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Variant Bidding Best Practices on Walmart
Variant Bidding Best Practices on Walmart

Explaining what variant items are on Walmart and best practices when advertising them

Mitchell Bergin avatar
Written by Mitchell Bergin
Updated over a year ago

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Walmart Sponsored Products advertisers are no longer restricted to only advertising parent items. You can now promote any variation of an item in your catalog including sizes, colors, counts, and patterns. This allows for improved brand and item discovery that can help boost conversions and grow sales.

Variant bidding is designed to:

  • Maximize profitability: Promote top-converting variants to help drive more valuable conversions

  • Improve brand exposure: Strategically promote variant items to help increase share of voice and discoverability

  • Provide more options for strategic advertising: Advertising an expanded assortment of items can help you meet your customer’s needs

In Perpetua, you'll see a badge next to the product indicating whether it's a primary variant (previously known as "base item") or a variant item. To learn more about adding products and launching Sponsored Products goals on Walmart, refer to this article.

Best Practices

1. Keyword strategies will vary by brand and product but some recommended options are:

  • Launching goals with general keywords

  • Including all variants that share similar attributes in one goal

  • Using variant-specific keywords

  • Creating groups of variants that fit specific keywords

2. Choosing items to promote: Focus on top-converting items, best-sellers, top-priority items, and seasonal items

  • Use a strategy that supports your advertising goals. Some options:

    • Start by promoting your top-converting, best-selling, or seasonal variants OR promoting all your variants to see which variant is the most popular

3. Relevancy

  • Your item's relevancy to the customer’s search query is the key factor that

    determines the position of your ads and the cost-per-click price you’ll pay

  • Update and/or expand item page content as necessary for each variant you choose

    to promote

FAQs

What is a primary variant within Sponsored Product campaigns?

  • A primary variant, previously known as a "base item," is the item to which all the other items within the variant group are mapped. With the launch of variant bidding, all variants, including the primary variant, can be promoted and displayed within Sponsored Products goals.

What is a variant item?

  • Every item within your variant group is now a variant item. Any eligible item is now able to be promoted within Sponsored Products goals.

Is variant bidding only available for Sponsored Products goals?

  • Yes, variant bidding is currently supported for Sponsored Products only.

Which ad placements can variant items be advertised in?

  • Variant bidding will be available for the following placements:

    • Search in-grid

    • SP product carousels

    • Buy Box

    • Stock up

  • Variant bidding will not be available for:

    • Browse in-grid

  • Note: Primary variants can appear in any Sponsored Products ad placement

Will the variants in the same product variant group compete for winning ad slots?

  • Yes. Ad slots for variants will continue to function just as it works today. If you are advertising similar items or the same item in multiple campaigns and/or ad groups they will compete against one another. The winning ad will be based on relevancy and bid.

  • Search In-grid

    • Only one item per variant group will be displayed for categories where many variants exist and many brands/sellers are promoting multiple variants (e.g., Apparel)

    • Multiple items per variant group potentially can be displayed for certain categories (e.g., consumables)

      • These are everyday items where we enable faster basket building

  • Carousels

    • Multiple items per variant group potentially can be displayed at the same time

Article last updated March 2023. If you find this information to be out of date, please contact hello@perpetua.io.

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