Accordingly, media agencies and advertisers are reading the tea leaves to understand how this changing dynamic between two industry titans might benefit them. “Walmart’s value to advertisers is first-party scale and closed-loop outcomes — not which logo powers the pipes,” said one media buyer, who exchanged anonymity for candor.

“The Trade Desk has been a fast way for Walmart to stand up a credible offering, but it’s an awkward fit philosophically … Walmart is a walled garden [while] TTD’s pitch is the open internet,” they continued. “Most advertisers aren’t wed to that debate — they’re focused on transparent economics and performance.”

For the moment, Walmart is playing its cards close to its chest. A spokesperson for the company declined to comment, and its execs seemingly haven’t yet begun cluing in advertising partners on its long-term plans. But they can only be headed in a couple of possible directions — each one intended to further increase the $4.4 billion in global ad revenue it netted from Walmart Connect in 2024.

The retailer could simply opt to increase the number of DSP partners it works with. Netflix, for example, has steadily added more DSPs since it launched its ads product in 2022 with Microsoft. Despite TTD’s flag-waving statement released following reports that Walmart had renegotiated its partnership after four years, the retailer might well opt to do the same.

Alternatively, its execs could look to take a similar path as bête noire Amazon and build (or buy) a DSP of its own. Putting aside the practicalities, it’s an option that would grab the attention of buyers hungry to reduce the amount of media investment lost to DSP fees. (Amazon, for what it’s worth, levies only a 1% fee on investments placed through its platform.)

“If Walmart does create its own DSP, and the fees on that DSP are significantly lower … that could entice more spend,” said a holdco buyer who exchanged anonymity for candor.

That strategy would grant Walmart more power in the market, as well as helping it increase profit margins. “The Trade Desk is not the entirety of the ecosystem. The more Walmart data can flow through the ecosystem, the more it becomes a currency,” said Forrester analyst Nikhil Lai.

In each scenario, buyers would gain new ways to access Walmart inventory and audience data for targeting elsewhere, with alternative cost calculations to be weighed up against The Trade Desk’s offer. 

“It opens up an aperture of new buying,” said Tucker Matheson, co-founder of Markacy. 

Competition would likely drive down both CPMs and the tech and targeting fees levied on programmatic investments. “The inventory would definitely be more fairly priced if it’s available across a variety of different buying platforms, and if there’s more purchasing power brought to bear on the inventory,” said Lai.

It could mean a chance for clients to condense the number of DSPs they work with across their entire portfolio, too. An advertiser currently funneling the majority of its media spend through, for example, Yahoo DSP, might be able to further consolidate should new agreements be struck between Walmart and the rest of the industry. 

“Retail media networks are very fragmented,” said Dept’s head of marketplaces Kevin Veenman. “It is a lot of overhead to manage all these different points.”

Some media buyers hope that a larger DSP menu might lessen tensions over joint business plans, one of the central frictions between advertisers and retail media players. CPG advertisers that stock their wares with retailers like Walmart told Digiday earlier this year that wholesale negotiations now included discussions about ad spend; retailers, in other words, pressed brands for more media dollars in exchange for favorable vendor arrangements. The issue can hamstring efforts to monitor working spend and its impact on commercial objectives, noted Veenman.

A greater choice of DSP partners might offer a way out of that bind, at least for brands that aren’t already spread thin across the e-commerce ecosystem. “This could be a good thing, however — and that’s a big however — only for brands that are only selling on Amazon and Walmart,” said Veenman. For those already working with a variety of partners, it likely won’t provide much relief.

It’s worth noting that a greater choice of DSPs wouldn’t be an unalloyed positive for clients. A higher number of DSP partners would mean more hours of agency time spent managing different relationships, and potentially more cash going out of the door on each platform’s fees. It might well be more cost-effective to stick with The Trade Desk, especially if an advertiser’s already using it as its primary port of call for other investments. 

Furthermore, Walmart adding DSP partners in the future wouldn’t solve the other asks buyers are making of the retailer now. Media buyers cite frustration with its reporting and measurement tools, and the speed at which sales data is available for its owned ad inventory. 

“To continue increasing investment, Walmart will need to expand existing partnerships or come forward with exciting new opportunities to open up future activations for clients,” one media buyer, who requested anonymity, told Digiday.

Walmart’s ad business has scale and maturity on its side. Walmart’s partnership with Vizio, its endemic ad inventory and its audience data — is “extremely valuable,” according to Joanna Galysh, director of marketplaces at Assembly — and have helped it gain a secure second-place position in the global retail media market. Omnicom, for example, rates Walmart’s audience data highly enough to strike an exclusivity deal with the retailer earlier this summer, while VML’s Obviously agency has its own arrangement.

In recent months, it’s begun emphasizing the full-funnel capabilities of its network, including a team-up with NBCU intended to provide better audience targeting and cross-platform attribution measurement to NBCUniversal’s live sports programming via Walmart’s shopper data.

But competition is fierce. And if Walmart is to keep up with Amazon — and ahead of everyone else — it can’t sit still.