Walmart takes its shopper data to linear TV through Warner Bros. Discovery

Walmart's own stores, sites and apps can only carry so many ads. Its pitch to advertisers is reach into millions of shoppers, plus a check against Walmart's sales data of whether an ad led to a purchase ^[4]. Performance marketing typically makes up the largest share of Walmart Connect spending ^[3]. Business Insider reported that the move onto linear TV puts Walmart in a better position to pursue the brand budgets traditionally spent on TV ^[3].

Each year's deals have taken Walmart further from its own properties. It bought the TV maker Vizio in 2024 to reach connected-TV budgets, and this year bought Vibe.co, a streaming adtech firm, to court smaller advertisers ^[5]. Its earlier linear test, also in 2024, put shoppable ads on NBCUniversal's live Thanksgiving sports through the Walmart DSP ^[9]. That covered one holiday's programming. The new partner, Warner Bros. Discovery, is merging with Paramount to form Skydance ^[2], and the deal runs across several of its cable networks ^[8].

Walmart has picked distribution over control. "We want to make it easier for them to buy how they buy today, instead of forcing somebody into one DSP that really conquers them all," Malik said ^[14]. "I think about us as a friendly garden," he added, setting Walmart against walled gardens such as Meta and YouTube that require advertisers to use their own buying tools ^[15]. In my view the size gap explains the choice. Amazon's ad business was about 10.6 times Walmart's in 2025 ^[23], and a seller that far behind gains more from appearing in buyers' existing tools than from insisting on its own. The linear deal is the exception for now, because WBD inventory is bought through Walmart's own DSP ^[8].

A skeptic on a TV buying team would say a private marketplace on a retailer's DSP is a performance buyer's tool, and that a handful of cable networks is a small test for budgets of that size. Walmart's answer is measurement. Retail media's measurement is inconsistent. Spending is set to top $203 billion this year, according to EMARKETER, spread across more than 200 networks worldwide ^[18]. An ISBA and MediaSense audit of five UK retail media networks found five different definitions of an "attributed sale" ^[19]. Malik said Walmart works with third-party measurement firms alongside its own first-party data ^[20]. "As commerce media moves into a broader media mix, its accountability has to go with it," he said ^[21]. Business Insider's report does not include pricing, volumes, or how Walmart will credit a purchase to a linear spot.

Walmart is describing a staged rollout. "We want to start slow and then go fast," Malik said ^[10]. "I could see us scaling as the solution works for advertisers" ^[11]. He said he envisions Walmart expanding into more non-digital channels ^[22]. Over a decade, the question is whether a retailer's sales data becomes a normal way to judge TV spend. This quarter it is a private marketplace on a few cable networks ^[8]. Experian Marketing Services' chief revenue officer, Kevin Dunn, said he thinks a growing share of retail media will run outside retailers' own sites, on connected TV and other websites ^[16]. "I expect the conversation to shift from 'which networks should we be in?' to 'how do we make them work together?'" Dunn said ^[17].