Walmart (NASDAQ:WMT) is expanding its advertising business beyond traditional retail media by building self-service tools, broadening its connected-TV capabilities and pursuing more advertising opportunities both inside and outside its shopping ecosystem, Walmart Connect U.S. General Manager Ryan Mayward said at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia + Technology Conference.
Mayward, who became general manager about eight or nine months ago after initially joining Walmart Connect in sales, said the business has evolved during the past several years from a managed-service publisher model toward a scalable advertising platform. Earlier efforts centered on sponsorships tied to major shopping events and a nascent search business, he said. The company is now focused on performance advertising, self-service buying tools, application programming interfaces and partnerships with service providers.
Marketplace growth supports ad expansion
Marketplace sellers compete through retail fundamentals such as price, shipping speed, product ratings, reviews and item-page content, but advertising provides another way to stand out, he said. Mayward added that a broader advertiser base can make advertising revenue more diversified and potentially less exposed to weakness in any one industry.
He said Walmart Connect is seeking to make its tools workable for advertisers of different sizes, from a small brand spending $1,000 per month to a large brand spending $10 million per month.
CTV strategy centers on VIZIO and external partners
Mayward said Walmart is particularly focused on connected television, including opportunities to make TV advertising more accessible to smaller and local businesses. The company completed its VIZIO acquisition on Aug. 4, according to Mayward, and sees the platform as a way to offer campaign setup, goal-based buying, automated optimization and measurement that are familiar to advertisers using search and social platforms.
Walmart has enabled Walmart audience targeting and measurement on VIZIO inventory, and 2026 is the first full year that Walmart Connect advertisers have been able to use the offering, Mayward said. He said adoption has been strong among large consumer packaged goods advertisers.
The company is also seeking to expand VIZIO’s reach by selling more VIZIO televisions and placing the VIZIO smart-TV operating system on Walmart’s onn private-label TVs. Mayward said the combined effort made the VIZIO operating system the leading smart-TV operating system in the U.S. during the first half of the year.
Walmart is working with Magnite to make Walmart Connect audience and measurement capabilities available on VIZIO inventory while allowing advertisers to buy through multiple demand-side platforms. Yahoo DSP advertisers can activate campaigns on the inventory, and Mayward said DV360 integration is expected to follow.
Separately, Walmart is in a beta phase with YouTube that allows advertisers to use Walmart data to target and measure campaigns on the video platform. Mayward said the initial managed-service approach is intended to help the companies develop a self-service campaign workflow. Walmart has also established advertising partnerships with Meta and TikTok.
AI shopping tools and measurement remain priorities
Mayward said Walmart is working with Google and OpenAI to enable discovery of Walmart products in their agentic shopping interfaces, though he characterized the activity as early and relatively small. Walmart is also investing in its own shopping agent, Sparky.
According to Mayward, Sparky’s weekly active customers doubled year over year and rose 60% quarter over quarter. He said the average order value for Sparky shopping trips is 40% higher than for non-Sparky trips, citing use cases involving more considered purchases such as planning a tailgate party.
For advertisers, Walmart Connect is emphasizing measurement tied to business goals such as customer acquisition, household penetration, customer reactivation and larger shopping baskets. Mayward said the company measures online ads’ impact on purchases in both the Walmart app and stores, and has introduced tools to measure sales lift and incrementality across display, video and search.
Walmart is also testing inventory- and price-aware end-of-aisle screens in certain stores. The screens can show sponsored messages intended to direct shoppers into relevant aisles, particularly in food and consumables, Mayward said.
Advertising viewed as incremental profit opportunity
Mayward said the company’s advertising business has margins above 70%, compared with approximately 5% for Walmart’s core retail business. He said Walmart views advertising profit as incremental rather than the result of shifting spending from other trade-investment categories.
While e-commerce growth and advertising growth are directly connected because more online shoppers and higher e-commerce GMV expand the advertising opportunity, Mayward said advertising can also grow beyond Walmart’s e-commerce operations. This includes non-endemic advertisers such as insurance companies, financial-services firms, quick-service restaurants, entertainment companies and local businesses.
Walmart has begun offering non-endemic placements in its shopping app and through offsite advertising capabilities. Mayward said connected TV can further expand the company’s addressable advertiser base.
Looking ahead, Walmart is working to place Sam’s Club and international advertising operations on a common advertising technology stack. Mayward said the effort could improve use of data and advertising placements in those businesses while eventually supporting deeper relationships with global brands.
“We are building out the capabilities to be in all those places,” Mayward said, referring to shopping environments, social platforms, television and short-form video. “As those capabilities mature, our advertising business opportunity size will be much bigger than that which is enabled by the retail business.”
About Walmart (NASDAQ:WMT)
Walmart Inc is a multinational retail and technology company that operates supercenters, discount stores, neighborhood markets, e-commerce platforms and membership warehouse clubs. Its merchandise includes groceries, apparel, electronics, home goods, health and beauty products, general merchandise and other consumer products.
Founded by Sam Walton in 1962 and incorporated in 1969, Walmart is headquartered in Bentonville, Arkansas. The company serves customers through operations in the United States and international markets, including Mexico, Canada, China, India and several countries in Central America and Africa.
