The changes announced by Walmart Connect (formerly Walmart Media Group) are pushing suppliers to significantly reconsider their Walmart advertising strategies. As the platform becomes more manual with less granular reporting, many suppliers will need to consult a third-party Walmart Advertising Partner who will effectively manage their Walmart advertising business with success.
In our first blog post of this series, I outlined 4 Tips for Navigating Your Walmart Connect Sponsored Advertising. This current post will overview the four mistakes to avoid when managing your Walmart advertising campaigns.
1. Not Optimizing Content
Some suppliers grow frustrated with their inability to serve ads against relevant search terms. If your content has not been optimized, you may struggle to gain relevancy for the terms important to you. Optimizing your Walmart.com product listings create a better user experience which leads to purchase conversion. Online listings are more important now than ever as Walmart’s eCommerce sales grew 79% in Q3 of 2020 alone. Detailed product descriptions, ratings and reviews are the most important content elements to influence consumers to purchase products outside of price.
If your product listing is not relevant, you will not be able to serve ads, regardless of bid price. Think about your content first, not your advertising. Learn more about optimizing your content in my recent blog post.
2. Setting and Forgetting
Because Walmart Advertising operates on a first price auction, you need to consistently check your bids on key terms and ensure you are not overspending. Walmart Sponsored Products require active management. The unification of OPD and Walmart.com sponsored products will create a need for even more manual, hands-on management as the amount of available ad inventory increases and competition rises.
Working with a trusted Walmart Advertising Partner such as Harvest Group is invaluable for your brand to navigate these updates and rest assured that your advertising campaigns are delivering the results you expect.
3. Testing for a Month and Giving Up
Some clients have struggled to serve ads for the first couple months due to relevancy issues but later saw tremendous growth in month three or four of their campaign. Keep testing and learning! The longer your campaigns are running, the more relevancy your items will build. Before you know it, you’ll be improving your organic search rank and online visibility.
If your team continuously finds that relevancy is an issue after trial and error, it’s time to reach out to a Walmart Advertising Partner. Harvest Group would be happy to review your campaigns and offer a recommendation for campaign management!
4. Using ROAS as the Only Metric for Success
While ROAS (Return On Ad Spend) is an important metric, it is not the determinant of success. You may ask yourself the following questions:
How are your advertising efforts influencing your share of search? How has your relevancy and organic rank changed over time? Are you driving first purchase? How many new customers are you acquiring? Are you seeing an overall sales lift?
Take a comprehensive approach to measuring success for your Walmart Advertising campaigns and be sure that your advertising partner is able to deliver detailed reports that provide your team with a deeper understanding of your campaigns.
As Walmart Connect continues to open up the platform with more options for suppliers, the need for optimization and deep expertise is stronger than ever. Do these mistakes sound familiar to your team? Are you ready to explore Walmart Advertising options and look for a team to manage your campaigns effectively? Reach out to Harvest Group.
