Walmart pays $1.4B for Vibe.co to target smaller TV advertisers, not Amazon’s giants

Walmart is spending $1.4 billion on Vibe.co, a connected-TV advertising technology company, and the point is pretty specific: help smaller and mid-size advertisers access TV and streaming ad placements they might not reach through the big ad-buying agencies. Walmart isn’t acquiring Vibe.co as a prestige project. It’s buying a product wedge to grow Walmart Connect, its U.S. advertising business, and to do it on the screen where viewers already are.

The acquisition also reads like a direct statement about the arena Walmart cares about most right now. The retailer’s stated goal is to “be where our customers are spending their time,” according to Ryan Mayward, senior vice president and general manager of Walmart Connect U.S., in an interview with Bloomberg. Vibe.co’s technology enables advertising through internet-connected televisions and streaming content. And crucially, it focuses on enabling small and medium-size advertisers, which Walmart frames as an underserved market. In other words, Walmart is trying to win ad dollars not only by getting more inventory, but by changing who can effectively buy that inventory.

To understand why that matters, zoom out to how retail ad businesses typically grow. Large brands often buy through established agencies and established ad infrastructures. Smaller advertisers may have budgets and teams that are too small to navigate complex buying processes. If a platform makes TV and streaming ads more accessible to those buyers, it can expand the number of advertisers, not just the size of each campaign. Walmart’s approach, as described here, is essentially to broaden the funnel for advertisers by offering connected-TV and streaming pathways, powered by data and distribution Walmart already controls across its own ecosystem.

This is not Walmart’s first step into the connected-TV stack. The original story ties the Vibe.co deal to Walmart’s acquisition in 2024 of connected-TV maker Vizio. That earlier move was not about selling television sets, but about beefing up Walmart Connect’s media and digital-advertising business, which serves ads on Walmart’s website, app, in-store screens, and elsewhere online, targeted using Walmart’s customer data. Put together, the acquisition trail suggests Walmart is building a more complete advertising “surface area,” extending beyond the web and store screens into internet-connected televisions and streaming.

There is a business reason Walmart is willing to spend here, even while retail margins are famously tight. While the source notes that Walmart’s ad business is still a small source of revenue, non-retail businesses like advertising and membership are described as the fastest-growing and most profitable incremental businesses for the Arkansas-based retailer. That’s the kind of tradeoff boards like: use the retail engine as a distribution base, then push into higher-margin revenue streams that can scale with technology and data. By some estimates cited in the story, Walmart’s ad business generated $6.4 billion in revenue, or 1% of its total revenue, which is about a tenth of what Amazon’s ad business did. That gap is the scoreboard Walmart is trying to close, and the Vibe.co acquisition is one way to chip away at it.

Walmart’s competitive posture is also shaped by management momentum since John Furner took over as CEO last winter. Fortune frames this acquisition as Walmart’s biggest in two years and as a signal from Furner that he is serious about challenging Amazon’s massive lead in advertising. The story links the acquisition to Furner’s earlier moves, including promoting David Guggina, Walmart’s U.S. e-commerce chief executive, last winter to become CEO of Walmart’s $500-billion U.S. division, despite Guggina having no experience running stores or in merchandising. It also points to Furner hiring Seth Dallaire, a veteran of Instacart and Amazon, as chief growth officer for Walmart U.S. with responsibility for developing tech-heavy lines of business, including advertising, media, and online marketplace ventures.

For executives and boards, the subtext is not just “Walmart wants more ad revenue.” It’s that Walmart is restructuring how it thinks about growth. The story notes that Walmart narrowed the gap in online sales with Amazon, even as it remains distant No. 2 in U.S. e-commerce sales. It also notes a capital markets signal: Walmart moved its shares from the New York Stock Exchange to the Nasdaq, described as another clear signal that it wants to be seen as a tech-focused company. When a retailer makes acquisitions like Vibe.co and layers on leadership changes, it is effectively telling internal stakeholders, partners, and investors that advertising and media are not side quests.

Second-order, this kind of deal can change competitive dynamics across the ad-tech ecosystem. If Walmart’s connected-TV offering meaningfully increases ad access for smaller advertisers, it can create a new category of buyers for Walmart’s inventory, which can improve fill rates and make the platform more attractive over time. It also potentially forces Amazon and other platforms to defend not only performance, but accessibility. Because Walmart is targeting a group that may be underserved by existing buying infrastructure, the competitive pressure is concentrated where smaller advertisers choose platforms in the first place. And for decision-makers watching the retail media race, the takeaway is simple: the fight is shifting from “who has data” to “who lowers the friction for advertisers to spend,” especially on connected TV and streaming.