Driving Upper and Mid Funnel Success for Walmart’s Holiday Campaign Through Omnichannel Efficient Approach
Scope
Role: Supervisor, Digital Investment
Brands: Walmart - Holiday
Funnel Activation: Upper and Mid Funnel
Budget: $450Million
Timeframe: 5 Months (Aug - Dec)
Challenge
Heading into the Holiday season, Walmart’s business faced 4 key challenges that would greatly affect the go to market strategy for the upcoming Holiday campaign:
Competitive pressure as big retailers try to capitalize on holiday timing making it critical for Walmart to stand out from the crowd
Macroeconomic conditions such as inflation and supply chain issues leading to excess stock increases importance to drive consideration and purchase through holiday season
Customer expectations have shifted and expect brands to anticipate their unique needs
Nostalgia will be a key factor in the holiday season as customers continue to seek inexpensive ways to make celebrations special and keep traditions alive
Keeping these challenges in mind, media specific KPIs were defined as we headed into tactical planning.
Primary KPIs
Digital Traffic
Omni GMV
Secondary KPIs
Win in Price Perception
Audience & Targeting Strategy
Prior to activating, key personas were developed based on consumer behaviors and timing of when shoppers bought:
167MM
Solution
Activation was divided between 3 key pillars:
TOYS - kick off the season to capture attention early and meeting consumers when they’re in a purchase state of mind
ANNUAL EVENT - highlight key weekly deals being launched leaning heavily into high impact partners to reach a wide audience and get eyeballs
CORE - sustain reach throughout the key holiday months leaning into shopper signals and capturing procrastinators in the month of December
While a large percentage of spend was tied up in Linear TV to ensure reach was maximized, remaining budget was tactically across a variety of channels to not only drive incremental reach but also to lock in on additional targeting to reach the right consumer at the right time in order to drive down funnel.
Digital Video
Generate incremental reach and lean consumption shifts to online video showing up in front short form
High Impact
Break through clutter and highlight deals during key moments to drive interest and consideration
Digital Audio
Celebrate traditions and tap into the holiday spirit surrounding playlists and soundtracks for the season
Digital Display
Dialed in targeting combining personas, 1P data, and 3P data to show up contextually and natively
Social
Leverage agile and scaled reach provided by social while enabling shoppability to drive digital growth
Multicultural
Partner with endemic multicultural partners to show up authentically and ensure total market approach
Examples of live units run below:
Spotify Mobile Headliner Overlay
GumGum InFrame
Twitter Branded Notification
Trueview for Reach & Companion Banner
Impact
Leveraging an omnichannel full funnel approach led to a balanced execution between driving perception, traffic, and sales goals. With partners and tactics often playing more than one goal, this holistic go-to-market strategy garnered successes across several campaign KPIs.
Primary KPI Successes
Site Traffic
GMV
ROAS
Secondary KPI Successes
Perception Lift in Brand Favorability
Media and marketing success additionally drove business success for Walmart as a whole in their Q4’22.
Overall Business Successes
Share Price Increase
eComm Growth