I want to talk about the retail media platform you're probably underspending on while you obsess over the one you're probably overspending on.
Amazon Ads is the default conversation in CPG retail media. It deserves to be — Amazon is still the largest single retail media platform in the country and the one most CPG brands have the deepest history with. But the conversation that's quieter, more recent, and arguably more interesting for any brand thinking 18 months out is what's happening to Walmart Connect.
The headline is provocative on purpose: Walmart Connect isn't actually eating Amazon's lunch. Both platforms are growing. But the rate of competitive pressure that Walmart Connect is putting on Amazon's retail media business has changed enough in the last 12-18 months that any CPG brand still treating it as a secondary or experimental line item is making a strategic mistake.
Let me walk through what's actually happening, why it matters, and what to do about it.
The data shift most operators haven't internalized
Walmart Connect's reported ad revenue has been growing at a meaningfully faster percentage rate than Amazon Ads for several quarters. Some of this is the math of starting from a smaller base. Some of it is genuine share shift in advertiser budgets. The exact rates and quarterly numbers will matter for the analyst notes — they don't matter much for the operator question.
The operator question is: where is the next dollar of incremental retail media spend best deployed?
For an increasing percentage of CPG categories — especially food, beverage, household, and pet — the math now says some of that incremental dollar should go to Walmart Connect, not just to Amazon Ads. Not because Amazon Ads has stopped working. Because Walmart Connect has gotten enough better that the incrementality math has shifted.
Most CPG brands haven't run that analysis recently enough to notice.
What Walmart Connect actually does well now
Three structural things have changed in the Walmart Connect platform that matter for CPG operators.
First, the ad inventory has expanded materially. Sponsored Search, Sponsored Brand, off-platform DSP through Walmart's network, in-store sampling and digital signage integration — the surface area of where you can actually deploy spend has gone from "two or three formats" to "a real omnichannel ad ecosystem." For brands with retail-shelf presence at Walmart, the ability to coordinate digital and physical-store advertising through a single platform is a structural advantage that Amazon doesn't fully replicate.
Second, the data has gotten better. Walmart Luminate is a more sophisticated brand-data offering than it was 18 months ago. Closed-loop measurement — including offline-to-online attribution that ties digital ad spend to in-store basket data — has matured. For CPG brands that sell meaningful volume in physical retail (which is most of them), this is a measurement capability Amazon structurally cannot offer because Amazon doesn't have the physical retail footprint.
Third, the audience targeting has improved. Walmart's first-party shopper data — informed by both online and in-store purchase behavior — is one of the most powerful CPG-relevant data sets in retail. Targeting capabilities built on top of this data have caught up to a meaningful degree to what Amazon offers, and in some categories now exceed it.
None of this means Walmart Connect "beats" Amazon Ads. The volume on Amazon is still much larger. The ad ecosystem is still deeper. But the gap has narrowed in ways that affect spend allocation decisions.
What this means for CPG retail media budgets
Three concrete implications for any CPG brand running retail media at scale.
Reassess your platform mix. If your retail media budget is still 80%+ Amazon, that allocation was probably right two years ago. It's probably wrong now for a meaningful share of CPG categories. The right reassessment isn't "shift to Walmart" — it's "run the incrementality math fresh on each platform and reallocate based on the answer." The brands quietly outperforming on retail media in 2026 have done this exercise within the last six months. The ones still on autopilot are leaving incremental ROI on the table.
Build measurement parity across platforms. A frequent failure mode is that brands have rich measurement capability on Amazon (because they've invested in it for years) and weak measurement on Walmart Connect (because they haven't). When you measure one platform with sophistication and the other with rough proxies, the sophisticated one always wins the budget allocation argument — not because it's actually winning, but because it has better receipts. Build the measurement infrastructure on Walmart Connect to a comparable standard before you finalize spend decisions.
Watch the omnichannel attribution angle. For CPG brands with significant physical retail volume, Walmart's ability to tie digital ad exposure to in-store sales is a measurement capability worth investing in even if your spend allocation doesn't shift dramatically. The data alone — what's working, what isn't, what's incremental — is more useful for Walmart Connect than it is for Amazon Ads in many categories, because it includes the offline channel that for many CPG brands is still the largest sales surface.
The Amazon-only strategy is a riskier bet than it used to be
Beyond the spend allocation math, there's a strategic dimension worth naming.
For the last decade, the CPG industry's retail media center of gravity has been Amazon. Talent, agency expertise, internal team structure, measurement infrastructure, planning rhythms — all built around Amazon as the default. That made sense when Amazon was the only retail media platform that mattered at scale.
In 2026, betting your entire retail media operating model on a single platform is a riskier strategic position than it would have been five years ago. Walmart Connect is now meaningful enough that any CPG brand without active capability there is creating concentration risk. Target Roundel, Instacart, Kroger Precision — same logic, smaller platforms, but accumulating.
The strategic move isn't to chase every platform. It's to build the operating capability — measurement, planning, execution — that allows you to deploy retail media across whichever platforms produce the best incremental ROI for your category, rather than being structurally locked into Amazon because that's where your team and tools are.
The takeaway
Walmart Connect isn't eating Amazon's lunch. Both platforms are growing. But the competitive dynamic has shifted enough that "we'll get to Walmart Connect later" is no longer a safe answer for CPG brands operating at scale.
Three concrete moves for any operator reading this:
Run an incrementality analysis across Amazon Ads, Walmart Connect, and any other retail media platforms you spend on. Not last year's analysis. This quarter's.
Audit your measurement parity. If you can't measure a platform as rigorously as you measure Amazon, fix that before you compare them.
Look at the platform-allocation question as a strategic one, not a tactical one. Single-platform retail media strategies are increasingly fragile.
The brands that will outperform on retail media in 2027 are making these calls in 2026. The ones still defaulting to Amazon-by-habit will spend a year losing share to the ones who didn't.