Overview

Variant bidding lets Walmart Sponsored Products advertisers promote any variation of an item in their catalog — including sizes, colors, counts and patterns. This strategy is designed to help improve item discoverability and conversion: Giving Walmart customers multiple buying options in one place makes it easier for them to find exactly what they’re looking for without having to browse hundreds of items across search results.

Start with these high-level best practices, then test and learn to refine your strategy to fit your category, brand, and business goals:

Structuring your Sponsored Products campaign

There are always questions about the right way to structure campaigns, especially Manual campaigns — and variants in the mix can make that question more complicated. No one structure is better than the others, but we suggest:

1. Keywords

a. Campaigns with general keywords
b. Include all variants that share similar attributes
c. Campaigns with variant-specific keywords
d. Create ad groups of variants that fit specific keywords

2. Keywords tip

Test and learn different keyword combinations to determine whether to assign general or variant-specific keywords to the variants you wish to promote. For example, if you sell a shirt that comes in black, white, and green:

a. The search term “men’s shirt” can apply to any of these color variants
b. The search term “men’s green shirt” can only apply to the green variant

If you notice that “men’s shirt” delivers sales of green shirts—because the green shirt is a popular item—you could continue both keyword strategies. Figuring out what the customer is looking for will help you determine which keywords to map to which variant items.

3. Choosing items to promote

Focus on the top variants, bestsellers, top-priority items, and seasonal items. that are generating the most conversions and sales.
Items tip: Don’t just throw it all into a campaign from your variant group. Keep the 80:20 rule in mind.

4. Relevancy

a. Your items’ relevancy to the customer’s search query is the key factor that
determines the position of your ads and the cost-per-click price you’ll pay.
Review or search relevancy best practices for more information
b. Update and/or expand item page content as necessary for each variant
you choose to promote. For more information, review our content quality
guide and listing quality guides for Walmart suppliers or Walmart
Marketplace sellers.

5. Choosing variants to promote

a. Start by promoting your top-converting, bestselling, or seasonal variants
b. Focus on the top variants that are generating the most conversions and
sales
Promote these top-high converting variants for generic keywords (w/
broad match)
c. Other variants for intent keywords (w/ exact match or phrase match)

Example: Men’s T-shirt with six color variants

d. You want to promote the top-converting variants to align with your
business goals
e. Your catalog dashboard indicates that the black and white variants
convert the most often
f. Create a new Sponsored Products campaign for the black and white
variants
g. Choose the variant-specific search terms “white T-shirt” and “black T-
shirt”
h. Use all three match types (broad, phrase and exact) for these search
terms
i. Continue to promote other variants using a slightly different bidding
strategy
Create campaigns with unique identifiers, such as sizes, for your
keyword list. (This helps avoid cannibalization, and longer-tail
keywords tend to have a lower cost-per-click.)

6. Optimization tools & reports that help inform variant bidding strategy

• Item recommendations
• Keyword recommendations
• Item Health report
• Item Keyword Performance Report
• Item Performance
• Keyword Performance
• Top Search Trends (WPP only)