What Walmart and Publicis Learned About How Customers Actually Shop
Walmart Connect and Publicis Media partnered on custom research to better understand the Walmart customer journey. At CES 2026, Marisa Stubin, Team Lead for Agency Partnerships at Walmart Connect, and Joe Groter, VP of Retail Media and Commerce Partnerships at Publicis Media, sat down to walk through what that research showed and what it means for how brands invest.
The conversation covered how shoppers move between digital and physical touchpoints, which formats drive the strongest recall, where generational assumptions have reversed, and how AI is beginning to change product research behavior. The full conversation is available here.
This article draws on that conversation, supplemented by independent research and Walmart’s own published data where noted.
Showing up across the full journey
Stubin opened with the premise behind the research. When brands show up across more touchpoints, she said, they drive deeper engagement with customers. But the real power is understanding who that customer is, how they shop, and what resonates with them. That is where Walmart Connect’s first-party signals come in, helping brands show up with the right message, the right creative, and the right timing.
Groter reinforced why that matters. The consumer journey is not linear anymore, he said. There are so many mediums for customers to view media through, from social to TV to streaming, that being able to reach them at the right time with the right message is critical. He pointed to one finding from the research: CTV and social media had particularly high ad recall among Walmart shoppers. When you are doing brand building using Walmart signals, he said, it is very effective for driving conversions and purchases at the point of sale.
Stubin added a stat that shaped much of the conversation. About half of in-store Walmart shoppers are doing research online before they step into a store, she said. And beyond that, a further group researches online and then buys online without visiting a store at all.
Walmart Connect’s own CES benchmarking data adds context to the ad recall finding. Research shared at CES, with campaign categorization performed by iSpot, showed that adding Walmart Connect CTV or Vizio inventory to linear TV buys reached audiences that were 75% incremental to linear alone, according to Walmart Connect’s CES recap. And separately, data released at CES showed that qualifying Walmart Connect campaigns in key categories delivered 2.8 times the incremental ROAS and double the sales lift compared to Circana digital media benchmarks.
Why this matters for suppliers: Stubin and Groter are describing a customer journey where the path between online research and in-store purchase is not a straight line. Half of in-store shoppers are doing online research first, and the formats with the highest recall are CTV and social, not search. For suppliers whose Walmart Connect plans are built primarily around Sponsored Search, this research suggests the formats that shape purchase decisions earlier in the journey are doing more of the work than the media mix currently reflects.
How research behavior differs by category
Groter drew a distinction that matters for how brands plan their media by category. With Walmart’s insights, he said, you can understand who the consumer is and when to reach them. But the journey looks different depending on what they are shopping for.
For low-research categories like food and beverage, shoppers are not doing extensive research ahead of time. They go into the store and buy. But for higher-intent products that require more research, like TVs or other consumer electronics, customers are comparing pricing, reading reviews, and evaluating quality well before they make a purchase decision. Meeting them where they are throughout that longer research journey, across social, CTV, and in-store, is how brands win in those categories.
Why this matters for suppliers: The category distinction has direct implications for touchpoint strategy. A food brand launching a new SKU may need in-store media and social to drive trial at the moment of decision. A consumer electronics brand needs to reach customers days or weeks before they walk in, through CTV, social, and AI-optimized content that holds up during a deliberate research phase. Groter’s point is that the same platform serves both, but the media plan should look very different depending on which customer journey a brand is actually trying to influence.
The Gen Z finding that surprised everyone
Stubin raised what she called one of the more surprising findings in the research. Younger shoppers, Gen Z specifically, are heading back into physical Walmart stores. Meanwhile, millennials and older generations are shopping more online. That reverses the long-held assumption about digital natives and how they prefer to shop.
It was probably the most surprising thing in the research, Groter said. He never would have thought that a Gen Z shopper would lean more toward in-store. When the team reviewed the data the first time, his reaction was to question whether it was actually real.
The finding is not an anomaly in the Publicis-Walmart data. PwC’s 2025 Holiday Outlook survey found a 10-point increase in Gen Z consumers planning to shop in-store more frequently, from 27% in 2024 to 37% in 2025, with the top motivation being wanting to touch and see products. Deloitte’s Q3 2025 Retail and Consumer Trends report found that 73% of Gen Z shop in-person at least once a week, compared to 65% of Baby Boomers, and that almost 50% of total Gen Z spending is from in-store mass merchandise and grocery purchases. J.P. Morgan’s transaction data showed that during peak shopping events, over 55% of Gen Z spending was omnichannel, compared to roughly 30% for other age groups.
The implication Groter drew was direct. If Gen Z shoppers are showing up in stores at rates that contradict digital-first assumptions, that changes the investment mix. Groter specifically named Walmart’s in-store media surfaces, including TV walls, self-checkout screens, and in-store audio, as formats that may deserve more attention based on this finding. It flips the script, he said, on what a brand’s investment mix may need to be.
Why this matters for suppliers: Most supplier media plans were built on the assumption that younger shoppers live online and older shoppers go to stores. The Publicis-Walmart research, confirmed independently by PwC, Deloitte, and J.P. Morgan, shows that assumption has reversed. Gen Z is in Walmart’s stores. Suppliers should evaluate whether their current in-store media investment reflects that reality. Walmart Connect’s in-store formats, including TV walls, self-checkout screens, and in-store audio, are the surfaces most likely to reach this audience in the environment where they are actually shopping. Brands targeting younger consumers through digital-only plans may be missing the physical store entirely.
AI is changing how customers research products
Stubin asked about AI as the final topic in the conversation, noting that there is a big difference in how AI is part of daily life compared to a year ago, and that it is already affecting how Walmart customers shop.
On AI, Groter answered from personal experience first. He said he does a lot of product research on anything he buys, and AI has been a big help in being able to sift through a lot of results and get a clearer answer. He predicted that brands will need to build AI-driven content optimization into their approach, what he called AI SEO, because both research behavior and purchase behavior are going to shift. The change, he said, is coming a lot quicker than we probably anticipate.
Walmart’s own data supports the speed of this shift. Dave Guggina, President and CEO of Walmart U.S., said during the Q4 FY2026 earnings call that roughly half of Walmart’s app users have used Sparky, the retailer’s AI shopping assistant, and that when they use it, it drives them to build bigger baskets, as reported by Adweek. Walmart has also begun testing advertisements within Sparky, per the same report, which means the AI-driven discovery surface is already a live media environment.
Why this matters for suppliers: Groter’s point about AI SEO connects directly to Stubin’s stat about half of in-store shoppers researching online first. If that online research increasingly happens through AI tools like Sparky, then the content on product detail pages is doing double duty: it needs to work for human shoppers browsing the page and for AI systems interpreting the content to generate recommendations. Suppliers should evaluate whether their PDP content, including structured attributes, use-case descriptions, and product specifications, is built for AI interpretation, not just keyword search. The brands that optimize their product content for AI discovery now will be better positioned as the share of AI-assisted shopping continues to grow.
Groter’s takeaway
Groter closed with a point that sounded simple but connects everything in the conversation. The customer does not stand still, he said, and brands should not either. The more you understand how people actually shop, the more you can show up in an authentic way.
He also emphasized the value of Walmart Connect and agency partners like Publicis being aligned on the same customer signals. That shared visibility into what is influencing customers and how it impacts the shopping experience is what makes it possible to deliver better outcomes. The more you know what is working and what is not, he said, is critical to succeeding and delivering business outcomes for clients.
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