Methods to promote on the Walmart Market
If a company has roughly half the US population as its customers, you would love to use this platform to promote your business, right?
This is exactly what you can do on the Walmart Marketplace. You have the opportunity to reach a huge market with very targeted, engaged consumers. Why isn't it getting as much attention as other platforms like Amazon?
If you're new to Walmart Marketplace, you probably should be. Here's how you can use advertising to get the most of it.
What is the Walmart Marketplace?
The Walmart Marketplace allows third parties to upload, manage, and sell their products on the Walmart website.
As the largest retailer in the world, it was only a matter of time before Walmart started flexing its muscles in e-commerce. In recent years, Walmart has seen tremendous growth thanks in part to the Walmart marketplace. With a large audience and millions of engaged buyers, the Walmart Marketplace could be as much a necessity for any online retailer as Amazon.
Getting your products onto the Walmart Marketplace is a big step. However, to maximize your sales, consider how you are advertising. The marketplace offers many useful ways to reach your target customer and you may find that it can get a very good return on advertising spend (ROAS).
Why you should advertise on the Walmart Marketplace
Understanding your customers is the only marketing strategy you need. A big part of that is getting to your customers where they are. For 150 million Americans a week, that's at Walmart.
The statistics behind Walmart are significant. Just looking at the numbers can give you an idea of why being on the Walmart Marketplace is important:
- the largest retailer in the United States
- Ninety percent of Americans shopped at Walmart in the past year
- Every week 150 million customers visit Walmart in-store or online
- Ninety percent of Americans live less than 10 miles from a Walmart store
However, Walmart isn't just about its physical stores. It also has a large e-commerce presence and many of its customers are into it. The shopper journey is a true omnichannel in the modern world. 35 percent of Walmart shoppers do research on Walmart.com for products before going into a physical store.
Amazon may have a bigger profile in the online world, but that doesn't mean the Walmart marketplace is a hidden gem that you can find easy success with. There is tremendous competition in the marketplace. While growing your profile organically is important, you need to make the most of the advertising opportunities that are available to you.
These options may look very similar to other major online marketplaces, however there are some unique features on the Walmart marketplace that you can use to your advantage.
Walmart Marketplace Features
In the past few years, the Walmart marketplace has grown rapidly and improved the seller experience. If you are familiar with Amazon Seller Central, you will find many similarities, but some features are slightly different.
On the Walmart Marketplace, you can:
- Upload your products
- Optimize your offers
- Choose your price
- Decide on your method of fulfillment
- Rate your advertising
Every step in this process is important, so your Marketplace account is an important place that you will visit regularly. Small details make a big difference when it comes to selling online. So it is important that you write good product descriptions, pick the right price points (Walmart is very sensitive so be sure to read all terms and conditions) and get an idea of an effective fulfillment plan.
Like Amazon, you can send your products to a Walmart fulfillment center. However, this feature works very differently as sellers have much more control over the shipping process.
To get the most out of these features, you need to have a good understanding of your own business and create a business plan on how to maximize your sales on the Walmart Marketplace.
Walmart Advertising: Sponsored Products
Advertising is not one size fits all. People go through a complicated customer journey when they buy your products. You must therefore be able to reach them in a number of ways.
Walmart advertising is particularly good at this, offering advertisers many different tools to help them reach their target audience.
With six different ad types, you can reach customers in the awareness, consideration and decision stages of the buying process, establish your brand in people's minds and increase sales.
To set up any type of ad, just do the following:
- Sign in to your Walmart Ad Center account.
- On the Campaigns tab, select Create New Campaign.
- Choose manual or automatic targeting.
- Set your budget.
- Choose your placement type (if you chose manual targeting).
- Select Bid Multipliers (this gives you additional control over which ad formats you use).
- Create an ad group and add the products you want to advertise.
- Enter your keywords (for manual campaigns only; if you choose Automatic, Walmart will do it for you).
Walmart Advertising Ad Type 1: Search the grid
When we think of search engines, we think of Google, Bing, and Duck Duck Go. We don't think of social media platforms or large e-commerce platforms like Walmart Marketplace or Amazon.
That is exactly what these platforms are. They are search engines that people use to find and buy products. This means that the types of Walmart ads you use are likely to be very similar to the PPC ads you run on Google.
Search in grid Walmart ads allow your products to appear when a customer enters a specific query in the search bar. For example, if your keyword is "crazy," your product will appear in the search grid when people enter that query.
As with traditional search engines, it takes time to build your organic presence in the marketplace. Searching Raster Walmart Ads can help you be on top of results faster.
To run any of these ads, your products must meet several requirements:
- be in stock
- Win the purchase box
- be in the top 128 organic search results (top 3 pages)
- same category as the search query
- same product type as at least one top 20 organic result
Once you've met all of these requirements, searching grid ads is an ideal way to get your products in front of your target audience.
Walmart Advertising Ad Type 2: Brand Enhancer
While grid ads search is about getting a specific product in front of your audience, brand booster ads are about showcasing your brand.
You may have a whole slew of exciting products people want to try and in that case a brand enhancer may be the right form of Walmart promotion for you. Instead of your product appearing in search results, a brand amplifier displays a banner with your brand name and a selection of your products above the results.
This is a great way to increase brand awareness and get people interested in your products.
With a bold logo, customizable headline, and up to three of your products on display, you can grab people's attention and encourage them to continue exploring your brand.
Walmart Advertising Ad Type 3: Product Carousel
Sometimes people shop online and know exactly what they want, but in many cases they want to compare products to find the best. To support this, Walmart places product carousels that show customers various product options on search, category and product pages.
Some of the results on the product carousel appear organic, others are paid ads.
This is another way of reaching a target audience with your products. If someone is already looking at a product page and comparing their options, chances are they are motivated to buy. This is an excellent time to get it on your product pages.
Walmart Advertising Ad Type 4: Buy Box
These different forms of Walmart advertising may seem very similar, but each has its advantages. Another great option is the Buy Box.
The buy box will appear on the product pages and offer your product as an alternative to what they are looking at. This makes it a great place to display your product. If the customer is having issues with the product they are considering, the next option is to review your product.
With the Buy Box, customers can quickly compare two products so that your ad can run perfectly. It brings your product to the mind of the buyer and establishes it as a viable alternative.
It's a great tool when you see your product late in the buyer's journey.
Walmart Advertising Display Ads
Walmart advertising isn't limited to results-based product ads. It also offers options for more content-based advertising through display ads.
Just as Google enables advertisers to serve ads that appear on websites on the Internet, Walmart offers a similar function. You can use them to reach customers at many different stages in the customer journey, whether they are on Walmart's own properties or on third-party websites.
Walmart Display Ad Type 1: On-site display
Onsite display ads are content-based ads that you can use to advertise on all Walmart platforms, including Walmart.com and Walmart apps.
Display ads are standout features across the web and are an opportunity to grab users' attention and earn their clicks. To do this, you need to be creative with your ads. It's no different at Walmart.
One advantage you have with Walmart is that you take advantage of the huge amount of data that is available on people's shopping habits. That way, you can choose your ideal Walmart customer to target and make sure your ads are showing in front of the right people.
With on-the-spot advertising, your ads become truly omnichannel, but reach people who are interacting with Walmart, and allow you to see your results in one place.
Walmart Display Ad Type 2: Offsite Ad
Just because someone clicked away from your product page doesn't mean they won't buy in the future.
They may have done some initial research and are considering coming back to your product later. When someone leaves your product page, you want to make sure that your brand is remembered.
Offsite display ads can be the perfect way to make sure people don't forget your products.
You can use retargeting to reach targeted Walmart customers over the Internet. These display ads can be served on social media platforms and third-party websites to ensure that your product remains in the minds of your target audience and that they can come back quickly and make a purchase.
Retargeting can be an extremely efficient use of your budget if you use the right strategies. Walmart has all the tools you need to do this.
Conclusion
To be successful in marketing you need to make sure that you advertise on the platforms that your customers are using. For 150 million Americans, Walmart is that platform. Of course, to get the most out of your audience, you also need the right tools. With a rapidly growing online presence, Walmart can give you just that.
Increasing your organic presence is an essential part of having a presence in any market. However, Walmart Advertising also gives you a great platform to sell more products. If you can be targeted and creative with Walmart advertising, you can expand your reach and increase sales quickly.
As always with advertising, it's about finding the strategies that work best for you, and Walmart gives you more than enough tools to do it. Your customers spend money at Walmart every week. So when do you take a piece of the pie?
Did you advertise on the Walmart Marketplace? What was your experience
See How my agency can drive Firmly Traffic volumes on your website
- SEO – Unlock tons of SEO traffic. See real results.
- Content Marketing – Our team creates epic content that is shared, links accessed and visitors drawn.
- Paid media – effective paid strategies with a clear ROI.
Book a call