“How can I generate more revenue?” This is a common question among sellers on ecommerce sites. You can improve your success as a seller on Walmart or Amazon by having accurate and detailed product descriptions, high quality product images, optimizing SEO content, etc. However, those elements will only get you so far.
What is the next logical step? In most cases, advertising is your best bet! Below you will find out when you should start advertising on Walmart.com (read our starter guide to Walmart advertising) and why it’s so important. Whether you’re new to Walmart or a seasoned seller, here’s some advice for you if you’re taking the next step to grow your brand.
Why pick Walmart Sponsored Products
First you must decide what kind of ad type makes sense for you as a seller. We recommend Sponsored Products if you’re new to Walmart advertising. This ad type gives you the ability to control your campaigns and budgets, whereas the other ad types on Walmart are managed by the Walmart Media Group (WMG).
Sponsored Products are advantageous since they place your product in front of shoppers during different stages of their journey, increasing your visibility. This type of ad can show up on: 1) the first page of search results alongside organically ranked products, 2) product detail pages that are related to your product, and 3) in Sponsored Product carousels throughout search pages and product pages.
Sponsored Products eligibility requirements
Before considering whether or not launching Sponsored Products is the right move for your business, you should consider Walmart’s eligibility requirements.
In order to ensure that your ad is able to show up on the first page of search results, the product must:
- Be in stock
- Win the Buy Box
- Appear in the top 128 organic search results (manual campaigns only)
- Be categorized as relevant to the search query
- Be considered as the same type of product as at least one other organically ranked product within the top 20 ranked products
What new Walmart sellers should know about Sponsored Products
Chances are, if you are new to Walmart, your product does not rank within the top 128 organic search results. However, this does not mean that you cannot utilize Sponsored Products. In this case, you will want to take advantage of automatic campaigns.
This type of campaign is governed by Walmart’s algorithm, which chooses when and where to display the ad based on the keywords you use in the product title, descriptions, and other sections of the product detail page. You should optimize your listing before launching a Sponsored Product campaign to assure you’re able to convert shoppers once they decide to click on your product.
To set up your first automatic campaign, you will have to set a total campaign budget of at least $100 and the daily budget needs to be $50. This doesn’t mean that you end up spending $50 per day. Automatic campaigns allow the advertiser to set the bids on the item level. This will ultimately determine the level of spend behind your campaign. You can optimize the campaign by changing the bid throughout the lifetime of the campaign.
You should know that automatic campaigns are Walmart’s recommended first step for anyone doing Sponsored Products. The reason behind that is that automatic campaigns build relevancy around your product, which in turn helps to improve your organic search rank. This is also the only self service option Walmart currently offers.
Learn more about how to measure Walmart advertising campaigns.
What established Walmart sellers should know about Sponsored Products
If you have already built relevancy behind your listings on Walmart, you are in luck. Venturing into advertising should be an easy next step for you. As more brands are starting to trickle into the Walmart hemisphere, it is becoming an increasingly competitive marketplace.
This is why it is so important for you to defend your space on Walmart. Advertising allows you to do this. An easy next step is to use Sponsored Products. Beyond that, you could collaborate with the Walmart Media Group (WMG) team in order to set up other ad types such as native banner ads, catapult ads, or site search features.
These ad types require a larger investment up front, which is why Sponsored Products can be advantageous, since you control the level of investment and how the campaigns are run.
Use both automatic and manual campaigns
As an established seller, you should utilize both automatic and manual campaigns. The automatic campaign will continue to grow your brand and product relevancy. You most likely have a sense of what search terms are working well for your brand on Walmart, which is where the use of manual campaigns can be helpful.
Take note of which search terms your product appears in the top 128 organic search results for. We recommend you to bid heavily on these keywords in order to get your product to the top of the first search page. In order to grow your brand, you should target category terms within the category your product is in.
However, to defend your space against competitors on Walmart.com, you may also want to target branded search terms that pertain either to your brand or your products. We recommend you to split up brand awareness and brand defense campaigns for reporting and optimization purposes. This will give you a clear indication of how each pool of keywords perform and help to grow your brand.
The pay-per-click based Sponsored Product ads on Walmart can change the game for your level of growth, because they can increase the visibility of your listing and allow you to launch new products or drive traffic to seasonal ones. There are benefits to using these no matter where you are in your seller journey on Walmart.com. The automatic campaign helps you to get off the ground and once you are more established, the manual campaigns allow you a degree of control over where you want to appear throughout Walmart.com.
If you’re interested in consulting with Pattern’s in-house advertising team of experts, schedule a demo with our Predict rules-based advertising technology.
