Social Rocket
Walmart wants to expand Walmart Connect well beyond classic retail media. Ryan Mayward, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Walmart Connect U.S., described the business at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia + Technology Conference on 9 September 2026 as a broader performance advertising platform. The focus is on self-service booking, APIs, connected TV, social media, offsite inventory and a tighter link between advertising and purchase data.
For marketers, the direction matters more than the label: retail networks no longer want to sell only sponsored products on their own website. They are building infrastructure that lets brands buy reach outside the store and measure impact all the way to the sale.
Walmart Connect wants to compete with large ad platforms
According to the published conference transcript, Walmart now considers the term "retail media" too narrow for the largest providers. For several years the company has been expanding Walmart Connect from seasonal sponsorships and onsite placements into a system with self-service, API access and external technology partners.
Walmart Connect can already deliver campaigns beyond its own shop inventory. Walmart describes its offsite solution as access to CTV, social media, the open web and other digital environments, based on its own shopper signals.
This shift is also visible at other commerce media providers. The Simon Media Network combines shopping centers, first-party data and offsite advertising into a broader advertising and measurement system as well.
Vizio and Vibe.co make CTV a second pillar
Walmart has strongly expanded its CTV infrastructure 2026. Through Vizio, the company connects streaming reach with commerce data and closed-loop measurement. In August Walmart also completed its acquisition of Vibe.co, a self-service platform for streaming TV advertising.
The strategic benefit comes down to two points: first, Walmart can reach advertisers who do not sell any products at Walmart at all. Second, CTV is meant to become as easy to book and measure as paid social or search.
This fits a larger trend. YouTube is also becoming increasingly like television for brands: Srocket recently looked at how connected TV is changing YouTube media planning in Germany.
First-party data is meant to make offsite campaigns more measurable
Walmart's advantage over classic publishers lies in its transaction data. According to Walmart, online and in-store purchases can already feed into campaign measurement by default. The platform is meant to sell not just reach, but to close the path from impression to sale more tightly.
This matters especially for media buyers, because retail and commerce media budgets increasingly compete with search, social and CTV budgets. The decisive question is then no longer whether a campaign is "retail media", but whether audience targeting, activation and measurement work better than on Google, Meta, Amazon or other DSPs.
ChatGPT is also moving in this direction: through the new Amazon DSP integration, ChatGPT ads are being built into existing media buying processes.
AI becomes part of shopping and ad steering
Walmart is also linking the advertising platform with its AI strategy. The shopping agent Sparky is meant to make product search and purchase decisions more conversational. In parallel, Walmart Connect is expanding AI-supported analysis, creative production and campaign optimization.
This creates new ad surfaces before users even search classically or open a product filter. For brands, it therefore becomes more important to set up product data, creatives and measurement so they work both in classic feeds and in AI-driven purchase paths.
The market as a whole is moving this way: according to current forecasts, the share of largely AI-controlled ad spending is rising significantly.
What German marketers should take away
Walmart Connect is currently primarily a US advertising system. The development is still relevant for German brands and retailers, because it shows where retail media is structurally heading: away from individual shop placements, toward commerce data as a targeting and measurement layer across several media channels.
For retailers, this means a retail media network in the long run needs more than sponsored search in its own shop. CTV, social, offsite programmatic, self-service and reliable attribution are increasingly part of the same platform logic.
For advertisers, it becomes more important in return not to judge results merely by channel name. When retailer data is used on social, CTV and the open web, teams need to check more closely what data advantage actually exists, how much of the reach is incremental and how transparent the attribution is.