As retailers invest more and more in ways for advertisers to reach consumers online, Sam’s Club is the latest to overhaul its ad network.
Walmart-owned company is launching number of updates to its website, app, and curbside pickup e-commerce service today. Additionally, Sam’s Club will offer advertisers the opportunity to purchase sponsored product ads through a self-service platform called the Membership Access Platform (MAP) in order to target shoppers based on their search behavior, past purchases, and membership information. With the Trade Desk, IRI, and LiveRamp’s programmatic ad partnerships, marketers will also be able to retarget people off Sam’s Club’s platforms.
According to Lex Josephs, Sam’s Club’s vice president of ad sales and general manager, the company’s ads business was insourced from another company in 2009, but it hasn’t had any significant updates since the Covid-19 pandemic. According to her, shoppers are searching for products “more than ever,” but they do not have an online search experience for their customers.
Additionally, the company’s membership model gives advertisers access to first-party data that helps them to evaluate the lifetime value of customers and determine what they are searching for and purchasing online and offline.
