The news: Walmart Connect, Walmart’s retail media division, is growing its ad tech platform through partnerships with Yahoo and Magnite to give shopping audiences access to ad buys across connected TVs (CTVs), starting with Vizio, per Ad Age.

• Yahoo DSP serves as the demand-side platform (DSP), enabling direct programmatic activation of Walmart’s first-party retail data against Vizio CTV inventory.
• Magnite, the largest independent sell-side platform (SSP), handles supply-side decisioning—reducing signal loss and improving audience match rates at scale.

The broader goal: a lower-friction buying experience that lets agencies activate Walmart’s targeting and measurement without being locked into Walmart’s own DSP. It’s the latest step toward a more open retail media ecosystem.

Why it’s worth watching: Walmart Connect’s partnerships reflect how retail-focused ad tech is moving from proprietary platforms to interoperable ecosystems to expand offsite reach and simplify CTV activation for agencies. 

Retailers like Walmart once forced brands into a single DSP, but now they’re opening up. 

• Target Roundel retail media network markets its programmatic solution as an open, DSP‑agnostic approach, giving advertisers access to Target’s first‑party purchase data overlaid on inventory that can be activated via their preferred DSP.
• Kroger’s partnership with Roku mirrors Walmart’s move, and Instacart now connects with The Trade Desk. 

Implications for advertisers: Integrating with Yahoo and Magnite opens up Walmart's purchase-based audiences to more of the tools agencies already use, including buy-side platforms like The Trade Desk and measurement layers like DoubleVerify and Nielsen One. It also provides planning tools without requiring a separate workflow inside Walmart’s own DSP.

With first-party data now flowing through Yahoo DSP, brands running CTV campaigns can layer Walmart Connect’s purchase signals onto existing buys for CPG, grocery, and household categories, where Walmart’s data depth is strongest.

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