Let’s talk about Walmart self-serve advertising.
Believe it or not, Walmart was one of the latest companies to enter the self-serve advertising market. In fact, they just released it on January 3, 2020! Walmart couldn’t just let other supergiant companies like Amazon take the lead in the advertising industry. Self-service is a rapidly growing concept, so advertisers and agencies take it seriously.
Walmart has had a long history of serving its customers by offering convenience items and grocery products. They use consistent messaging to keep their pricing low. Walmart also caters to such a large demographic that advertisers yield great results for their different brands.
When we looked at Walmart ads, we found there are really five ways to improve your advertising campaigns. With the different features involved, it can be difficult to know what works best, especially when it’s tailored to your specific brand and situation. Together, we’ll break down each one and learn how they can be best implemented.
- Be Intentional With Walmart Campaign Budgets
There are too many times when a budget becomes guesswork and an agency is left with too little results, too much money spent, or both. When an intentional budget is set, better results usually follow.
Using the “set total budget” option available on the Walmart platform, you have the technology to manage a budget automatically, without having to monitor it. Be careful, though; when monitoring is off, an advertiser could miss additional options in a budget, or funds that could be allocated elsewhere for better results. The budget that is managed automatically might not be proportional for the duration of a campaign.
Also, remember to avoid the trap of large bid increases. Walmart advertising is based on an auction bid system, so it’s easy to beat the competition; however, this method could also result in overpaying for ads with little results.
2. Run More Than Manual Campaigns
Sometimes the automatic ad campaigns make great suggestions for your business, and this is a part that shouldn’t be overlooked. Manual ad campaigns might not present all possibilities, so it is useful to see other options, even if they are based on artificial intelligence.
Automatic campaigns aren’t limited to search in-grid ad placements like manual ads. Automatic campaigns allow listings to appear in the sponsored carousels and the buy box on product details.
You can determine which keywords are in your listing, title, description, and other listing sections. Walmart uses these keywords to decide ad placement that will reach the largest number of consumers.
3. Don’t Only Use Match Keywords
Walmart offers three types of keywords, which are used based on your business goals. If you want to launch a recurring product, it might be best to target new target markets to drive up sales and market shares. You can also use broad match keywords to increase impressions. It is advisable to use as many keywords as your budget allows.
Pro tip: Commit to a little research so you’re not guessing which keywords will cost too much for too little return on investment. Look at past campaigns and analyze what went well and why. When advertisers perform background research on why some campaigns do better than others with keywords, they know what works better with the products and messaging being communicated.
4. Fully Utilize Performance Data
Always make sure to use performance data for a better understanding of your results, and how well your investments are producing real revenue. It’s important to know that the effectiveness of products and ASPs vary depending on what page they appear and where they’re placed on that page.
It’s vital to test different pages and ad placements, to better determine which combinations will drive performance for the brand. Results from this data can provide a brand its next course of action and inform the next campaign, whether it was well-received or ignored by shoppers.
5. Don’t Include All Your SKUs in Your Campaigns
For a manual campaign to run an ad, it must rank in the top 128 organic results. Save yourself the trouble and identify the SKUs you used before creating your campaigns.
Your product will be accepted in the advertising, and you can also plan for the advertisement differently outside of the top 128. You can then use an automatic campaign to increase brand awareness, sales, and organic ratings.
Our Final Thoughts
Walmart has quite a few features in their campaign; it’s a matter of how we use them proactively that drives the best results. Ultimately, each brand and its attached products or services need a personal marketing touch to each one to get the right engagement, and this is best managed by a Walmart ads agency.
These five steps are a great way to get advertisers jump-started on ad campaigns, especially if they have never used the platform. Have you used this type of platform before or plan to in the future? If so, let us know what you think about the Walmart self-serve advertising platform.
