Holiday wins kept rolling in for The Marzetti Company through a full-funnel strategy

How success was achieved with the help of Walmart Connect Partner Network.

Brand
Marzetti Company
Campaign Date
Nov 2 – Dec 26, 2024
Goals
Boost conversion and sales
Acquire new customers
Partners
Skai
The Bluebird Group
marzetti rolls

Opportunity

The Marzetti Company’s leading homemade rolls brand, Sister Schubert's, had focused their success around the holiday season, becoming heavily reliant on seasonal advertising.

 

While this focus left the brand vulnerable to rising competition; it also created the opportunity to broaden its reach and build momentum for sustained growth throughout the year.

Solution

The Marzetti Company partnered with Skai, a Premium+ Tech Partner and The Bluebird Group, a Premium Agency Partner in the Walmart Connect Partner Network, to launch a full-funnel campaign strategy, leveraging Walmart Connect’s solutions.

 

This approach focused on reaching existing loyal Sister Schubert’s customers and attracting new high-intent Walmart customers during the holiday season, while helping boost visibility and achieve sales growth.

Strategy

The Marzetti Company recognized the need to move beyond a traditional holiday-focused approach and develop an advertising strategy that would help Sister Schubert’s reach new customers and achieve sustainable, year-round growth.

 

Skai and The Bluebird Group implemented a campaign strategy combining upper-funnel awareness and lower-funnel tactics to help deliver measurable results.

Using Walmart Connect’s full-funnel solutions, the campaign focused on maximizing return on ad spend and scaling more efficiently to reach existing and new customers.

CTV

To help build awareness during key holiday moments through a high-impact video on the big screen.

Offsite Media

To help engage new relevant audiences beyond Sister Schubert’s core base through advanced targeting using Walmart DSP.

Onsite Display

To help increase visibility across Walmart’s digital properties, keeping the brand top-of-mind as customers browsed.

Sponsored Products

To help boost conversions at the point of decision by capturing high-intent customers through optimized search placements.

Sponsored Brands

To help showcase the product portfolio using a premium, shoppable format.

Sponsored Videos

To help educate and inspire Walmart customers by highlighting product benefits and seasonal relevance using a compelling visual format. 

This approach helped engage customers across the journey, from awareness to consideration to conversion. These channels worked together, and this strategy helped position Sister Schubert’s for both holiday success and long-term growth.

The campaign leveraged Skai’s proprietary real-time optimization capabilities, enabling performance monitoring and in-flight adjustments to maximize impact throughout the holiday season. Once the peak period ended, the focus shifted to long-term measurement, with a deep dive into customer retention and repeat purchase behavior to 
evaluate the sustained effectiveness of the campaign.

 

The tactics

Dayparting

Through Skai’s platform, the brand’s ads were strategically served during high-traffic times to align with customer intent and maximize visibility when conversion potential was highest.

Competitive Campaigns

The campaigns were strategically aligned with Walmart’s peak holiday traffic periods, when customer demand was at its highest and competitors significantly ramped up their advertising efforts. By activating during these high-traffic windows, the brand was able to stay competitive, capture attention, and convert customers.

Targeting strategies

Various targeting tactics were used to help expand beyond the brand’s traditional holiday audience to attract new buyers while deepening engagement with loyal customers.

Big Wins

47 %

Increase in year-over-year new-to-brand sales

240 %

Increase in year-over-year total impressions

13 %

Increase in year-over-year repeat customers

Source: Skai. Nov. 2–Dec. 26, 2024 vs. Nov. 2–Dec. 26, 2023. No endorsement of third-party data sources.

Key takeaways

Shopping Moments

Peak shopping moments are an opportunity for brands to reach new audiences and drive incremental sales.

Full-funnel campaigns

Full-funnel campaigns that combine awareness with performance- focused tactics can strengthen engagement across awareness, consideration and conversion.

Strategic targeting

Strategic targeting helps brands reach shoppers during high-demand periods, helping improve seasonal visibility and performance.

Walmart Connect Partner Network

Walmart Connect Partner Network provides access to specialized expertise and  proprietary tools that help brands launch optimized, full-funnel campaigns designed to boost sales.

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