Walmart completed its acquisition of Vibe.co, the self-serve connected-television advertising platform, folding the company into Walmart Connect. The transaction, first disclosed in June, closes six months after announcement. No updated price was disclosed; initial terms were not made public. Walmart Connect generated $3.4 billion in advertising revenue in fiscal 2024, up 26 percent year-over-year, making it the third-largest retail media network in the United States behind Amazon and Instacart.
Vibe.co operated as a demand-side platform for mid-market advertisers buying inventory across Roku, Samsung TV Plus, Xumo, and Tubi. The company's software allowed brands to launch CTV campaigns without agency intermediaries, a model that appealed to direct-to-consumer businesses and regional chains. Walmart Connect will retain the Vibe.co interface and team, according to a company memo reviewed by trade press. The platform now sits alongside Walmart's existing programmatic video offering, which launched in 2022 and relied on The Trade Desk and Google's DV360 for execution.
The move addresses a specific gap in retail media infrastructure. Walmart has 200 million weekly shoppers and first-party transaction data spanning grocery, apparel, and pharmacy. That data set has value for targeting. But until now, Walmart's video inventory leaned heavily on its own properties—Walmart.com, the Walmart app, and in-store screens at 4,600 U.S. locations. Vibe.co brings pre-negotiated access to third-party streaming inventory, letting Walmart Connect extend campaigns beyond owned-and-operated surfaces. The platform also includes measurement tools that tie ad exposure to in-store and online purchase behavior, a feature that matters to consumer packaged goods brands allocating budgets between retail media and traditional television.
Retail media networks are converging on video. Amazon's advertising business, which generated $14.3 billion in the third quarter of 2024, now derives roughly 30 percent of revenue from video placements on Prime Video and Freevee. Target's Roundel unit launched a CTV product in April 2024. Instacart added shoppable video ads in August. The competition is for share of a CTV advertising market expected to reach $40.9 billion in the U.S. by 2026, per eMarketer. Walmart's advantage lies in its grocery penetration—140 million monthly transactions give it repeat purchase data that pure-play e-commerce platforms lack. Adding a self-serve DSP reduces friction for brands that want to test CTV without committing to multi-million-dollar upfronts.
Watch Walmart Connect's pitch to consumer packaged goods holding companies in the first quarter of 2025, when annual rate negotiations reset. The platform will likely bundle CTV campaigns with on-site display and in-store promotions, offering unified attribution across channels. Also watch how Walmart allocates Vibe.co's third-party inventory—whether it prioritizes endemic advertisers like Procter & Gamble and Unilever, or opens the stack to non-endemic categories like automotive and financial services, which carry higher CPMs but less direct sales lift.
The acquisition closed without regulatory delay, a signal that antitrust enforcers view retail media platforms as distinct from traditional ad-tech consolidation. Walmart Connect now controls a demand-side platform, a supply-side relationship with streaming publishers, and a first-party data graph covering 37 percent of U.S. households. The next test is whether mid-market advertisers continue using Vibe.co's interface once it carries Walmart's pricing and minimums.
The takeaway
Walmart adds self-serve CTV DSP and third-party streaming inventory to **$3.4B** retail media unit, closing infrastructure gap against Amazon.
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