Walmart Marketplace’s Let’s Grow! 2025 Seller Summit was packed with energy, bringing together sellers and top retail industry leaders together in sunny San Diego to think big and discuss the future of e-commerce.  The Walmart Connect team was on the ground, showing sellers how to truly stand in the "spotlight" on Walmart’s website and app.

We've compiled the key takeaways from this year’s summit to show you what’s possible with Walmart Connect, and to equip you with strategies and tools to drive your business forward. 

Our SVP of Retail Media Sales, Ryan Mayward, spoke to a full house on day two of the summit, sharing Walmart Connect's transformative journey as a leading force in the rapidly evolving retail media industry. Ryan explained how Walmart Connect is giving sellers storytelling opportunities at scale with advertising solutions tailored to their needs, bridging engagement and impact with measurable outcomes.

"We are more than an advertising platform. We’re your strategic partner in navigating this competitive landscape by connecting your products to millions of Walmart customers who are already seeking inspiration and value."

-Ryan Mayward, SVP, Retail Media Sales, Walmart Connect

How to leverage the power of AI to supercharge your campaigns into winners

The event quickly jumped into the transformative power AI has in retail media, highlighted by our Learning Lounge session, Smarter ads, more sales: New Walmart Connect tools to help boost your performance. Alex Rothaus, Sr. Director of Product Management for Sponsored Search, and Peter Wallace, Head of Small and Medium-sized Business Sales, unveiled a new generation of tools designed to simplify campaign management and boost performance to new levels.

Unlock maximum growth with the right tools

Sellers can accelerate advertising results with automatic campaigns from Walmart Connect.  The technology unlocked through automatic campaigns helps you find the right shoppers, secure optimal placements, and use smart bidding strategies to help maximize your efficiency and drive more sales. Here are some of the key tools and features included to give brands a competitive advantage:

• Automatic targeting: Helps you find the right audience, placement, and optimize bidding to help you win more sales — like shining a spotlight on the products from your catalog, making smart advertising simple.

• Brand term targeting: Reach high-intent shoppers by bidding on your own branded terms (brand defense) — or strategically target those of your competitors to win new customers (brand offense).

• Complementary targeting: Expand your reach by showing ads to shoppers browsing for related products, increasing visibility and driving consideration.

• Dynamic bidding: Adjusts cost-per-click bids in real-time based on the likelihood that a customer will purchase your product, if the ad appears in their search.

• AI-powered recommendations: Receive personalized suggestions informed by shopper behavior, item performance, market trends, and campaign history — so you can optimize bidding, item selection, and budget allocation with confidence.

The numbers speak for themselves: Sponsored Products campaigns that use automatic targeting deliver 1.7x higher return on ad spend, compared to similar manual campaigns². That means more value at less cost, without the tedious manual effort.

Proven Marketplace tactics from sellers in the field

While AI and automation can give campaigns a powerful lift, pairing them with proven, seller-tested strategies can take a seller’s growth to the next level. That’s exactly what Maggie Preketes, Head of Emerging Sales, explored in her breakout session, Scaling smarter: Winning ad strategies from top Walmart sellers.

Joining Maggie on stage were three high-performing Walmart Marketplace advertisers who shared actionable insights from their own successes working with Walmart Connect:

Tom Castillo – E-Commerce Director, Westin Trends
Natasha Port – VP Global Marketing, TRUBAR
Hymie Gindi – Director of E-Commerce, Sweet Hearts

To start, the panelists emphasized that prior to launching any campaign, it’s essential for sellers to set a strong foundation. That means ensuring your listings are retail-ready, optimized and supported by clear goals, whether it’s driving sales, boosting profit, or increasing brand awareness. Sellers should also approach ad spend as a strategic investment and be prepared to start simple, stay patient, and adapt based on performance data. 

• The power of consistency: Adopt an always-on strategy and keep ads running year-round to capture demand and build organic growth that compounds over time. This steady presence boosts visibility and ranking during competitive seasonal events
• Peak season prep starts now: With the holidays around the corner, whether launching your first campaign or scaling up, build a foundation now. Make sure you’re retail ready, and start advertising to ramp up for the holiday season.  
• Smart scaling: Use performance data to identify your best-performing products, queries, and placements. Focus your budget on winners for sales growth and customer acquisition. Additional support from a Walmart Connect Partner can also help accelerate performance.
• Strategic optimization: Leverage AI insights and real-time shopper data to forecast trends, refine targeting, and improve images. From updating thumbnails to smarter keyword segmentation, data-driven updates can boost CTR, relevance, and reach.
• Engage shoppers at every stage: Use a mix of ad formats like Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, and Sponsored Videos to engage customers from discovery to purchase. Measure beyond last-click metrics, tracking impressions, new-to-brand conversions, and search lift to understand the full impact of your campaigns.

Recognizing excellence: Let’s Grow! Seller Awards 2025

Great strategies deserve great recognition. The Walmart Marketplace Let’s Grow! Seller Summit is about more than sharing insights — it’s also about celebrating Marketplace sellers whose creativity and performance set them apart. This year, we proudly presented the inaugural Walmart Connect Award for Outstanding Marketing to TruBar.

As a small, direct-to-consumer brand, TruBar proved that size is no barrier to success. Their strategic, full-funnel approach leveraged Sponsored Search, Display, and in-store integrations to create robust, creative campaigns that drove measurable growth. Their success shows how small and medium-sized businesses can use Walmart Connect to leverage awareness, convert demand, and compete at the highest level in a saturated retail environment

Read the TruBar case study to see how they did it and get inspired for your own success. Congratulations to the TruBar team!

Ready to accelerate your growth?

Now it’s your turn to put these lessons into action! With Walmart Connect’s powerful advertising solutions, you can reach millions of Walmart shoppers searching for products like yours — helping you spark sales and position your business for success. Whether you're just starting out or ready to scale up, we've got you covered. Take a look at the following resources to help you get started:

• Small Business Hub: Access step-by-step guidance to make launching ad campaigns easy, even for first-time advertisers.
• Partner Directory: Whether you’re just getting started or already established, aligning with the right Walmart Connect partner can help boost sales, increase efficiency, and scale faster. Visit our directory to find the right fit for your business.
• Contact us: Can’t find the information you need? Fill out some basic details, and a Walmart Connect representative will be in touch within 72 hours. 

The tools are here, the audience is waiting, and there’s never been a better time to advertise with Walmart Connect. Let’s grow together!

Sources: ¹Walmart first-party data, Feb. 1, 2024–Jan. 31, 2025; ²Walmart first-party data, 11/1/2023-10/31/2024.