Walmart announced an acquisition that could deepen its data and ad options, bringing Vibe.co and its platform under the retailer’s control.

The retail giant announced it will acquire Vibe.co, a self-serve connected TV platform. Vibe.co offers technology to evaluate streaming ad campaigns. At Walmart, those offerings will carry over to small and mid-sized consumer brands.

Walmart is No. 2 in the Top 2000. The database is Digital Commerce 360’s ranking of North America’s online retailers by their annual ecommerce sales.

Walmart is also No. 8 in the Global Online Marketplaces. That database ranks the top such marketplaces by third-party gross merchandise value (GMV).

Why Walmart is acquiring Vibe.co

“Walmart Connect is focused on making commerce media more accessible, more measurable and easier to activate for advertisers of all sizes,” said Ryan Mayward, general manager and senior vice president at Walmart Connect U.S. “Vibe.co has created a purpose-built platform that simplifies streaming TV advertising, and together, we can help more businesses connect with customers across streaming environments while measuring the impact of those campaigns through Walmart’s commerce capabilities.”

In addition, Vibe also heralded the move.

“Vibe.co was built as the self-serve platform for performance and ecommerce marketers to run streaming TV the way they run paid social: measurable, fast to launch, and optimized for better outcomes,” said Arthur Querou, co-founder and CEO of Vibe.co. “Joining Walmart gives us the opportunity to accelerate that mission and bring performance TV advertising to one of the most powerful commerce media ecosystems in the market.”

What Vibe.co means for Walmart’s ad capabilities

“Walmart’s acquisition of Vibe shows us where retail media is headed next,” said Rodney Mason, chief marketing officer at the AI shopping assistant Minty. “Instead of just selling ad space on its website, Walmart is moving into full-funnel advertising with this move, meaning that ads will follow a shopper from the first time they see a product all the way through checkout.”

He sees the deal as a natural evolution for connected television (CTV).

“The biggest takeaway is that CTV is becoming a performance media,” he stated. “It’s a strategic move by Walmart to capture advertising dollars from small brands and businesses that have been historically priced out of TV advertising.”

By combining self-serve CTV tools with purchase data, Walmart can associate an ad directly with a sale. Moreover, it can track whether a sale happened online or in a store.

“That’s something that every advertiser wants: proof that their ads worked,” Mason said.

Reach for retail media

Mason noted that this trend is unfolding across retailers as brands follow shoppers beyond traditional retail destinations.

“Advertisers are following shoppers to the places they are making their purchase decisions, like AI chatbots, shopping assistants and cashback apps,” he said. “With more brands getting into retail media, simplicity is going to be important. Brands want to launch ads quickly and see proof they’re working. And AI is going to play a role in making that possible.”

Mike Danford, chief strategy officer at Adverio, said the acquisition fills a critical gap in Walmart’s advertising infrastructure. He offered a comparison between what Amazon is doing and Walmart will now be able to do. Adverio is an omni-marketplace operator group that manages operations for brands sold at Amazon, Walmart and Target.

“Amazon owns the screens through their Fire TVs and figured out the QR code where you can scan it in real time and go right to the page, add to cart, and go right back to your show,” Danford explained. “Walmart’s been selling that same stack. They’ve got the shopper data, they’ve got the physical shopping data, they have the retail data. They bought Vizio in 2024 for the physical screens, kind of like Fire TV.”

Filling a gap for Walmart and consumer brands

“The only piece they were missing was an easy front door for these sellers on their platform to tap into their streaming audience,” he assessed.

Danford sees Vibe as a new front door.

“It means a third-party seller can get straight into the CTV without a huge budget,” he said. “This is exactly what’s worked with Amazon. We’ve seen multinational brands, eight-figure brands, seven-figure brands tap into this CTV inventory and crush it without having to spend five or six figures just to get a seat at the table.”

For retailers, Danford believes the economics will be compelling. He sees the ad revenue carrying high margins, and the data advantage being significant.

“You throw in all of the AI tracking and user history and just getting all this data based on what they’re viewing, what products they look at, how long they look at it, what’s the purchase journey, what they’ve looked at recently in their cart — it’ll throw up an ad,” he said. “This is incredible stuff if you think about it. It’s a no-brainer for these retailers to jump into the CTV streaming ad space headfirst.”

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