Walmart finds new way to track customers and it starts even before you buy something online

Walmart's newly launched beta program would track and share consumer data like never before. Introduced by Walmart Digital Ventures, the program Digital Landscapes will share insights on the online behavior of customers with the retailer's suppliers. While the company had long been sharing data on purchases, now it will track consumers as soon as they start their journey on the website, before making a purchase.  

What is Walmart Digital Landscapes?

Walmart calls the product a new self-serve insights solution within the broader banner of Walmart Luminate that helps suppliers understand shoppers even better.

"As more customers are turning to Walmart.com and the Walmart app to find value, it's essential for suppliers to understand how they find and select products among a wide range of options,” the company said in its press release.  

Digital Landscapes aims to further the scope of data sharing providing deeper insights. Using the product, supplies will have access to information on how consumers browse, what products they look at, and how they arrive at a purchase decision. In its press release, Walmart had announced that the product would be introduced as a beta launch in June, followed by general availability in the summer.

What kind of data will be shared?

With Digital Landscapes, suppliers will now have access to data on where the customers start their online journey when they find a product, how the chosen product compares to others in the category, and what the customer's path to an online purchase looks like. 

According to Walmart, with Digital Landscapers suppliers can now explore strategies based on the online behavior of the shopper behavior to drive engagement along the customer journey.  Walmart says these insights are valuable as they help companies tailor their marketing and sales efforts according to engagement trends and leading sources of traffic.

"The launch of Digital Landscapes marks another significant stride for Walmart Data Ventures in its ambition to become a global leader in insights and analytics," the press release mentioned

Not the first data venture for Walmart

Earlier in May, the retail giant announced Disney advertisers would have access to Walmart's shopping data to target Disney's streaming portfolio. This followed a partnership between Walmart Connect and Disney Advertising that works for Disney Plus and Hulu, as per Adweek. 

As per the deal, Walmart advertisers will be able to match the retailer’s shopper data with Disney’s proprietary Audience Graph tools and target audiences better. 

In a press release, senior vice president of retail media sales for Walmart Connect, Ryan Mayward said that about 145 million customers shop with the retailer online and in stores weekly. Thus, marketers will now have access to their data and apply the insights to their campaigns to reach customers "wherever they’re streaming Disney content.”

Disney also joined Walmart’s Partner Lab, which includes other media giants like NBCUniversal, TikTok, and Roku. Under the partner lab, the companies work with Walmart to test new ad formats for data measurement.

Walmart's deals and acquisitions have triggered concerns over the threat to privacy protections and the risk of exposing consumers to data breaches.

In February, when the company agreed to purchase TV maker Vizio for approximately $2.3 billion, several organizations wrote to the FTC to investigate the possibility of a big data breach of millions of Americans, as per dcreport.org.