Walmart Advertising Agency New York: What Ecommerce Brands Need to Know

Walmart Connect generated nearly $6.4 billion in global advertising revenue in FY2026, growing 46% year over year. Walmart ecommerce is on track to hit $82.6 billion in 2026. Yet across most product categories, the advertiser competition on Walmart remains a fraction of what brands face on Amazon. For New York ecommerce brands building multi-channel paid media strategy, this gap between platform scale and advertiser density is the most actionable opportunity in retail media right now.

If your product brand is searching for a Walmart advertising agency in New York that understands Walmart Connect's specific mechanics, AI advertising developments, and how Walmart fits into a connected multi-platform ecommerce system, this guide covers what you need to know in 2026.

About the Author

Shlomie Spielman is the founder of Seller Splash, a New York ecommerce performance marketing agency. After managing Walmart Connect alongside Amazon, Google, Meta, and TikTok for product brands across multiple categories, he built Seller Splash's Walmart practice around one foundational observation: the brands copying Amazon campaign structures onto Walmart consistently underperform, while the brands that understand Walmart's distinct mechanics and buyer behavior compound profitably. The insights here come from live Walmart Connect account management across New York ecommerce brands.

What Walmart Connect Is and Why It Matters

Walmart Connect is Walmart's retail media network. It allows marketplace sellers, brands, and agencies to promote products across Walmart.com, the Walmart app, more than 4,600 physical Walmart store digital displays, and a network of partner websites outside Walmart's owned properties.

The structural advantage that makes Walmart Connect compelling is the combination of genuine scale and first-party data depth. Every Walmart Connect ad is powered by purchase behavior data from real transactions, not inferred demographic proxies or third-party cookie tracking. When a brand targets buyers who have previously purchased from a specific product category, that audience is built from actual Walmart purchase history, both online and in-store.

The most important commercial insight for New York brands: Walmart Connect operates on a second-price auction model. Advertisers bid a maximum cost-per-click and pay one cent above the second-highest bid, not their actual maximum. This differs from Amazon's auction mechanics and means aggressive bidding on Walmart costs less in practice than it appears on paper. Combined with lower advertiser density across most categories, this creates efficiency advantages that brands entering the platform now capture most fully.

The Walmart Connect Ad Formats: What Each One Does and When to Use It

Sponsored Products: Start Here

Sponsored Products are cost-per-click ads appearing in search results, on product detail pages, in category browse pages, and in carousels across Walmart.com and the Walmart app. They drive traffic directly to the product detail page and are the correct starting point for any new Walmart advertising engagement.

The Buy Box requirement is the first thing to verify. If a product does not hold the Buy Box on Walmart, Sponsored Products ads for that SKU will not run regardless of bid levels. Before any campaign launches, pricing strategy, in-stock status, and fulfillment performance must be strong enough to hold the Buy Box across all advertised products.

An important operational signal from account management: any product with 50 or more clicks and a conversion rate below 3% has a listing problem, not an advertising problem. The ad is working. The product detail page is not converting the traffic it receives. In that scenario, optimizing the listing resolves more than any bid adjustment would.

Sponsored Brands: Category Presence at the Top of Search

Sponsored Brands appear as premium keyword-targeted banner placements at the top of search results, featuring a brand logo, custom headline, and up to four products. They drive shoppers to a Walmart Brand Shop page where the full brand catalog is browsable rather than to a single product detail page.

The strategic distinction from Sponsored Products: Sponsored Brands build brand-level recognition within a category rather than driving single-product conversion. Running Sponsored Brands alongside Sponsored Products simultaneously means the brand occupies both the premium banner position and in-grid product placements for the same keyword, creating category dominance that individual product advertising alone cannot achieve.

Sponsored Videos: The New-to-Brand Acquisition Format

Sponsored Videos appear within search results as visual placements designed for product demonstration. Walmart Connect data shows products with video content earn 85% higher engagement than those without. Among smaller and mid-size advertisers, 91% of attributed Sponsored Video sales come from customers who have never previously purchased from the brand. This makes Sponsored Videos the strongest Walmart format specifically for new customer acquisition rather than repeat purchase capture.

Critical creative note: Walmart Sponsored Videos play muted by default. Text overlays and visual storytelling must communicate the product value proposition without audio dependency in the first two to three seconds.

Onsite Display: Audience Targeting at Scale

Onsite Display consists of banner ads across Walmart's site and app using precise audience targeting built from Walmart's purchase history. Unlike Sponsored Search formats that use the second-price auction, Onsite Display operates on a first-price eCPM auction model where advertisers pay their winning bid per thousand impressions.

The targeting capability is where Walmart's first-party data advantage is most directly visible. A brand selling cookware can target buyers who recently purchased kitchen appliances. A pet food brand can reach households with verified premium pet product purchase history. The audience signals come from real transactions, making them more precise than any third-party behavioral data.

Offsite Advertising and Connected TV

Walmart Connect extends reach beyond owned properties through partner website placements and Connected TV advertising. Walmart's December 2024 acquisition of Vizio added significant CTV advertising inventory to the platform. In fiscal Q3 2026, Walmart reported 53% year-over-year growth in global advertising revenue, with the Vizio integration expanding the upper-funnel advertising capability for brands ready to invest in awareness beyond search and display.

Offsite Walmart advertising is most relevant for brands with established Walmart Marketplace presence looking to extend reach to buyers who have not yet visited Walmart.com for their category.

Walmart AI Advertising in 2026: Marty, Sparky, and What They Change

Walmart Connect made AI the defining theme of its 2026 platform development. Two AI systems are reshaping how advertising is managed and where ads appear. Understanding both is necessary for competitive Walmart advertising in 2026.

Marty: Campaign Management Through Conversational AI

Marty is Walmart Connect's agentic AI assistant for advertisers, embedded in the Sponsored Search campaign experience. Advertisers use Marty to build, optimize, and troubleshoot campaigns through natural language conversation rather than manual interface navigation. It answers specific questions about bidding strategy, keyword selection, billing, and campaign structure, and generates four types of research reports including share-of-voice analyses.

Walmart Connect reports that 97% of Marty's user queries are unique, meaning advertisers are using it to solve highly specific campaign problems rather than generic setup questions. This signals genuine operational utility for experienced practitioners, not just a beginner onboarding tool.

For agencies managing large SKU catalogs, Marty's Change Analysis reports provide the competitive intelligence that previously required manual data extraction, flagging where competitors are outbidding a brand and by how much.

Sparky: The AI Shopping Assistant Where Ads Now Appear

Sparky is Walmart's consumer-facing AI shopping assistant, integrated into the Walmart app. Shoppers use Sparky to check product availability, compare specifications, and receive product recommendations conversationally. Walmart's internal survey found 81% of customers had used Sparky to check availability or review specifications before making a purchase, and search remains the most common entry point into shopping sessions.

In fall 2025, Walmart began testing advertising formats within Sparky. In 2026, Sparky Sponsored Prompts ads became an official Walmart Connect advertising surface, allowing brands to appear in AI-generated shopping recommendations inside the conversational assistant.

The operational implication for product listing strategy is significant: the same content quality signals that determine organic Sparky surfacing now also determine paid Sparky placement eligibility. Comprehensive product titles, accurate specifications, high-quality images, and strong review profiles are eligibility requirements for AI advertising surfaces, not only organic ranking factors. Listing quality and advertising performance are now inseparable on Walmart in ways they were not in prior years.

Seller Splash manages Walmart AI Advertising as an integrated component of every Walmart Connect engagement, ensuring product content standards meet the eligibility requirements for both traditional Sponsored Search placements and emerging AI advertising surfaces simultaneously.

What Must Be in Place Before Walmart Advertising Begins

The most reliable predictor of Walmart advertising failure is launching campaigns before foundational listing and fulfillment requirements are ready. Ad spend cannot compensate for listing problems, pricing issues, or fulfillment gaps.

Pre-launch readiness checklist:

• Verified Walmart Marketplace seller status with published, in-stock products

• Buy Box ownership confirmed across all SKUs intended for advertising

• Product titles optimized with relevant keywords following Walmart's content guidelines

• Product descriptions covering use cases, specifications, and buyer questions in natural language

• High-quality images meeting Walmart's image requirements

• Review volume sufficient to support conversion at the product detail page level

• Fulfillment readiness through Walmart Fulfillment Services (WFS) or an operation meeting Walmart's performance thresholds

• Competitive pricing relative to category benchmarks

The organic ranking connection most brands underestimate: Sales velocity from paid campaigns directly improves organic search ranking on Walmart's algorithm. Conversion signals from Sponsored Products campaigns tell Walmart's ranking system that a product is relevant and in demand. The paid campaigns and organic rankings compound each other, making the early investment in Walmart advertising more valuable than the immediate ROAS figure alone reflects. Brands that only measure paid ROAS without tracking organic ranking improvements systematically undervalue their Walmart advertising return.

Omnichannel Attribution: The Measurement Advantage No Other Platform Matches

Walmart Connect's closed-loop measurement tracks advertising impact from initial exposure through final purchase across both online and in-store channels. Amazon and Google advertising platforms cannot replicate this capability at equivalent scale.

The omnichannel ROAS formula:

Omnichannel ROAS = (Online Sales + In-Store Sales + Pickup + Delivery) ÷ Ad Spend

In-store attribution captures two distinct buyer paths:

• In-Store Advertised Sales: A shopper sees a Walmart.com ad, then purchases the exact advertised product in a physical Walmart store

• In-Store Other Sales: A shopper sees an ad, then purchases a different product from the same brand in-store (brand halo effect)

When in-store attribution is incorporated, omnichannel ROAS typically increases by approximately 20%. Brands in categories with strong Walmart in-store penetration sometimes see 30% or higher improvement when the full attribution picture is included. Brands evaluating Walmart advertising performance without in-store data are systematically undervaluing their actual return and making scaling decisions based on incomplete information.

The new-to-brand attribution metric adds a third measurement layer beyond ROAS: understanding what percentage of Walmart sales come from buyers who have never previously purchased from the brand. This customer acquisition metric informs long-term category growth strategy in ways that revenue ROAS alone cannot.

How Walmart Advertising Differs From Amazon and Google

Understanding the specific differences between platforms is what separates accounts that perform from accounts that repurpose Amazon structures and wonder why results are poor.

The buyer intent difference has direct keyword strategy implications. Walmart.com shoppers trend toward national brand names and value-seeking behavior more consistently than Amazon buyers. Generic "best [category]" searches often perform differently on Walmart. Keyword lists built from Amazon search term reports should not be imported directly. Walmart-specific keyword research using Walmart's search data produces meaningfully better results.

What Seller Splash Clients Say

"We avoided Walmart for years, assuming it was only for commodity products. Our category had almost no serious advertisers and CPCs were a third of what we were paying on Amazon for comparable keywords. We reached profitability in the first month after Seller Splash built the campaigns."

Shopify DTC brand, New York, home goods

"The in-store attribution was the revelation. Our Walmart ROAS looked mediocre in default reporting. Including in-store sales from buyers who saw our ads, the actual ROAS was 35% higher. We had been underinvesting based on incomplete data."

Consumer packaged goods brand, USA

"We tried running Walmart ourselves by importing our Amazon structure. Results were poor. Seller Splash rebuilt everything from Walmart-specific keyword research. The account started generating meaningful ROAS within six weeks."

Apparel brand, Shopify Plus, USA

"The Marty recommendations on share-of-voice are specific and actionable. We can see exactly which keywords competitors are outbidding us on and adjust in real time. That kind of competitive intelligence wasn't available on Walmart before the AI tools launched."

Multi-category ecommerce brand, New York

Why Choose Seller Splash as Your Walmart Advertising Agency in New York

Seller Splash is a New York ecommerce performance marketing agency founded by Shlomie Spielman. Walmart Connect and Walmart AI Advertising are managed alongside Google Ads, Meta Ads, TikTok Ads, and Amazon Sponsored campaigns as one connected ecommerce growth system for Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, and Magento brands across the USA, UK, UAE, and Australia.

Standard deliverables for Walmart advertising clients:

Pre-campaign listing audit confirming Buy Box ownership, product content quality, review volume, and WFS fulfillment eligibility. Walmart-specific keyword research built from Walmart search data rather than imported from Amazon. Campaign structure across Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, and Sponsored Videos with distinct roles for each format. Bid management calibrated to Walmart's second-price auction mechanics and informed by Marty's AI campaign recommendations. Omnichannel ROAS reporting incorporating in-store attribution alongside digital performance metrics. Sparky content optimization ensuring product listings meet AI advertising surface eligibility standards. Weekly review cycle covering conversion rate by product, share of voice by keyword, and budget allocation.

The multi-platform coordination advantage: Because Seller Splash manages Google, Amazon, TikTok, and Meta alongside Walmart, advertising calendars and promotional timing are coordinated across all platforms simultaneously. A seasonal push on one channel is mirrored appropriately on the others. A product launch benefits from the brand awareness being built across channels at the same time. No single-platform agency can provide this coordination.

Documented Walmart performance: 9.2x ROAS across managed accounts. Across all platforms: $2.4 million in gross sales, 18,200 orders, 12x blended ROAS.

Full case studies at sellersplash.com/case-studies. Full service scope at sellersplash.com/services.

Related reading: the ecommerce PPC agency New York guide covers multi-platform paid media evaluation. The TikTok Ads agency New York ecommerce guide covers TikTok Shop and cross-marketplace growth. The Answer Engine Optimization New York guide covers Walmart Sparky and Amazon Rufus AI search optimization strategy.

No long-term contracts. Month-to-month because results keep clients, not paperwork. A free account review from Seller Splash starts with an honest assessment of listing readiness before any campaign spend begins.

Conclusion

Walmart Connect in 2026 offers the combination of genuine reach, first-party data depth, lower CPC costs than Amazon, and closed-loop omnichannel attribution that no other retail media platform provides simultaneously. Brands entering now, while advertiser density remains low across most categories, build the keyword history, conversion data, and Sparky content eligibility that becomes harder and more expensive to establish as the platform matures.

The prerequisite for success is sequential: listing quality, Buy Box ownership, and fulfillment performance must be in place before campaigns launch. Advertising on a weak foundation wastes budget. Advertising on a strong foundation compounds into organic ranking improvements, AI shopping assistant visibility, and category authority that paid and organic channels reinforce together.

If your product brand has not yet built a serious Walmart advertising program, or has run campaigns without Walmart-specific strategy, reach out to Seller Splash for a free Walmart account review. The team will assess listing readiness, current campaign structure, and identify what Walmart Connect can realistically add to total ecommerce revenue before any engagement begins.

Frequently Asked Questions