Today is a very exciting day for Walmart Connect. We announced earlier this year a new name for our media business, Walmart Connect, in an effort to reflect our new focus and strategic vision. With this new name and vision, we wanted to emphasize our commitment to connecting brands and our more than 150 million weekly customers at scale using innovative ad solutions.
Our vision is focused on three key strategic areas that allow us to go beyond traditional media channels and offer meaningful experiences and integrations to bring brands measurably closer to their customers. First, we are growing our offerings across our digital properties to provide more holistic ad campaigns. Second, we are introducing new omni capabilities to help brands reach customers in our stores. And today, we are expanding our offsite media opportunities at scale by introducing our new demand-side platform, Walmart DSP.
Walmart DSP is a first-of-its kind demand-side platform that was built in partnership with the world’s leading independent DSP, The Trade Desk. As the world’s leading retailer, we are thrilled to be partnering with such a prominent figure in the adtech space to pioneer a new frontier in digital advertising and give advertisers an open, transparent and objective platform while upholding privacy standards.
Unlike other DSP products in the market, our standalone platform combines the best-in-class technology and performance of The Trade Desk with the robust scale of Walmart’s unparalleled first party omnichannel data, allowing advertisers to be more effective with their overall media spend. Because inspiration, discovery and purchase can happen anywhere, suppliers can broaden their reach and engage with customers wherever they are and bring them back to the Walmart ecosystem.
Walmart DSP will be available for select suppliers by the end of October, just in time for the holiday shopping season. When it launches, marketers and advertisers will be able to access numerous industry-leading platform capabilities powered by the scale of Walmart’s omnichannel data which include:
- Connecting with the right customers at the right time: Reach specific audiences with increased precision by leveraging Walmart’s past purchase and predictive audience segments, as well as brand level shopping behavior data from across the entire Walmart ecosystem, including our website, app and our 4,700 physical stores.
- Full access to The Trade Desk’s rich inventory across multiple channels: Display, streaming video, mobile, audio and CTV capabilities allow advertisers to manage multiple campaigns within the same platform.
- Closing the measurement loop across digital and in-store sales: Connecting online-to-offline sales by leveraging Walmart’s purchase data to measure both online and in-store transactions and link these to specific media tactics to make campaign optimizations and inform future strategies.
This last point is truly one of the key differentiators of the Walmart DSP. While the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated Walmart eCommerce sales growth, there has also been a measurable increase in Walmart store traffic over the past quarter. By connecting and measuring both online and in-store performance, the Walmart DSP can offer targeting, reporting and omnichannel insights down to a granular level.
We want to make it easier and simpler for brands and advertising agencies to partner with us through programmatic and self-serve solutions, and Walmart DSP is the latest release in our product innovation pipeline to deliver on that goal.
