Walmart is about to change how brands advertise on YouTube, and it could reshape the retail media race almost overnight.
Walmart Connect, the retailer’s fast-growing advertising arm, is making its first-party shopper data available for buying YouTube streaming inventory through Google’s Display & Video 360 platform. In plain terms, advertisers will be able to target real Walmart shoppers while they watch YouTube, then track whether those ads actually drove purchases. That closed loop, from ad view to checkout, is the holy grail most marketers have chased for years.
The move also pushes Walmart’s video reach well beyond its own properties, including the VIZIO smart TV business it acquired. By plugging into YouTube, Walmart gives advertisers a powerful new way to use shopper data across connected TV and streaming, the corners of the market where ad budgets are shifting fastest.
A direct shot at Amazon
This is the latest step in Walmart’s plan to make its audience data usable far beyond Walmart-owned channels. In May, the company opened its first-party data for buying inventory through platforms such as Yahoo’s DSP. YouTube is the headline addition, and it lands at a moment when Walmart needs distribution badly.
Walmart Connect’s share of off-site retail media spending trails non-Amazon networks by more than 20 percentage points, according to EMARKETER forecast data. Getting Walmart data into the platforms where marketers already work is now a competitive necessity, not a nice-to-have. The company also says off-site campaigns win new customers, not just convert existing ones. It reported that 52% of buyers from its median off-site display campaign in 2025 were new to the brand.
Why YouTube, and why now
The choice of YouTube follows the money. Around 72% of US senior decision-makers expect to raise YouTube spend this year, and the platform scores highly on measurement and return-on-investment confidence. More than half of those decision-makers say they can defend YouTube’s performance on a measurement basis.
YouTube is also a buying engine. Roughly three-quarters of Gen Z and two-thirds of millennials say creator content on the platform shaped a purchase decision. On top of that, YouTube content increasingly feeds AI-powered discovery, with chatbots like ChatGPT and Gemini leaning heavily on video and social material to answer shopping questions.
For marketers, the takeaway is clear. The line between retail data and streaming media just got thinner, and the brands that learn to use Walmart’s purchase signals on YouTube first may gain an edge that is hard to copy. For Amazon, the most dominant retail media player, it is a reminder that the competition is no longer standing still.
