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Walmart Connect and international expansion power retail giant to 26% advertising growth. Walmart's global advertising revenues rose 26% in Q2 as the US-focused Walmart Connect division outperformed with 30% growth. Walmart Connect's growth has been fueled by a surge in advertiser participation, including marketplace sellers.

Mounting pressure will squeeze the long tail of retail media networks: Amazon and Walmart combined will gobble up more than 84% of all retail media ad spending in 2025, leaving a rather narrow slice of the market for all other players.

Marketplaces (eBay, Amazon). Mass merchandisers (Walmart, Target, Best Buy). Discount warehouses (Costco Wholesale). Grocers (The Kroger Co.). Department stores (Macy鈥檚). Category specialists (The Home Depot). Delivery services that support retailers (Instacart). Retail media鈥檚 scope is expanding as networks move further into video and CTV.

With consumers increasingly viewing these products as high quality and budget-friendly, retailers like Walmart and Target are investing in innovative, premium private label lines that compete directly with national brands.

Amazon鈥檚 Q2 growth will be more moderate, but Walmart is surging. Retail media is one of the sectors with the greatest exposure to tariffs, and Q1 signaled uncertainty about the months ahead. Both Amazon and Walmart beat expectations but gave tepid guidance.

Amazon late last year launched its own low-cost marketplace, Haul, where products retail for $20 or less. It also cut its commissions in some key categories. At the same time, Amazon is on a relentless push to lean into its Prime advantage鈥攆ast delivery times鈥攖o keep shoppers clicking the buy button.

Number one: Walmart for opening a sneaker marketplace, which we talked about during our marketplace episode so check that out if you haven't, and for making its New York Fashion Week debut. Arielle, say more. Arielle Feger (13:57):. Is it a retail ranking without Walmart? Yeah, so they're just really pushing fashion in all sorts of directions. They were at Fashion Week.

The company has expanded access to its commerce API, which links Meta ad impressions to third-party marketplace sales. This tool was previously only available to networks with 20,000 or more sellers. Meta is giving some retail media partners direct access to impression logs and product-level performance data, eliminating reliance on third-party measurement providers.

You got a strong competitor like Walmart building up their marketplace pretty well right now so I do wonder about the long term ramifications of those increased fees. Marcus: Yeah. Really quickly, you mentioned store sales. So physical stores net sales. So it's about a four percent share of the pie for Amazon and they grew 11 percent full year making about 19 billion dollars.

One year into its retail media network (RMN) journey, Costco is taking steps to stand out in a crowded marketplace by leaning into loyal customers and in-store potential. There are currently over 80 RMNs in the US. And since Amazon holds such a position of dominance in that landscape, it's imperative that competing networks find ways to stand out.

D2C brands will need to become adept at the cost-effective buying of sponsored product ads on retail media networks (RMNs) as they look to retailers and marketplaces for sales growth. With Amazon鈥檚 ad marketplace becoming increasingly competitive, D2C brands should look to fast-evolving RMNs like Walmart Connect and Roundel (Target) to deliver improved ROAS.

Walmart, a $1 trillion company and one of America's largest employers, joins other major corporations like Ford, Lowe's, and John Deere in reducing DEI programs. The company's policy changes affect multiple business areas, from supplier relationships (which will remove race and gender considerations) to marketplace oversight (with stricter controls on products targeting minors).

Walmart and Amazon see (mostly) clear skies ahead while Target warns of headwinds. Mass merchants Amazon, Walmart, and Target presented varying pictures of consumer spending in Q3.

Cannes Lions will be an opportunity for those networks that aren鈥檛 Amazon, Walmart, and Target to proactively reinforce their unique value proposition in the event of such a downturn.

Not just Temu and Shein, but places like Walmart, which has launched another marketplace to compete with Amazon as well. Sara Lebow:. It's really wild to be talking about Amazon as no longer the cheapest option.

Walmart, in particular, has emerged as a strong competitor as it builds out its marketplace capabilities. Amazon works on its physical presence: In Q4, Amazon grew physical store sales by 6%. Though brick-and-mortar business is a small percentage of Amazon鈥檚 total business, it鈥檚 been the subject of much discussion in the past few months.

While Amazon has a definite advantage over competitors given the strength of its marketplace and Prime offering, it鈥檚 facing competition from the likes of Roku, Disney, and Walmart鈥攖he latter having quietly paused its live commerce experiments in favor of testing interactive shoppable ads on Peacock.

Today鈥檚 retail media networks fall into five categories: digital marketplaces or platforms (Amazon, Shopify, Etsy), mass merchandise or department stores (Walmart, Target, Macy鈥檚), category specialists (The Kroger Co., CVS, The Home Depot), commerce intermediaries (Uber, Instacart, Gopuff), and other commerce verticals (Expedia, Klarna, Marriott).

Starting next month, marketers鈥� shoppable display campaigns will be automatically extended across Instacart鈥檚 marketplace and Caper Cart鈥檚 digital screens. DoorDash is rolling out post-purchase banner ads in select categories to encourage customers to supplement existing orders by adding items from other stores.

Thanks largely to Amazon and Walmart, search accounts for the majority of retail media ad spending. But even retailers with smaller digital footprints could see their search offerings perk up, as advertisers look to maintain visibility among consumers. Social players鈥� search ambitions may need to be temporarily scaled back.

But No. 2 Walmart will be a big ecommerce winner: Its holiday season online sales will rise 16.8% to $20.37 billion this year. Walmart will see strong growth as it continues to ride the grocery ecommerce wave, absorb consumers who are trading down, and benefit from its expanding ecommerce marketplace.

And thanks to the marketplace that Amazon and Walmart operate, thanks to the business partnerships that lots of grocers have with CPG brands, those relationships exist already. They maybe not fit together as perfectly as they should be to get business started that day, but they're close enough, and so I think that that's something that we're going to see happen pretty quickly. Sara Lebow:. Yeah.

Amazon received 236.9 million unique US visitors in June 2024, according to Comscore. It far exceeded Walmart in second with 137.2 million unique visitors.

Amazon Haul, launched last fall as a Temu-style marketplace, is also shifting course. Amazon has started adding its own inventory鈥攊ncluding branded goods from adidas and Gap鈥攊nto Haul, signaling a repositioning from a China-direct marketplace to a broader discount storefront.

Walmart rolls out series of initiatives to attract customers to its stores and boost ecommerce business: The retailer is opening a cashierless Sam鈥檚 Club store, adding pet care centers, and automating more distribution centers.