Inside Walmart’s All-In GenAI Playbook | Walmart Insights Newsletter

PLUS: Sam's Club Launches Advanced Retail Data Tools

Author

Zihan Lyu
April 30, 2025

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Welcome to Walmart Insights, your go-to newsletter for updates and analysis on the trends shaping retail and eCommerce at Walmart.

Editor’s Pick 🌟

Marketing thought leadership has a tendency towards binaries. The funnel is either completely dead or very much alive. Brand marketing is either pointless or the solution to all your problems, and ChatGPT is ending 30 years of search overnight.

At Fospha, we love the measurement challenge of any new channel that offers our clients ways to reach more customers. However, Google is still very much the biggest advertising platform. Performance Max (PMAX) and Search products alone represent around 30% of our clients’ digital share of wallet.

In uncertain times, it’s more important than ever for brands to nail these core channels, so we produced the definitive best practice guide on PMAX and Paid Search. Here were our top findings:

  • ⚖️ Best performing brands allocate 55% of Google budget to PMAX and 12% to Paid Search.

  • 🏆 Brands that pair Search and PMAX with ~50% of their budgets in YouTube, Demand Gen and Paid Social see optimal results.

  • 🎨 Especially for PMAX, high-volume creative is key for AI-powered optimization.

Specialty Bites 🍪

AI IN RETAIL

Walmart is aggressively integrating generative AI into its operations, aiming for daily use by all associates. After two years of exploration, the retailer has embedded AI across workflows and built an internal platform, Element, for responsible scaling.

Developers are gaining access to AI-powered coding assistants and agentic tools, enhancing accessibility and efficiency. This deep dive reveals Walmart's strategy to break down AI adoption barriers while prioritizing security and innovation.

RETAIL INNOVATION

Sam’s Club’s Member Access Platform advances its retail media network with data-driven tools like Brand Lift, Customer Lifetime Value measurement, and AI-powered Propensity Modeling, empowering marketers to optimize campaigns across mobile, onsite, and in-club channels. These enhancements deliver actionable performance insights and facilitate tailored customer engagement.

RETAIL INNOVATION

Walmart is focusing on margin growth through digital expansion, highlighting that eCommerce profitability in the U.S. is imminent and newer initiatives like advertising and Fintech are lifting margins.

The company is investing in automation and omnichannel fulfillment to reach 95% of households in under three hours. Marketers should note Walmart’s commitment to digital acceleration and profit-focused scaling, as these moves will reshape consumer engagement channels and industry benchmarks.

Doug McMillon, President and Chief Executive Officer, Walmart

RETAIL ANALYTICS INNOVATION

Skypad’s analytics platform extends real-time, unified sales and inventory insights to Walmart Marketplace sellers, equipping brands to optimize multi-channel performance with streamlined data dashboards and customizable reporting.

Retail marketers gain actionable visibility into trends, stock levels, and sell-through dynamics, reducing manual processes and supporting informed, profitable eCommerce growth.

BUSINESS EXPANSION

Milo's Tea Company, backed by Walmart, opened a $200 million manufacturing and distribution facility in South Carolina, reflecting Walmart’s $350 billion initiative to boost U.S.-made products and support domestic suppliers. Marketers should note the increased capacity for local production, retail expansion, and strengthened supplier relationships in the evolving eCommerce ecosystem.

Influencer Corner 📢

Meta Ads vs. Google Ads: Which One is Better for D2C Brands?

Meta ads excel at:
👉 Building brand awareness.
👉 Nurturing new customers with engaging content.
👉 Retargeting cold leads who didn’t convert initially.

Google ads are great for:
👉 Capturing demand when people are actively searching for solutions.
👉 Generating high-intent traffic with low CPC.
👉 Converting cold leads into paying customers quickly.

Which one should you focus on?
👉 Meta ads work best if you’re focusing on top-of-funnel and brand-building.
👉 Google ads work best when you’re ready to convert customers actively searching for your product.

Rumour has it that OpenAI might be quietly working on a native Shopify checkout inside ChatGPT.

Apparently ‘leaked’ code shows:

👉 'shopify_checkout_url'
👉 'buy_now'
👉 'product_offer_ratings'

No redirects. No search. Just chat, compare, and buy in one flow. Unconfirmed, but catching attention.

If this happens?

Google, TikTok, even product pages as we know them are all about to change.

Optimization Hub ⚙️

SEARCH INNOVATION

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) integrates traditional SEO with AI-focused strategies, ensuring content is both visible in classic search results and cited by AI models like ChatGPT or Perplexity. Marketers must structure content to answer specific questions, prioritize authority, and track AI-driven citations. Adapting to GEO is essential for maintaining discoverability in an AI-driven search landscape.

DISCOVERY COMMERCE INNOVATION

TikTok Shop’s newly released playbook, developed with Accenture Song, provides marketers and brands actionable frameworks for driving growth through discovery commerce, leveraging real-time creator content and robust measurement. With TikTok Shop rapidly capturing eCommerce market share, ignoring these trends risks falling behind competitors capitalizing on content-driven online retail.

INNOVATIVE PERSONALIZATION STRATEGIES

Cookieless personalization is reshaping digital marketing by requiring brands to use first-party and zero-party data, contextual targeting, and server-side solutions instead of third-party cookies, ensuring compliance with privacy regulations like GDPR and CCPA. This shift enables marketers to maintain effective, consent-driven customer engagement while safeguarding user privacy. Marketers must adapt quickly to sustain relevance and trust.

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