one for one. Search behavior and competition differ. Let an automatic campaign show you how Walmart shoppers search.
3. Ignoring negative keywords. Now that they exist, there is no excuse for paying for irrelevant searches.
4. Underfunding the launch. Too little budget produces too little data to optimize.
5. Advertising out-of-stock items. Pause campaigns when inventory runs low.
6. Judging on ad sales alone. Watch total Walmart sales and organic rank, not only attributed sales.

We run Walmart Connect alongside Amazon advertising as one plan through our Walmart Marketplace agency work, so budget moves to whichever channel earns it.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Walmart Connect?

Walmart Connect is Walmart's advertising business. It sells Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Videos and display ads on Walmart.com, the Walmart app and other placements, targeted and measured with Walmart's online and in-store shopping data.

How much does Walmart advertising cost?

Sponsored Search ads are pay per click with no setup or monthly fee, so you set the budget. What each click costs depends on the auction for your keywords. Set your ceiling from margin: the most a sale can spend on ads after Walmart's referral fee, fulfillment and product cost.

Can Walmart Marketplace sellers use Walmart Connect?

Yes. Marketplace sellers sign in to the Walmart Connect Ad Center with their Seller Center account and run self-serve campaigns. Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Videos are limited to brand owners and authorized brand representatives.

Is Walmart Connect the same as Walmart Sponsored Products?

No. Sponsored Products is one ad type inside Walmart Connect. Walmart Connect also includes Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Videos, Onsite Display and, for larger advertisers, offsite and in-store media.

Does Walmart Connect have negative keywords?

Yes. Since July 29, 2026, Sponsored Products manual campaigns and automatic campaigns with fixed bidding support negative exact match and negative phrase match keywords.

Is Walmart advertising cheaper than Amazon advertising?

It can be, because many categories have fewer serious bidders on Walmart. But cost per click is only half the math. Conversion on Walmart depends heavily on price and delivery speed, so compare channels on profit per sale, not on click cost.