Walmart advertisers require the ability to reliably reach the right shoppers -- whether that means acquiring new customers, retargeting interested buyers, or encouraging repeat purchases. Teikametrics’ Walmart Onsite Display Audience solution gives advertisers full control to create, manage, and activate custom audiences directly in our platform, through Walmart’s new Audience Builder APIs.
This guide explains:
What the solution solves for
The audience types available
How to create and manage them in Teikametrics
How to add them to your Walmart Onsite Display ad groups
Why use Teikametrics to build custom audiences?
Streamlined workflows: No more jumping between Walmart’s native tools and manual offline workflows. Manage audiences from the same platform that your multi-channel product catalog lives.
Full-funnel strategies: Create audiences across Awareness, Consideration, Purchase, and Loyalty goals.
Advanced and diverse combinations: Gain access to all supported audience types and even combine custom segments for highly targeted audiences.
Direct activation: Easily push audiences directly into your Walmart Onsite Display campaigns.
Step 1: Create an Item Set
Before creating an audience, you’ll need to create an Item Set. Item Sets are product collections used as the foundation for audience targeting and campaign measurement. Item Sets allow advertisers to associate products with Onsite Display.
**Note: You do not need to create a new Item Set each time you create an audience. Once an Item Set for a specific collection of products has been created, you may reuse it on any custom audience that requires an Item Set. Item Sets that have been created on the Walmart Connect ads console will also be available in Teikametrics for use.
How to create an Item Set
Navigate to Advertising Optimization → Walmart → Audiences.
Click Create Item Sets.
Select your Onsite Display Advertiser.
Enter an Item Set Name and optional description.
Add products using one of three methods:
Add Products: Search and select from your Walmart product catalog.
Enter List: Input GTINs or UPCs manually (up to 10,000).
Upload CSV: Bulk upload GTINs or UPCs via spreadsheet.
Choose the purpose: Targeting, Measurement, or Targeting + Measurement.
Targeting: Item Sets that will allow you to associate products to custom audiences.
Measurement: Item Sets that will allow you to associate products to campaigns and ad groups.
Targeting+Measurement: Creates two unique Item Sets (one for targeting, one for measurement) for the same set of specified products.
Click Create Item Set.
📌 Tip: Group products so that audiences are aligned to campaign strategies for similar groups of products.
Step 2: Choose Your Audience Type
Once an Item Set exists for an Onsite Display advertiser, you can create audiences.
Start by navigating to: Advertising Optimization → Walmart → Audiences → Create Audiences. Select the Onsite Display advertiser, then choose from one of the custom audience types below.
1. Rule-Based Audiences
What it is: Build audiences based on shopper behaviors like purchases or browsing.
When to use: Retargeting, excluding recent purchasers, or building audiences based on purchases and browsing behavior together.
How to create:
Select Rule-Based Audience.
Add an Audience Name and optional description.
Define Inclusion Criteria:
Purchase behavior (frequency, timeframe, channel).
Browse behavior (searched or viewed items, device type, timeframe).
Apply to one or more Item Sets.
**Note: The Item Set must be in an 'approved' status.
Define Exclusion Criteria (optional): remove purchasers or browsers you don’t want included.
Click Submit Audience.
2. Brand Audiences
What it is: Segment Walmart shoppers based on their purchase history with your brand.
When to use: Retargeting recent buyers, re-engaging lapsed buyers, or predicting future brand buyers.
How to create:
Select Predictive Audience → Brand Audience.
Choose your brand from those linked to your Walmart advertiser ID.
Select a Target Buyer Type:
Recent Buyers
Lapsed Buyers
Predictive Buyers
Click Submit Audience.
3. Brand Affinity Audiences
What it is: Predictive segments that group shoppers by their affinity to your brand or competitors.
When to use: Loyalty campaigns, conquesting competitor shoppers, or upper-funnel expansion.
How to create:
Select Predictive Audience → Brand Affinity.
Enter an Audience Name and description.
Choose a Strategy:
Brand Loyalists
Brand Switchers
Brand Prospects
Select one or more brands linked to your account.
Narrow further by categories in your brand halo (optional).
Click Submit Audience.
4. Item Propensity Audiences
What it is: Predictive machine learning audiences that target shoppers likely to buy items in your Item Set.
When to use: Driving incremental ROAS, launching new products, or boosting seasonal SKUs.
How to create:
Select Predictive Audience → Item Propensity.
Enter an Audience Name and description.
Choose a Strategy:
Improve ROAS
Promote brand new products
Promote seasonal products
Select the Item Set you want Walmart’s models to use.
**Note: The Item Set must be in an 'approved' status.
Click Submit Audience.
5. Lookalike Audiences
What it is: Expand your reach by finding shoppers who look similar to those in your existing audiences.
When to use: Awareness and new customer acquisition campaigns.
How to create:
Select Predictive Audience → Lookalike.
Enter an Audience Name and description.
Choose a Source Audience (must be created in the past 40 days OR part of a live campaign):
Rule-Based
Brand Affinity
Item Propensity
Filter or search to find the right source audience.
Click Submit Audience.
6. Advanced Audiences
What it is: Combine multiple audiences into one precise group using Boolean logic (AND/OR/NOT).
When to use: Creating nuanced strategies, such as targeting brand prospects while excluding recent buyers.
How to create:
Select Advanced Audience.
Enter an Audience Name and description.
From the Available Audiences Library, search and filter by type.
Choose a Source Audience (must be created in the past 40 days OR part of a live campaign).
Build groups:
Include Group(s): Audiences you want to target.
Exclude Group(s): Audiences you want to remove.
Within groups = OR logic. Across groups = AND logic.
Add at least two audiences to qualify.
Click Submit Audience.
Step 3: Add Audiences to an Ad Group
Creating an audience does not activate it automatically -- you need to add it to a campaign’s ad group before any spend will be allocated.
How to assign audiences
Navigate to Advertising Optimization → Walmart → Onsite Display → Ad Groups.
Ensure the ad group’s Targeting Type = Behavioral.
Click Edit → Add / Remove Audiences.
Browse your Audience Library by type (Rule-Based, Brand, Affinity, Propensity, Lookalike, Advanced).
Check the boxes for one or more audiences.
Remove audiences by unchecking them.
Click Save Changes -- updates are pushed to Walmart immediately.
Understanding Predictive Audiences
Walmart Connect’s Predictive Audiences are powered by machine learning and Walmart’s proprietary first-party purchase data, giving advertisers access to segments that are built not just on past behavior, but on predicted future shopping intent.
How Predictive Audiences Work
Data Collection: Walmart aggregates omnichannel data from millions of weekly shoppers across Walmart.com, the Walmart app, and physical store transactions.
Machine Learning Models: These models analyze patterns in browsing, searching, and purchasing to forecast likelihood of future purchases -- even if the customer hasn’t yet bought the product.
Audience Segmentation: Based on predictions, Walmart generates advanced audience types, such as:
Brand Affinity Audiences -- classifying shoppers as Loyalists, Switchers, or Prospects based on their brand loyalty behaviors.
Item Propensity Audiences -- identifying shoppers with a high probability of purchasing items or categories from your Item Set during the campaign lifecycle.
Lookalike Audiences -- expanding reach to new shoppers who resemble your highest-value audiences.
Omnichannel Activation: These predictive segments are available for use in Onsite Display campaigns, enabling brands to reach shoppers across Walmart’s ecosystem with precise, forward-looking targeting.
Why Predictive Audiences Matter
Go beyond retargeting to anticipate customer needs.
Support full-funnel strategies -- from awareness to purchase.
Optimize spend by focusing on customers most likely to engage and convert.
Harness the scale of Walmart’s 145 million+ weekly U.S. shoppers to fuel advanced targeting.
Approval Process & SLA for Item Sets and Audiences
When creating Item Sets and Audiences in Teikametrics, it’s important to understand the review process handled by Walmart Connect.
SLA Overview
Item Sets and Audiences are not immediately available after you submit them.
Walmart requires a review and approval process for all Item Sets and Audiences created.
SLA ~48 hours. Approval may take longer depending on Walmart’s internal review timeline.
Where You’ll See Statuses
In Teikametrics:
Only approved Item Sets and Audiences will show up as options when building new audiences.
All Audiences appear in your Ads Manager, regardless of their approval status, when adding audiences to ad groups.
Rejected audiences will not be usable in creation workflows, but they remain visible in Ads Manager for tracking purposes.
In Walmart Connect’s Ad Console:
Once Walmart has accepted an Item Set or Audience, it will also appear in your Walmart Connect account.
Once Walmart has issued an approval or rejection to the Item Set or Audience, the status will reflect on Walmart Connect as well as Teikametrics.
Key Takeaways
Expect a 48-hour delay before audiences become available for targeting.
Plan campaigns with this SLA in mind, especially for product launches or time-sensitive promotions.
If an audience is missing from your creation workflow (Lookalike or Advanced), check its status in Ads Manager to confirm if it’s still under review or if Walmart rejected it.
Best Practices
Naming Item Sets: Use product-focused names that clearly describe the group, e.g., Brand | Category | Product Group | Season
Naming Audiences: Include the audience type and targeting intent, e.g., Brand | Product Group | Audience Type | Rule/Strategy | Lookback Period
Map Audiences to goals: Create audiences for specific campaign objectives.
Use exclusions: Exclude past purchasers from prospecting campaigns to avoid wasted spend.
Test combinations: Assign different audiences to broaden targeting, then adjust to optimize based on performance. Be sure to allow sufficient time for impressions and spend to validate certain strategies.
Troubleshooting
Targeting mismatch? Custom audiences can only be applied to Behavioral ad groups.
Audience missing? If it has been more than 72 business hours since your custom Audience was created, contact the Teikametrics team via chat support.
No size estimate? Only Rule-Based and Advanced audiences return size estimates.
✅ With these mew tools, you can now build full-funnel Walmart Onsite Display strategies directly inside Teikametrics -- from creating item sets, to defining audiences, to activating them in campaigns.