NEW: This story pulls from our recently updated Live Earnings Report: Marketing & Advertising Tracker Q2 2026.

The news: Walmart’s retail media business powered strong Q2 advertising growth, even as the company’s sales slowed to their lowest rate in years.

By the numbers:

• Global ad business revenues: +38% YoY
• US advertising revenues: +38% YoY
• Walmart Connect ad revenues excluding Vizio: +43% YoY
• Walmart International advertising: +20% YoY
• Comparable sales excluding fuel: +2.6% YoY, the slowest growth in six years

How we got here: Walmart broadened its off-site retail media strategy in Q2, making Walmart Connect’s first-party shopper data available through partners like Yahoo DSP. The partnership lets advertisers programmatically activate Walmart’s retail audience against CTV inventory on Vizio, while Magnite handles supply-side decisioning to reduce signal loss and improve audience matching.

That lets agencies use Walmart’s targeting and measurement capabilities without being locked into its own DSP, opening its retail media ecosystem to more third-party demand.

Zooming out: Walmart is one of retail media’s fastest-growing players, but it still has a long way to go to challenge Amazon’s scale.

• We forecast Walmart’s ad revenues will increase 31.2% YoY in 2026 and will continue growing in the double-digits through 2028.