Walmart Connect Introduces Academy Ad Certification
Walmart’s omnichannel Walmart Connect offering is now making it easier for advertisers to understand and deploy these solutions with the Walmart Connect Academy Ad Certification program. “Through certification, advertisers at all levels can not only optimize their best practices to help unlock increased growth with Walmart Connect, but tout their retail media proficiency with post-certification badges,” noted Kara Rousseau, head of marketing and lightbox creative at Walmart Connect, in a recent blog post.
The comprehensive training and education provides easier access to Walmart Connect’s best practices across service types. To tailor the program to hands-on-keys users, media planners and data analysts alike, among them agency partners, managed advertisers and self-serve advertisers, Walmart Connect teamed up with New York-based GroupM on an exclusive beta test in which more than 500 commerce-focused GroupM employees received early access for certification.
“Walmart Connect continues to launch new omnichannel ad capabilities that garner client interest across GroupM, making ongoing education essential,” said Lauren Lavin, executive director, commerce, GroupM Nexus North America. “Our first-to-market access to Walmart Connect’s certification program is enabling our commerce experts to better recommend, troubleshoot, activate and optimize our clients’ campaign investments to help exceed their business goals.”
Connect Ad Certification will roll out in phases, with the following initial courses launching Oct. 16:
- Walmart Connect Retail Media (two courses): Foundational understanding of retail media and Walmart Connect’s offerings.
- Sponsored Products (11 courses): Establishing campaign goals, ad placements, bids and budgets, reporting, and how to maximize campaign performance.
- Sponsored Brands (three to four courses): Product eligibility, effective targeting techniques, setting competitive bids and budgets, adding images, creating ad groups, and reporting.
- Sponsored Videos (two to three courses): Product eligibility, creating and uploading video assets, creating campaigns, optimizing performance, and leveraging all available reporting options.
Participants can complete coursework and a knowledge check, or go directly to a final time-bound assessment. If they earn a passing score of 80% and complete a feedback survey, participants receive a LinkedIn-enabled digital credential that is valid for one year.
Display self-serve courses will debut next year, and course types will continue to expand.
Last month, Walmart Connect introduced sponsored videos, the retail media group’s first on-site video advertising solution.
Each week, approximately 230 million customers and members visit Walmart’s more than 10,500 stores and numerous e-commerce websites under 46 banners in 24 countries. The Bentonville, Ark.-based company employs approximately 2.3 million associates worldwide. Walmart U.S. is No. 1 on Progressive Grocer’s 2023 list of the top food and consumables retailers in North America. PG also named the company as one of its Retailers of the Century.
