Streaming is the next frontier for Walmart’s, Kroger’s ads businesses
Streaming is becoming an important part of many retail media networks’ growth strategies, as retailers believe that shopper data can help advertisers prove their TV ads lead to sales.
On Tuesday, Walmart said it has agreed to acquire Vibe.co, a self-service connected TV advertising platform for small and mid-sized businesses and mid-market brands. The deal surpassed $1 billion, sources told Digiday, and is expected to close by the end of this fiscal year.
This isn’t the first play by Walmart to build out its streaming advertising capabilities, having acquired Vizio in 2024. Walmart and other retailers have also recently invested in the ability to integrate their shopping data into video platforms like YouTube and TikTok, pitching brands on the ability to plan full-funnel campaigns.
EMarketer forecasts U.S. retail media ad spending on off-site channels like CTV will reach $17.05 billion in 2026, up 29.5% from last year.
Walmart is combining Vibe’s service with its access to shoppers, closed-loop measurement and media ecosystem that now also includes Vizio. Walmart hopes Walmart Connect can be a place where smaller advertisers without large media teams, including Walmart Marketplace sellers, can launch CTV campaigns and measure their success using its commerce data.
“Vibe has done a great job democratizing access for the small guys to get into CTV or TV advertising,” said Martin Kristiseter, CEO of Digital Remedy, a performance marketing company for brands and agencies. He said that by creating a simple UI, Vibe made it easier for smaller advertisers without large ad teams to use the platform.
The infusion of retail data into TV advertising brings “the level of reporting and results into a channel that used to be very branding-focused in the past,” Kristiseter said. “It truly turns TV from upper-funnel into a real performance lower-funnel channel.”
In June, Walmart expanded its connected TV advertising capabilities by opening up Vizio inventory in Walmart Connect through Yahoo’s demand-side platform via ad-tech provider Magnite. That came as Walmart began expanding its off-site capabilities after the end of its four-year exclusivity deal with The Trade Desk last year.
“Walmart is relying less on third parties to activate its data and taking more control of its data, the activation, the downstream impact and its measurement capabilities, as well,” said Jesse Math, vp of strategic partnerships at Keen Decision Systems, a marketing measurement platform. “This is a democratized offering now within Walmart that’s going to be available to more brands without the complexity of the expense of [The Trade Desk].”
Walmart’s deterministic shopper data will further strengthen Vibe’s offering, Math said. “Brands need a way of strategically allocating finite budgets across numerous retail partners who are all asking for more,” Math said. “Part of how advertisers will make that decision is based off of who has the tools, technology, the data and the services to make their dollars work harder.”
Also in June, Walmart Connect partnered with Google’s Display & Video 360, enabling brands to use Walmart audience data to manage and measure YouTube campaigns. In March, Kroger Precision Marketing also began offering YouTube advertising integration via Display & Video 360, and Albertsons followed in April. Just this week, Kroger additionally announced it would allow advertisers to reach Kroger shoppers within TikTok’s advertising platform.
“The recent wave of streaming partnerships signals that retail media is evolving beyond retailers’ owned-and-operated properties into a much broader media ecosystem,” Sean Crawford, managing director for North America at retail media consultancy SMG, said in an email.
Social video “is where people are starting their shopping journeys and thinking about what they’re going to do next,” Christine Foster, group vice president at Kroger Precision Marketing, told Modern Retail. “This is where a lot of the meal inspiration gets planned, and a lot of health and beauty decisions get made, and we need to be in those spaces.”
Foster said these capabilities will be most relevant to CPG brands on the shelves at Kroger, but they also provide audience data for other brands. “Just think about the opportunities that exist for the wider brand set to use verified purchase data and purchase signals that tell us a lot about where customers are, or where their potential customers are in their life stage,” Foster said.
“Customers aren’t annoyed by ads, necessarily; they’re annoyed by messages that are irrelevant,” Foster added. “If we can be part of connecting better customer experiences to a brand, then we want to.”
Connected TV delivers the scale advertisers need to build awareness, Crawford said, adding that by connecting campaigns to retail data, advertisers can target relevant audiences and understand which audiences, placements and creative drive business outcomes. Still, he only expects the largest retailers to build fully integrated media ecosystems through major acquisitions.
“Most retailers will continue to rely on partnerships that combine retailer data with established CTV platforms and media infrastructure, while also working more closely with one another through shared technology and networks that enable advertisers to access scaled audiences and inventory across multiple retail environments,” Crawford said. “The winners will be those that collaborate and seamlessly bring together scale, data activation, interoperability and measurable performance, regardless of who owns the underlying technology.”
Adam Solomon, vp of product solutions at LiveRamp — the marketing platform behind Kroger and Albertsons’ YouTube integrations — said retail media is shifting toward flexibility and interoperability with off-site environments like streaming and social media.
“It reflects the next stage of retail media’s evolution: from isolated retailer inventory to a broader commerce media model where first-party data can power media activation and measurable outcomes across more channels and touchpoints,” Solomon said.