Walmart x Tiktok + Snapchat = ads?

What do Walmart, Snapchat, Tiktok and Advertisements all have in common? If you shop at Walmart and happen to also have Tiktok or Snapchat, which most of the population does, the advertisements on your fyp (for you page) and Snapchat explore page may be more targeted based on products you have bought as a consumer.

Walmart now has a program called Walmart Connect for advertisers to buy in-stream ads on Tiktok as well as e-commerce ads on Snapchat. Tiktok has become so much more than just a dancing app and brands are starting to quickly realize the opportunities for capitalization. With privacy changes and regulations starting to come down more heavily, retailers and social platforms are finding it difficult to collect consumer data so by partnering they are creating a loophole to privacy laws for advertising companies while simultaneously helping each other’s revenue grow.

“Instead of just buying ads directly on those platforms, advertisers will be able to layer on everything Walmart knows about its shoppers for targeting and measurement. It’s further growth for an ad business that brought in $2.1 billion for Walmart last year” (Barwick, Marketing Brew).

Walmart is not the only retailer figuring out how to target consumers or working on their marketing strategies, you will start to see this with more brands as the death of cookies gets nearer and privacy policies spread. “Target’s got one. So does Kroger, which added CTV and video inventory last week. Even Marriott created a media network earlier this year. Effectively, they enable retailers like Walmart to serve an ad for baby food to a customer—presumably, one they assume just had a kid based on prior purchases—and then measure whether that person saw the ad before buying pureed carrots from Walmart.  Globally, approximately 230 million customers visit Walmart-owned properties every week, either in store or online. That’s a lot of scale” (Barwick, Marketing Brew).

Walmart seems to be really focusing on their marketing lately with an emphasis on partnerships and there are even rumors that they may be considering influencer marketing (who isn’t nowadays though). For example, they recently implemented a Walmart Plus program which is a membership program (similar to Sam’s Club) for consistent shoppers of Walmart and the brand teamed up with streaming services to incentivize customers to sign up as well as other member benefits like free deliveries on orders over $35. This is a good example of brands trying to continue to capture customer data in a post-cookies world but Walmart Connect however, is a loophole for brands to keep collecting first-party data from their customers which they will try to do as long as possible. Although consumers cannot sign up or really consent to Walmart Connect, it will hopefully improve their overall shopping experience.

Sources

Barwick, Ryan. “Walmart Connect Expands with Tiktok, Snap.” Marketing Brew, Morning Brew, 20 Sept. 2022, https://www.marketingbrew.com/stories/2022/09/20/walmart-connect-expands-with-tiktok-snap?utm_campaign=mkb&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_source=morning_brew&mid=f29cd6ec3cdaedfdb6a79182edd7be01.