Walmart PPC Management Service

Benefits of Walmart Advertising

1. Improved Visibility for Your Listings

The main goal of our Walmart virtual assistants is to improve the visibility of your products as well as your brand. With Walmart advertising, every listing that is either newly launched or low performing can be displayed to millions of shoppers worldwide. With the new Walmart advertising strategy, your ad will be visible to primary places such as the product detail pages, search result pages, and category pages where there is a higher probability of shopper interaction.

2. Easy Ad Performance Measurement

Walmart’s new ad portal is self-service, meaning that it enables sellers to easily measure the impact and performance of their ads and also choose the right audience.

The good thing about the new self-service ad portal is that sellers can effectively measure the performance of their ads and analyze the effectiveness of every ad campaign they run on their website. An additional plus that the updated platform offers is the ability of sellers to check the performance of their ads in-store as well as on mobile apps.

3. Increased Organic Traffic

It is a well-established fact that the higher the visibility of your product or brand, higher will be the sales volume, shopper conversion rate, and ranking in Walmart’s search engine results. Using Walmart PPC advertisements will enable owners and account managers to boost the visibility of the newly launched products. This will also allow them to optimize their listings with better and improved SEO relevance of both existing and new products.

Walmart’s Advertising Platform Really Works!

Walmart vendors and account managers can utilize the advertisements to highlight their complete brand or a selection of their products. Because Walmart exclusively collaborated directly with promoters through managed services up until now, merchants were unable to purchase specific advertising on the mobile app or Walmart’s website. However, this issue has been resolved with the addition of the self-serve option.

The Walmart advertising platform is almost similar to Amazon. Using the new in-house advertising, shoppers can buy products from on-site sponsored ads, which are visible both on the website and the mobile app.

Although Walmart has added certain new features, there is still a rigid criterion as to who can run these ads. The businesses need to submit an advertising application to Walmart’s Media Group before they can start running ads. Also, the seller must commit to a minimum of US$ 1,000 before their application is approved.

Since Walmart is relatively new in advertising, so the advertising options they offer are not as vast as those of Google. The options discussed below, however, are very effective.

All the ad options are on a Pay-Per-Click (PPC) basis. This means that Walmart only charges sellers when a user clicks their ad. Every Walmart ad is linked to the respective product detail page of the product being advertised which leads to an increase in the conversion rate.

Let’s look at the several advertising options available to sellers at Walmart.

Sponsored Product Ad

The Walmart Sponsored Product Ad was previously known as a performance ad. With these sponsored ads, the advertised products get premier placement in the Walmart marketplace giving them increased visibility and increasing the chances of making a sale. In the same way as sponsored products on Amazon, Walmart will display sponsored product listings to users when they search for relevant keywords.

Sponsored ads are displayed on key pages of Walmart website such as search result pages, item pages, category pages, etc., across both mobile and desktop devices, that have the highest chances of shopper interaction. The Walmart Sponsored Product Ads are an ideal choice for sellers who want to maximize their ad spend, increase conversions, or test new product launches.

Site Search Feature Ad

This is an exclusive type of advert that can prove beneficial in helping retailers increase their eCommerce sales. This type of advert enables Walmart sellers to promote their brand on their related product pages.

When any shopper clicks on the ad, they are redirected to a page that contains the product information and all the brand’s products listed on Walmart. From there onwards, the search filters can be applied to narrow down the results. As a result of giving all the products of a brand equal exposure, the site search feature ads increase sales and brand awareness as well.

Native Banner Ad

These ads are similar to sponsored brand adverts on Amazon. With the Native Banner Ads, sellers are able to create awareness about their brand within Walmart’s marketplace.

Native ads cannot be purchased from Walmart’s self-serve platform, rather the sellers need to partner with Walmart Media Group in order to use native banner ads.

Once partnered with Walmart’s media group, sellers can use the native banner ads to showcase their brand along with all its products highlighting them on the top of category pages. This proves to be a significant step towards creating brand awareness and also increases the visibility of the products listed.

Catapult Ad

Catapult ads on Walmart are quite similar to the product display ads. They are a great tool to increase sales of products. Using catapult ads is similar to stealing customers from competitors. At the top of item listings, there is a tag that says “Featured Item”, letting the customers know it is a paid advertisement.

A good thing about catapult ads is that they do not require keywords to determine their location (where they can be shown). Catapult ads are displayed based on the product categories which are used to decide their placement within the Walmart marketplace.

Given the cost of running Catapult ads, sellers need to be very mindful and keep the advertising costs low to maximize their profits.

Getting Started with Walmart Advertising

Below is a list of five steps that help you get started with Walmart advertising.

Become a Seller on Walmart

The first step to using Walmart advertising is to become an approved seller on the Walmart marketplace. You will need to provide basic information such as your name, contact, email address, your company name, website, and other related business information. Walmart also requires sellers to provide information regarding their experience in eCommerce, product assortment information, and other information relating to operations.

Once your application is submitted, you will have to wait for it to be reviewed and approved. Keep in mind that your application might be rejected but Walmart has not clearly defined the grounds or major requirements that sellers need to meet. So a key step is to ensure that your application has all the necessary information and also they comply with the values and guidelines set out by Walmart.

If Walmart approves your application, you will receive a Retailer agreement. Once you sign the agreement, you can start running your eCommerce business on Walmart as an approved seller.

Create Product Catalog

Once you have successfully registered yourself as a Walmart seller, the next step is to create a catalog of your products. Be sure to include key information e.g., product details, images, pricing, reviews, inventory, promotions, etc., as they are required by Walmart while creating your product catalog in Walmart Seller Central.

Note that Walmart restricts certain products while some are outrightly prohibited. These include products such as alcohol, drugs, currency, collectibles, medical devices, animals, artifacts, and used products.

When selling on Walmart, the best practice is to start your business with products that are already popular among shoppers and have positive reviews and high demand. This not only makes your ad campaigns efficient but also increases your sales volume.

Apply to Walmart Advertising

Now you are a registered seller and have developed your product catalog using an excel spreadsheet, Walmart API, or Channel partner. The next step is to apply to use Walmart advertising.

This application is different from the one made while registering as a seller on Walmart. This advertisement application will be sent to Walmart media group and will require:

• Your company name
• Contact information
• Product category
• Primary campaign objective
• Number of SKUs
• Target audience
• Desired advertising plan
• Monthly budget (estimated)

If Walmart finds your application in line with their guidelines and requirements, only then it will be approved.

Attend Online Webinar

Every seller who has received approval for their advertising application is required to attend a compulsory webinar for online training that Walmart Media Group hosts on weekly basis.

The aim of training new sellers is to help them understand the basics of Walmart advertising platform like how to create ads on Walmart. The training also involves a Q&A session where the sellers are welcome to ask any question related to Walmart advertising and get them answered by the Walmart team.

Launch Ad Campaigns

Once the online training webinar has ended, you are now able to launch your advertising campaigns. Ensure that you have a budget beforehand, as this will enable you to get a good ROI. With the knowledge learned in the training webinar, it would be easy for you to identify what type of advertisement would be best suited for the needs and objectives of your business. This knowledge will help you in your business and also help you improve the efficiency of your campaigns.

This journey, however, is not over yet and you will be required to continuously monitor the ad campaign’s performance and make adjustments as and when required.

Best Practices for Walmart Advertising

A huge amount of money for the advertising budget does not necessarily guarantee any success for your advertising campaigns. There are certain things that sellers need to do to maximize their utility from the Walmart advertising campaign.

Following is a list of a few best practices for Walmart advertising that sellers should implement.

1. Optimize Product Listing

The main purpose of the advertising campaign is to attract a greater audience to your product page. But whether or not they make the purchase once they reach the product page is dependent totally on you. Therefore, you need to optimize your product listing to maximize the user’s experience.

Following are some of the tips to optimize your product listing:

• Always use relevant keywords and make sure each keyword is at least used thrice.
• Be as concise and straightforward as possible.
• Use professionally shot high-quality photos of your product
• Use backend keywords, tagging, and product attributes in your Walmart Seller Central.
• Provide detailed yet concise information regarding your product as this will improve your conversion rate.
• Add a video to your product listing if allowed in your particular category.

2. Test Keywords

When running a manual campaign, sellers should use the keywords suggested by Walmart. You can even test higher bids for keywords that closely relate to your product. A key tip is to start your bid from half a dollar. Cascading bids will enable you to bid higher in closely related keywords.

3. Watch Out for Automated Campaigns

Even if automated programs outperform manual advertising, you still need to use caution with them if you want to optimize return. You must have at least 10 SKUs in your product group and starting at around 30 cents before working your way up in order to deploy automated campaigns.

Since automated campaigns are eligible for placement on the Walmart marketplace, you should take your advertising budget into account because it might grow quickly. You must always keep an eye on ad spend and performance to stay under your budget.

Why Choose XpertVA?

For your Walmart business, XpertVA offers the finest approach and improved organic traffic to your listing page. The high performance of your PPC ad is also guaranteed, thanks to our creative services as well as the remarkable qualities and attention to detail of our team of Walmart PPC managers.

Our Walmart virtual assistants will also help with conversion optimization and provide you the chance to create value for your customers, improving their shopping experience. Our staff will make sure that every ad that you wish to run complies with Walmart policies and help you choose the best strategy and ad for your business. This will improve the performance of your ad campaign and boost your sales volume.

Conclusion

Whether you are a new seller or a registered one, managing your Walmart store can sometimes become very difficult. Marketing your business using Walmart ads is a very effective method to boost your sales. So our virtual assistants are here to help.

At XpertVA, our Walmart PPC managers help you and do all the time-consuming activities and back-office jobs, allowing you to concentrate more on business operations in your Walmart Seller Central such as strategic planning, R&D, etc. This increases sales revenue and promotes the growth of your company.