Walmart Connect’s Retail Media Revenue Surpasses $4.5B as Brands Shift Budgets From Amazon DSP

Walmart Connect’s retail media network crossed $4.5 billion in annualized revenue through the second quarter of 2026, according to figures disclosed during Walmart’s August investor briefing — a 41% year-over-year increase that is forcing Amazon’s advertising organization to respond faster than its internal roadmap anticipated. For Shopify merchants, DTC founders, and agency buyers who split budgets across both networks, the acceleration is no longer a data point to watch. It is a reallocation event already underway.

The scale shift is documented inside agency holding companies. Publicis Commerce, Dentsu’s Merkle Commerce division, and independent performance shops including Tinuiti and Podean have each reported to clients in Q2 2026 that Walmart Connect ROAS on sponsored search is outperforming Amazon Sponsored Products in 17 of 22 tracked endemic categories, including consumables, home goods, apparel, and electronics accessories. That spread — which did not exist at this magnitude in 2024 — is the operational signal moving dollars.

Why Are Brands Actually Moving Budget Off Amazon DSP Right Now?

The drivers are structural, not sentimental. Amazon DSP’s CPMs have risen roughly 28% since Q3 2024, according to data from Pacvue’s quarterly benchmark report published in July 2026. Simultaneously, Amazon’s off-site DSP inventory — the programmatic placements on third-party publisher sites — has seen click-through rate compression as consumers increasingly use ad blockers and privacy-first browsers. The combination of higher cost and softer delivery is squeezing ROAS on upper-funnel DSP spend specifically.

Walmart Connect, by contrast, benefits from first-party purchase data tied to 145 million weekly shoppers, a physical store footprint that closes the attribution loop in a way Amazon’s digital-only model cannot, and CPMs that remain roughly 30 to 40% below Amazon’s on comparable audience segments, per Tinuiti’s Retail Media Benchmark published August 12, 2026.

“We moved $2.1 million in Q2 DSP budget from Amazon to Walmart Connect for three of our CPG clients and recovered 18 points of ROAS inside six weeks. The in-store attribution piece is what made the CFOs comfortable — they could see it closing at register.” — Nich Weinheimer, EVP Strategy, Skai

💡 Article Summary

Key Insights

1

Why Are Brands Actually Moving Budget Off Amazon DSP Right Now?

2

What Is Walmart Connect Actually Offering That Amazon DSP Doesn’t?

3

How Are Mid-Market Shopify Brands and Amazon Sellers Navigating This?

4

Is Amazon Taking the Budget Shift Seriously, and How Is It Responding?

5

What Should DTC Operators and Agency Buyers Do With This Data Right Now?

Source: Ecommerce Times

Skai — the retail media measurement platform used by brands including Kellogg’s, Henkel, and HP — has seen Walmart Connect managed spend on its platform grow 67% year-over-year, Weinheimer confirmed in an interview with Ecommerce Times. That figure tracks with Pacvue’s own disclosure that Walmart Connect now represents 29% of total retail media spend managed through its platform, up from 17% in Q1 2025.

What Is Walmart Connect Actually Offering That Amazon DSP Doesn’t?

Three product capabilities are driving the Walmart Connect advantage in brand conversations right now.

• Walmart Luminate integration: Walmart’s first-party data intelligence layer, Luminate, now connects directly into Walmart Connect campaign targeting, allowing brands to build suppression and lookalike audiences from actual purchase velocity data — not modeled panels. As of June 2026, Luminate is accessible to brands spending above $500K annually on Walmart Connect without incremental licensing fees.
• In-store activation with digital measurement: Walmart Connect’s omnichannel ad units — which drive digital ad exposure and measure subsequent in-store conversion using Walmart’s payment data — now cover 4,600 U.S. Walmart Supercenter locations. Amazon has no equivalent closed-loop physical attribution asset.
• Streaming TV via Walmart’s Vizio acquisition: Following Walmart’s $2.3 billion acquisition of Vizio in 2024, SmartCast inventory is now fully integrated into Walmart Connect’s upper-funnel offering. Brands can run CTV ads on Vizio screens and measure purchase conversion against Walmart first-party checkout data — a closed loop that competing CTV buys cannot replicate.

Seth Dallaire, Walmart’s EVP and Chief Revenue Officer, told investors in August that Walmart Connect’s advertiser base grew by 22% in the first half of 2026, with particular strength among brands doing under $50 million in annual Walmart GMV — a segment that historically underinvested in Walmart’s ad products. “We are bringing performance marketers to Walmart who built their careers on Amazon,” Dallaire said. “The measurement story is what converts them.”

How Are Mid-Market Shopify Brands and Amazon Sellers Navigating This?

The practical reality for most Shopify DTC brands and Amazon third-party sellers is that Walmart Connect access requires a meaningful Walmart Marketplace presence first. Walmart’s algorithm still weights organic shelf position heavily in ad quality scoring, which means a brand with thin Walmart catalog depth cannot simply buy its way into efficient Connect placements the way it might with Amazon Sponsored Products.

That is generating a parallel acceleration in Walmart Marketplace seller applications. Walmart’s seller services team has confirmed to agency partners that approved seller applications in H1 2026 ran 34% above the same period in 2025, with the fastest-growing segments being home goods, pet, and personal care — all categories where DTC brands have built strong Amazon businesses and are now attempting to diversify channel risk.

“Every one of our top 40 clients is now operating or actively building a Walmart Marketplace presence. Twelve months ago that number was maybe 15. The retail media arbitrage is the accelerant — brands see the CPM gap and they want access to it.” — Elizabeth Marsten, VP Commerce Media, Tinuiti

Marsten, who oversees retail media strategy for Tinuiti’s brand roster including several nine-figure DTC operators, noted that the operational lift of onboarding Walmart — content requirements, item setup, fulfillment via WFS or drop-ship — remains the primary friction point. “It is not a one-week project. Brands that treat it like flipping a switch are going to have a bad time.”

Is Amazon Taking the Budget Shift Seriously, and How Is It Responding?

Amazon’s advertising business — which reported $56.2 billion in 2025 revenue — is not in a structural crisis. But the internal response to Walmart Connect’s momentum is visible in product decisions Amazon has accelerated in 2026.

Amazon has rolled out several counter-moves since Q1 2026:

• Amazon Marketing Cloud democratization: AMC’s clean room capabilities, previously accessible primarily to enterprise brands and agencies, were extended to self-serve advertisers with a simplified query interface in March 2026, lowering the technical barrier for mid-market sellers to run path-to-purchase analysis.
• Amazon Anywhere expansion: Amazon’s off-site commerce integration — which embeds checkout into third-party apps and games — added 140 new publisher integrations in H1 2026, attempting to extend first-party attribution reach beyond Amazon.com.
• Rufus-powered ad targeting: Amazon’s generative AI shopping assistant Rufus now informs sponsored placement eligibility signals, theoretically improving ad relevance matching. Initial Pacvue data suggests a modest 6 to 9% CTR improvement in categories where Rufus is most active, though the effect is early and inconsistent.

Colleen Aubrey, Amazon’s SVP of Advertising Products and Technology, addressed the competitive landscape directly at the IAB Placements Summit in July 2026, arguing that Amazon’s closed-loop measurement from discovery to delivery — including fulfillment status and repeat purchase — remains unmatched. “No other network can tell you that the customer who saw your ad bought your product, got it in two days, and reordered three weeks later,” Aubrey said. “That complete purchase lifecycle data is what enterprise advertisers are paying for.”

What Should DTC Operators and Agency Buyers Do With This Data Right Now?

The operational playbook emerging from brands navigating this shift has three distinct phases.

• Audit your Amazon DSP CPM trajectory: Pull your DSP CPM data quarterly. If your managed CPMs have risen more than 20% over the past four quarters without a corresponding ROAS improvement, you have the business case for a budget reallocation test. Pacvue, Skai, and Intentwise all have benchmark reports that contextualize your numbers against category averages.
• Build Walmart catalog depth before scaling Connect spend: Brands that attempt to scale Walmart Connect without at least 60 days of Walmart Marketplace operational history and a content score above 85% on their top SKUs will find Connect quality scores suppressed. The catalog work comes first.
• Run a parallel attribution test with a defined budget cap: Structure a 90-day controlled test with 10 to 15% of your retail media budget on Walmart Connect against matched audience segments. Use WalmartLuminate and a third-party measurement vendor — Northbeam and Rockerbox both added Walmart Connect connectors in 2026 — to get comparable ROAS reporting.

The broader implication for the retail media market is structural. Walmart Connect’s $4.5 billion run rate still sits well below Amazon Advertising’s $56 billion scale, but the growth rate differential — 41% versus Amazon’s 18% year-over-year in comparable periods — means the gap is narrowing on a curve that will matter for 2027 budget planning conversations happening in Q4 2026. For agency leaders building retail media practices, the question is no longer whether Walmart Connect deserves a seat at the planning table. It is how large that seat needs to be.