Understanding Walmart’s New Automated Bid-Price Recommendations Tool

A Comprehensive Guide to Using this Powerful Feature

Walmart is one of the largest retailers and e-commerce marketplaces in the world. As an online seller, it’s crucial to advertise your products effectively on Walmart’s marketplace. One way Walmart is helping sellers succeed is through their new automated bid-price recommendation tool.

This in-depth guide will explain everything you need to know about Walmart’s bid recommendations, including how it works, the benefits, and tips for using it effectively. By the end, you’ll understand how to take full advantage of this feature to maximize your campaign performance.

How the Bid Recommendations Work

Walmart’s bid recommendations analyze multiple factors to suggest the best price to bid for your keywords or products. Some of the factors considered include:

• Your product’s sales history and demand – Products that are already selling well will have higher recommended bids.
• Competition from other sellers – More competition means you may need to bid higher to be visible. Less competition means a lower recommended bid.
• Your target audience and customers – Products aimed at more profitable/valuable customers may see higher bids.
• Your campaign budget – Walmart will suggest bids that are affordable within your budget.

When setting up automatic or manual sponsored product campaigns, you’ll see a “Suggested CPC” next to each keyword or product. This is Walmart’s recommended maximum bid for optimal results.

As an example, let’s say you sell a popular cookbook. Walmart may recommend bidding $1.25/click since it sees high demand and few competing listings. For a niche tool, they could suggest $0.50 since demand is lower.

It’s important to not take the recommendations as gospel. Balance it with your own product and sales research. Test different bids if the auto-bids aren’t working. But it’s a great starting point.

Benefits of Using the Bid Recommendations

Following Walmart’s suggested bids provides several advantages:

• Easier campaign setup – No guesswork on bidding. Just input products/keywords and use their guidance.
• Higher chance of success – Using optimized bids means you’re more likely to convert clicks into sales.
• Improved bidding accuracy – Walmart analyzes immense amounts of shopper data you don’t have access to.
• Better performance – Optimization leads to higher visibility and more affordable costs.
• Flexibility – You can still adjust bids as needed based on your goals. It’s not locked in.
• Control – Fine-tune bids over time by testing higher or lower than recommendations.
• Saved time/effort – Let Walmart do the heavy lifting of analyzing bids for your specific products or shopper behaviors.
• So in summary, it streamlines set-up while also improving results through Walmart’s machine learning capabilities.

Key Tips for Using the Tool Effectively

Here are some tips for getting the most from Walmart’s bid recommendations:

• Start bids at the suggested level and test performance for 2 weeks.
• Track closely – Monitor costs, sales, and ROI. Make small adjustments as needed.
• Consider seasonality – Bids may need lifting for holidays or certain times of year.
• Take advantage of automated bidding – Let Walmart optimize bids through automated rules you set.
• Stay within your budget – Don’t feel pressured to match high suggestions if it’s unaffordable.
• Cross-check recommendations – Compare to similar products and double check Walmart’s analysis.
• Utilize all available levers – Optimize titles, subtitles, bullet points, and images too for better results beyond just bids.
• Watch for algorithm changes – Walmart is constantly improving recommendations, so bids may need occasional refresh.

Following these tips will help optimize performance while gaining insights from Walmart’s automated bidding system.

FAQs About Walmart’s Bid Recommendation Tool

Here are some frequently asked questions about Walmart’s bid recommendations:

Q: How often do the bid recommendations change?

A: Walmart refreshes recommendations daily based on the latest shopping data and campaign performance metrics. Significant changes to your products or competitions could also trigger updates.

Q: Are the recommended bids guaranteed to be the lowest I need to bid?

A: No, the recommendations are Walmart’s best estimate but the lowest amount needed depends on many variables that shift constantly. Testing higher or lower bids may find a better sweet spot.

Q: What if I’m not getting sales with the recommended bids?

A: Try slowly increasing your bids in small increments like 5-10% to see if it helps capture more clicks. You may need a higher bid for your specific product or competition. Don’t increase bids too quickly.

Q: Do the recommendations differ based on the country/locale?

A: Yes, Walmart analyzes bid recommendations separately in each country/market based on localized demand, competition, customer behaviors, currencies and more. Bids may be quite different internationally.

Q: Is there a maximum bid limit I should adhere to?

A: While Walmart doesn’t enforce strict limits, following their recommendations is a good guideline. Going too far above could hurt your ROI and campaign performance if the bids aren’t optimized right. Have solid rationale for high bids.

Q: What if I can’t afford Walmart’s recommended bids?

A: Try testing slightly lower bids and see if it still delivers results within your budget. You may need to refine targeting, work on improving other aspects like product/listing quality or consider decreasing ad expenses in other areas.[3]

Key Takeaways

To summarize, here are the most important things to remember about Walmart’s automated bid recommendation tool:

• Use the suggested bids as a starting point for testing performance over 2-4 weeks.
• Optimize bids by making small, gradual adjustments based on data rather than big changes.
• Balance the recommendations with factors like seasonality, budget and product specifics.
• Cross-check recommendations against similar products sold on Walmart to validate.
• Take advantage of automated bidding rules to let Walmart optimize longer-term.
• Track key metrics closely and refine bids and campaigns based on results.

By leveraging Walmart’s machine learning capabilities, their bid recommendations can be a powerful accelerator for campaign success. Stay attuned to optimizations and keep testing to drive the highest possible ROI.

External Resources:

• Walmart Advertising Guide – Comprehensive tutorials and documentation on all Walmart advertising tools.
• Optmyzr Blog – Regular posts with tips for optimizing Walmart campaigns, including bidding strategies.
• Telligent Community – Online forums for questions, best practices and case studies from other Walmart sellers.

I hope this in-depth guide has helped explain how to leverage Walmart’s new bid recommendation feature. Let me know if any part needs further clarification or if you have additional questions!