Grow beyond: Walmart Connect’s playbook from the Let’s Grow! 2026 Walmart Marketplace Seller Summit

Before Sarah, a 28-year-old woman from Austin, Texas, ever typed “dog toy” into a search bar, Walmart Connect already had the signals to know she’d want one.

Sarah isn’t real. She’s a composite customer that Salomon Kim, Senior Director of General Merchandise, Emerging Brands, used on the Learning Lounge stage at the Let’s Grow! 2026 Marketplace Seller Summit to show sellers what signal-based targeting looks like in practice. Through the story of a fictional pet brand called Bite Size, he walked through how a seller could find Sarah — not by waiting for her to come looking, but by understanding who she was and where she was in her decision journey before she ever searched.

That shift was at the heart of Walmart Connect’s presence at this year’s summit. Grow Beyond was both the theme and a challenge to sellers: As customers discover emerging brands in more places and form opinions before they ever search, how can sellers reach them earlier and smarter across more of the journey?

On the main stage, Walmart Connect SVP Ryan Mayward offered a simple framework for doing just that: Be discovered. Grow smarter. Grow beyond search. Here’s how those three actions came to life across three days, and what sellers can put to work in their own campaigns.

Be discovered

Customers can’t buy what they have never seen. But getting in front of them is only part of the equation. Once customers discover a product, fast and reliable fulfillment can help turn that discovery into a purchase.

Sellers using both Walmart Fulfillment Services and Sponsored Products together generated, on average, more than 5x higher annual GMV than sellers using Walmart Fulfillment Services alone.¹

Discovery, advertising and fulfillment don't have to work as separate levers. Together, they can help create demand, make it easier for customers to act on that demand and help sellers turn it into growth.

Grow smarter

More ad spend doesn’t have to mean more work. That was the driving truth behind the advertising roadmap session led by Linda Lomelino, VP of Product, Data Monetization and Ads. The direction is toward tools that go beyond helping sellers manage campaigns to helping them make more informed decisions about where to focus next.

Walmart Connect’s campaign recommendations can proactively surface new opportunities, while automated bidding can help sellers optimize toward specific goals. As these tools take on more of the day-to-day work of campaign optimization, sellers can spend more time on strategy instead of spreadsheets.

Grow beyond search

By the time a customer uses search, much of their purchase decision has already happened somewhere else — a show they streamed, a feed they scrolled through, a brand they half-remembered.

And that's where Sarah’s journey comes back into the story. Rather than waiting for her to search, the fictional dog accessories brand Bite Size used Walmart Connect signals to identify her as a potential customer and built a connected strategy to reach her before she ever typed "dog toys" into a search bar. By the time Sarah did search, she already recognized the Bite Size brand.

Sellers who paired Onsite Display with Sponsored Products saw a 45% median increase in ad-attributed sales from new-to-brand buyers, compared to sellers running Sponsored Products alone.²

But the bigger shift Salomon walked through wasn’t just about how Bite Size reached Sarah. It was about how sellers can think about a customer’s value over time. A first sale tells only part of the story; looking at a customer’s longer-term value and behavior can give sellers a more complete picture of growth and a framework for finding more customers like them.

Built with sellers, not just for them

Not every conversation happened on a stage. Throughout the summit and at the Walmart Connect booth, sellers spoke with the team about their goals and specific opportunities.

HealthA2Z was among the sellers who shared how they’re bringing different parts of their Walmart business together. Alyssa Figarsky, Purchasing Lead at Allegiant Health, said, “We didn't look at Walmart Marketplace, Walmart Fulfillment Services and Walmart Connect as three separate initiatives. We looked at them as connected parts of the customer journey.”

Not every seller could make it to Seller Summit this year, but that same kind of guidance doesn't require an event badge. Walmart Connect Small Business resources are built to meet sellers wherever they're starting from and help them take the next step in their growth.

Because Walmart Connect’s growth playbook isn’t simply about helping sellers become better advertisers. It’s about helping them build a better business.  

Source: ¹Walmart first-party data, Feb. 1, 2024–Jan. 31, 2025; includes all Sponsored Products campaigns during the stated period. ROAS is the ratio of total attributed sales revenue to ad spend. Past performance does not guarantee future results. ² Walmart first-party data, Feb 2024–Jan 2025 vs. Feb 2025–Jan 2026; data retrieved Feb 2026. Excludes Marketplace sellers with annual total sales ≤$10k. New-to-brand buyers are customers who have not purchased a product from a brand within the last 12 months but have now purchased from that brand after clicking an ad. Past performance does not guarantee future results.