First-party data is quickly becoming a precious commodity for CPG brands. Retailers have quickly caught up to this trend and are giving access (for a fee) to shopper insights, collected in their stores and on their website, to help marketers close the loop between advertising and purchases.

During the spring of 2022, The Stable identified two key campaigns to test Walmart’s new DSP; leveraging the retailer’s first-party data to optimize targeting and media performance for our clients. 

If you are interested in leveraging retailers’ shopper data in your next media campaign keep reading! We’ll review Walmart’s DSP offering and our key takeaways from running two successful campaigns.

In 2021, Walmart announced the launch of a self-serve programmatic media platform in partnership with The Trade Desk. This unprecedented announcement meant that marketers would have access to Walmart’s own shopper data and closed-loop measurement for the first time in a self-serve capacity. 

Walmart’s first-party data will enable marketers to target more relevant audiences using the shoppers purchase history (at the brand and category level) and predictive segments, created by combining purchase history and search browsing history, to identify additional likely brand shoppers for a given category. 

Walmart DSP also comes with in-flight and post-campaign reporting on media performance and Walmart omnichannel sales (by store, online and pick-up/delivery). These granular reports give a full picture of what products consumers buy at scale across all advertising channels. 

In spring 2022, our Walmart team identified two key campaigns to beta test these new capabilities; one of them was for the brand Flex, an emerging brand specialized in innovative menstruation products. 

Katie Sperin, Director of Media at The Stable, Part of Accenture Song, walks us through her experience setting up our first campaigns in Walmart DSP and what led to successful activations.

• Setup 

Setting up a campaign in Walmart DSP is extremely similar to the setup within the Trade Desk DSP, with a few additional steps. First, you will need to set up the item set for the campaign. This essentially maps products back to Walmart, which you want to receive the closed-loop measurement from. Then, you will need to set up your Walmart first-party audiences. Each advertiser is able to leverage their own brand audiences and Walmart category audiences.

• Targeting

Leveraging Walmart first-party data can give you a leg up in your targeting, since you are already serving qualified audiences. 

All audiences and item sets (for measurement reporting) have to be set up upfront with the new Walmart DSP advertiser. While this may take some time in the beginning, there is no additional sourcing or connections needed after this initial set up. 

Each brand then gets access to Walmart First-Party audiences specific to that brand. For example, our client Flex had access to ”Past Flex Shoppers”, “Lapsed Flex Shoppers” and Walmart First-Party Category audiences for their campaign activations, such as “Tampon Recent Buyers”.

For more specific targeting, Walmart DSP allows you to layer on demographics and additional customization, such as: channel preferences (pick up or delivery), top spenders, devices, and more.

Examples of audiences we were able to leverage for our client Flex in their activations include:

WMT Retail > Tampons Recent Buyers (42.2 MM active IDs)

WMT Retail > Tampons Predicted Buyers (4.5 MM active IDs)

WMT Retail > Feminine Hygiene Recent Buyers (109 MM active IDs)

• Optimization & Reporting

Walmart DSP gives access to two measurement reports in real-time, a 14-day and 30-day lookback. The 14-day lookback, specifically, was key to making real-time optimizations based on ROAS and actual Walmart sales – having access to ROAS number based on advertising dollars and units sold was key to driving a successful retailer campaign. 

With this additional information, we were able to make shifts and changes in real-time based on what was driving those sales and the highest ROAS all the way down to the audience and creative level.

Walmart’s new advertising solution provides brands the opportunity to make their products more visible to Walmart’s 155 million weekly shoppers. The launch of Walmart DSP is significant for retail brands, without a direct-to-consumer presence, who want to reach more relevant audiences or add another layer of data to their already qualified audiences. 

If you are looking to leverage Walmart’s DSP capabilities, The Stable can set up and run campaigns to promote your brand while providing weekly reports on performance and layering in our own first-party and third-party data on top of Walmart’s shopper insight. 

With no minimum campaign budget, it’s easy to get started. Reach out about your project today!