Let’s break down what this means for advertisers and why ignoring Walmart during this retail moment might cost you more than you think.
Walmart’s Momentum Is Real
Walmart Deal Days has evolved into more than just an Amazon counterpunch. This year’s event includes major savings on top seasonal picks like electronics, home, toys, travel, and back-to-school essentials, with a clear focus on digital-first shopping behavior. Many of these deals go live on Walmart.com, via the app, and in store, with early access for Walmart+ members.
For brands that don’t typically promote on Walmart, we get it — Amazon promos often take the front seat. But traffic data tells a different story: retail site traffic spikes across the board during Prime Week, including on Walmart. During the event last year, there was a 17% uptick in online visits, and for Code3 clients specifically, overall engagement rate was 11% stronger week over week. Shoppers aren’t just deal-hunting on Amazon, they’re comparing, researching, and clicking through multiple retailers.
If you're not showing up competitively on Walmart, your competitors might be. And once a shopper clicks away, you may not get them back.
Even Without Deals, There’s Strategy
Most Code3 clients focus their summer promotional energy on Amazon, and that’s a solid play. But even if your brand isn’t running discounts on Walmart, that doesn’t mean sitting out altogether.
Here’s how we think about it:
- Identify high-priority categories: Focus on the SKUs or categories you do want to win during the week. Make sure you’re competitive with pricing, copy, and imagery, even without markdowns.
- Don’t burn budget for the sake of visibility: For categories that aren’t a growth priority, we often advise pulling back on spend to protect ROAS.
- Use Prime Week as a Walmart traffic test: It’s a good moment to evaluate whether certain products or categories pick up momentum on Walmart.com. The data can help guide future investments.
Let’s take a deeper dive into copy and imagery. On Walmart, they are VERY important as relevancy on the platform takes into account PDP content, images and click throughs. This means that if brands want to improve their relevancy and move up in ranking both for ads and organically, they need to have optimized PDPs. If a brand has low relevancy, they may struggle to scale spend, given that Walmart doesn't push ads for items solely based on the highest bid. If a competitor has a lower bid, but stronger relevancy then they will win the auction. Bottom line: PDP optimizations and improving CTR during this time is huge for being more visible on the Walmart SERP.
Cross-Channel Wins Require Cross-Channel Thinking
Let’s not forget that today’s shoppers are platform agnostic. They don’t care whether they’re buying on Amazon, Walmart, or TikTok Shop — they care about value, convenience, and trust. By investing only in Amazon and ignoring Walmart Deal Days, you could be leaving reach and revenue on the table.
Our advice? Don’t overcomplicate it, but don’t underestimate it either.
- Audit your presence: Are your PDPs optimized? Are your reviews recent? Do your top-performing Amazon products have an equivalent Walmart strategy?
- Align internally early: Even without a full Walmart deal plan, know which SKUs you’re okay pulling back on and which ones are worth pushing.
- Expect increased competition: Walmart’s ad platform gets more competitive during this period. Be ready to make quick, data-driven decisions as the event unfolds.
The Takeaway
Amazon might dominate the Prime Week narrative, but Walmart is actively earning shopper attention and dollars during this window. Brands that ignore it completely risk losing ground — especially to competitors that understand the full-funnel power of presence across platforms.
At Code3, we work with clients to build cross-channel retail strategies that are both ambitious and smart. That means knowing when to lean in, when to hold back, and when to simply be ready, because opportunity doesn’t always come wrapped in a lightning deal.