Amazon Advertising and Walmart Connect Revenue; Shipt Partners with CitrusAd

By Cleveland Admin

Amazon’s “other” segment which is made up of predominately advertising revenue grew 87.5% Y/Y in 2Q21 vs. 76.8% in 1Q21. The increase in revenue growth was driven largely by continued acceleration in the ads business. Amazon continues to innovate in the media business, launching over 40 new features and self-service capabilities in 2Q21 alone. The updates look aimed at helping sellers and creators improve campaign performance and the ability to be discovered.

At our 2021 Virtual eCommerce Summit, we polled the audience on their 2022 expectations for Amazon Advertising spend ahead of a session hosted with Amazon Advertising experts, Patrick Miller & Abi Harmon of Flywheel Digital. The polling data shook out to a net 57% of brands planning to increase their spend on this platform as a percentage of their Amazon sales next year, with the majority (52%) reporting plans to spend just slightly more as a percentage of sales vs. 2021 levels.

Walmart Connect ads revenue nearly doubled in 2Q21: Walmart continues to follow in Amazon’s footsteps, in this case through its aggressive expansion of the Walmart Connect advertising platform. The US business was +95% Y/Y in 2Q (up more than 100% in 1Q) and growth in emerging geographies also contributed – particularly in Mexico, India, Canada, and most recently Chile. Active advertisers were up more than 170% Y/Y, suggesting the rebrand and expansion of capabilities has been effective in signing on new users of the platform.

CRC’s latest Walmart Account Benchmark conducted by the Traditional Retail Council found that almost 50% of large suppliers are planning to add new eCommerce roles to the Walmart team over the next 12 months, with several looking to hire specifically for marketing and content. Currently, the most common structure for Walmart Connect strategy and execution is to have it managed by the Walmart Account Team (37% of brands) while another 20% of brands have plans to integrate Walmart Connect responsibilities with the Walmart Account Team.

Shipt partners with CitrusAd to offer advertising placements to brands: As Walmart continues to follow Amazon, Shipt continues to follow its primary last-mile peer, Instacart. Shipt has decided to level-up, offering brands the opportunity to promote their products through the CitrusAd platform. Retail media opportunities have been available to Instacart vendors for quite some time now, and brands note these advertising placements drive strong ROAS and are a key element to winning strategies with the platform. Technology through the Shipt / CitrusAd integration will be widely available for brands to utilize in October of this year. Shipt is currently operating in over 5,000 cities nationwide, primarily offering fresh foods and other household essentials. However, Shipt has recently announced a significant nationwide expansion to extend its same-day delivery services beyond grocery stores, with some household retailer names such as CVS, GNC, and Bed Bath & Beyond. Popular features of the Shipt and CitrusAd integration will include in-grid display ads and sponsored product, which have proven to be winning advertising units on competing platforms like Amazon and Instacart

Source: Ad Age