Sam’s Club Launches Certified Partner Program
Sam's Club has introduced a partner program for its retailer media network, Sam's Club Member Access Platform (MAP), to connect advertisers with certified agencies and technology providers.
The MAP Partners Club launched in April with three technology partners (CommerceIQ, Pacvue and Skai) and two managed service partners (Flywheel and Stackline) — with more to come, according to a media release.
Sam’s Club says the MAP Partners Club aims to help advertisers identify authorized partners that can enhance their brands’ advertising campaigns with bidding and budget optimization, day-parting, advanced analytics and insights and other tools.
Advertisers and agencies who work with MAP can immediately buy sponsored product ads along with “campaign-enhancing” technologies provided by CommerceIQ, Pacvue and Skai, using a self-service interface, per the release. Additionally, for advertisers who prefer to work with a full-service agency for ad buys, they can immediately begin buying Sam’s Club MAP ads via Flywheel and Stackline.
Additional partners and functionalities will be added to the program in the near future, Sam’s Club says.
"One of the pillars of our mission here at MAP is to make it ‘Easy to Buy’ for our advertisers," Austin Leonard, head of sales, Sam’s Club MAP, said in the release. "We know that our advertisers often work with multiple partners for media planning and execution across multiple networks and ad tech providers. Through MAP Partners Club, they can leverage world-class partners to integrate Sam’s Club advertising, providing one place to buy and assess performance of sponsored product campaigns — all while driving growth."
For agency partners and technology providers, the MAP Partners Club provides direct access to thousands of Sam’s Club suppliers and advertisers. Once approved, partners in the program will be identified with simplified, color-coded badges — tech, agency, etc. — making it easy for advertisers to connect with and implement the partners they’re looking for.
The MAP Partners Club also adds new capabilities to the retailer media network’s existing product suite, and aims to deliver an improved ad experience for members/shoppers.
Other Recent MAP Moves
Sam's Club, a warehouse club owned by Walmart, also recently began enabling MAP advertisers to attribute in-club purchases to their search and sponsored ads. MAP collects real-time, first-party data on customer transactions, including in-store, in-app and online. As a result, MAP delivers accurate transaction data, without extrapolation or panel estimates. For the first time, advertisers were able to see exactly what revenue is generated by which ads, including search and sponsored products campaigns.
In February, Sam’s Club also made real-time, “intelligently retargeted” display advertising available across tens of thousands of sites on the open web through MAP. This feature — provided in partnership with The Trade Desk and LiveRamp — leverages first-party member data, advertiser data and AI-powered, real-time behavioral insights from Sam’s Club to make advertising campaigns more effective and personalized.
Additionally, last year, the retailer partnered with Pacvue to give MAP advertisers access to search and sponsored product ads via the e-commerce advertising platform provider, enabling brands, agencies, ad tech platforms and marketers to better reach and engage with Sam’s Club members at the right moment of discovery and purchase.
Sam’s Club MAP also works with programmatic vendors LiveRamp for its identity service, IRI for conversion attribution reporting, and Walmart’s exclusive DSP audience extension The Trade Desk.
