Walmart Inc. is providing sponsored search advertisers a deeper view into the sales they generate. The discounter is introducing incremental sales measurement to sponsored search ads offered by its Walmart Connect retail media network. Leveraging Walmart’s first-party retail data and industry-leading, test-and-control methodologies, advertisers will be able to gain insights the retailer says will enable them to make sharper data-driven decisions about their channel investments. Walmart advertisers will be able to evaluate how current sponsored search strategies are driving incremental sales both online and in-store, identify top-performing brands within their portfolio, and reallocate budgets to meet demand, including during key moments like seasonal campaigns. Advertisers will then be able to report the incremental impact of their Walmart sponsored search investments back to their organization.
Sam’s Club to deploy Mastercard’s personalization tech and data-driven engagement; members can earn Sam’s Cash from relevant card-linked offers with Mastercard
Mastercard teamed with Sam’s Club to power the retailer’s Cash Bonus Offers program. The collaboration employs Mastercard’s personalization technology to help Walmart-owned Sam’s Club better communicate appropriate rewards offers to its members. Marie Elizabeth Aloisi, executive vice president for U.S. market development at Mastercard, said ”With our advanced personalization technology, businesses can boost retention and revenue, while consumers get more value, more efficiently than ever.” Barb Berg, vice president of membership Sam’s Club, the program is “a perfect example of how we can expand our data-driven consumer engagement to provide relevant and valuable offers that benefit our members.” The partnership is happening as retailers embrace the power of personalization, as Narvar Chief Technology Officer Ram Ravichandran said. Consumers expect sophistication in their retail experiences, from intuitive chatbots to smart product recommendations to seamless support, Ravichandran said. By providing relevant content, tailored promotions and timely support, businesses can deepen customer trust while building a foundation for sustainable growth.
PayPal’s new Offsite Ads, lets advertisers to tap into its transaction graph to reach millions with display and video advertising
PayPal is announcing the launch of Offsite Ads, a new way for advertisers to tap into the power of PayPal’s transaction graph and reach millions of consumers across the open web through display and video advertising. Offsite Ads is built on PayPal’s extensive two-sided network that connects millions of merchants and consumers, bringing a new level of precision to advertising by making cross-merchant transaction insights available — all while respecting consumer privacy. Unlike traditional approaches that rely heavily on browsing behavior or probabilistic models, PayPal Offsite Ads is powered by actual purchase data across millions of merchants. This enables brands to reach highly relevant audiences based on real shopping intent, not just inferred interest. For the first time, advertisers can leverage PayPal’s understanding of when and where people actually buy — across a wide range of categories — to inform smarter media buying decisions. PayPal allows brands to connect with audiences in a different and more relevant way than standard third-party cookie-based or contextual targeting methods. Publicis Media will be the first agency partner to offer Offsite Ads to brands, enabling advertisers to bring more precision, rigor and performance to advertising across platforms. PayPal Offsite Ads are available through leading channels, allowing advertisers to activate campaigns at scale across premium websites, apps, and CTV environments, while ensuring seamless integration with existing media buying strategies.
Walmart opens first new Supercenter in 4 years- incorporating interactive technology that combines virtual and in-person shopping
Walmart has opened a new Texas Supercenter, the first of its kind in four years. The store located in the Houston-area community of Cypress, is also the retail giant’s first new-construction “Store of the Future” in the U.S., and part of Walmart’s plan to build or convert more than 150 stores in the next several years. Later in the year, Walmart plans to open new Supercenters in Texas, Utah and California, and Neighborhood Market stores in Alabama and Florida. The company also plans to convert stores in California and New Jersey into Supercenters. Walmart announced in January of last year that it aims to construct or convert more than 150 stores and remodel 650 additional locations over the next five years. The new and remodeled stores are part of the company’s Store of the Future concept, which incorporates interactive technology that combines virtual and in-person shopping. The current opening comes days after Walmart announced it was “re-imagining the in-store shopping experience” as it implements its plan to refurbish more than 650 stores this year. These updates include “big, bold signage,” new displays that better showcase products, expanded departments and new items. At the stores’ pharmacies, Walmart is adding wider aisles, a new private screening room and privacy checkout areas. Walmart is also expanding online pickup and delivery in the remodeled stores “to fulfill the growing number of online customer orders,” the company said.
Affirm opens AI-powered POS promotion platform to merchants dynamically matching the right benefit to the right consumer at exactly the right moment
Buy now, pay later network Affirm is introducing its artificial intelligence-powered platform, AdaptAI, to its merchant partners. Merchants can provide shoppers with personalized, targeted, real-time promotions and credit offers at the point of purchase via the offering. “Unlike conventional credit card rewards — which are opaque, static and subsidized by the financially vulnerable — AdaptAI dynamically matches the right benefit to the right consumer at exactly the right moment,” Affirm Senior Vice President of Product Vishal Kapoor said. “Consumers no longer need to spend more, keep track of, or wait months to recoup their rewards. Now, they can immediately receive tailored, transparent value at the time of purchase. This is only made possible with Affirm’s AI-powered technology and real-time underwriting, and [it] builds on what we do best: delivering customized payment options that help consumers take their money further.” Consumers expect individualized experiences, particularly when paying, leading Affirm — and now its merchants — to offer payment solutions customized to consumers’ purchase and financial profiles.
Visa will enable developers to add an AI-ready card to APIs for agents-led ‘intelligent commerce’- shielding account data, eliminating the clunky step of keying in card numbers every time the agent hops to a new site
Visa unveiled the Visa Intelligent Commerce program which opens the network’s rails to developers building AI agents that search, recommend and now pay on behalf of consumers. “This is going to transform shopping and buying — we’re letting AI developers and engineers use the Visa network to allow AI agents to find, and buy, on [the consumer’s] behalf in a seamless and safe way,” Mark Nelsen, Visa’s global head of consumer products, told. At the center of the effort is an AI-ready card, a credential developers can spin up through a bundle of Visa application programming interfaces (APIs). As Nelsen put it: “The APIs will have an AI-ready card. In a hypothetical search for the cheapest flight to Cancún, for example, a traveler uploads an existing Visa credential, while in the background Visa authenticates the cardholder with payment passkeys, tokenizes the 16-digit number and seats the token inside the AI agent.” That behind-the-scenes swap shields account data, eliminating the clunky step of keying in card numbers every time the agent hops to a new site.
Sendbird launches omnipresent proactive customer support AI agent enabling continuity across channels
Sendbird Inc., an AI communications and conversation platform, launched what the company calls an “omnipresent” AI agent that can handle customer service issues proactively rather than just reacting to them. Omnipresence means the company’s AI agent can engage and respond to customers wherever they are: web, mobile, email, SMS, WhatsApp and voice – all without losing track of the conversation history. This means that a user could start a conversation on the web, grab their phone to leave the house and continue talking to the AI agent and it could pick up where it left off. The company believes by allowing users to pick a preferred point of contact they can feel more connected and part of the process. The second promise of the company’s AI agent is proactive support, where AI agents react to potential problems and conversation moments before a customer contacts support. For example, when a delivery is on its way it might contact the customer on the last channel they messaged to provide an update. It can also anticipate disruptions such as flight delays, allowing real-time outreach and rescheduling. Sendbird’s AI agent empowers businesses to move beyond siloed, reactive interactions to memory-rich customer experiences that reduce friction, anticipate needs and improve loyalty all at the same time.
VantageScore expands new open-banking credit score 4plus for lending to underserved borrowers enabling improved predictive lift, clearer risk segmentation and expanded decisioning opportunities
VantageScore announced the expansion of their groundbreaking VantageScore 4plus pilot program for lenders launched in partnership with Credit Builders Alliance. The pilot leverages the industry leading VantageScore 4.0 credit score with open banking data to deliver the new VantageScore4Plus credit score model. Initial data from the pilot show meaningful improvements in the ways nonprofit lenders can assess and serve potential borrowers. Key insights include: 1) Improved Predictive Lift: Applicants with new to credit, thin or inactive credit files, who make up 15% of participants in the pilot program, benefitted significantly from the addition of open banking data. 2) Clearer Risk Segmentation: Credit scores moved in both directions both up and down. There were nearly equal numbers of consumers seeing increases and decreases. The result signals better separation between higher- and lower-risk applicants. 3) Expanded Decisioning Opportunities: 44% of previously declined applicants could be reconsidered under a “second look” strategy using VantageScore 4plus, potentially unlocking credit while preserving underwriting rigor reducing risk.
Qualtrics’ AI “Experience Agents” allow brands to adapt survey questions in real time based on customer’s incomplete or partial responses and use that insight to empathetically resolve customer’s problem
Qualtrics’ announced their new Experience Agents™, a series of highly specialized AI agents that utilize agentic AI. With the launch of their Experience Agents, brands will be able to go further and autonomously take action on those insights in real time. One of the most interesting ways that they are applying their new agentic capabilities, particularly when it comes to building connections with customers and acting in the moments that matter, is what they have done within their core surveying product. Their new conversational feedback capability allows them to adapt survey questions in real time based on customer responses, particularly if the responses are incomplete or partial, and then, based on that insight, take action to help resolve the customer’s problem. According to Brad Anderson, President of Products, UX, and Engineering at Qualtrics, this allows their customers to not only add 7% points to their survey completion rate but also enrich the quality of data that they collect by around 40% as a result of their adaptive approach. That is not insignificant, especially when you consider that the average response rate to a customer feedback request is sub 10%, with some organisations operating with a completion rate in the 3-4% range. The ability to act on that feedback empathetically and in real time is a capability that will help brands build better connections with their customers. That, as CEO Zig Serafin points out, is where the big opportunity lies for those wanting to deliver great customer experiences.
Survey shows 35% of shoppers plan to buy products now before tariffs go up and 28% plan to wait and potentially switch to cheaper alternatives
More than eight-in-10 (83%) respondents said they are planning to pull back on spending in the coming weeks, according to a survey by OnePulse for e-commerce platform Klaviyo. Six-in-10 (61%) respondents say they plan to cut back their spending at restaurants, followed by clothing/accessories (47%) and travel/hotels (41%). Meanwhile, 35% of respondents plan to buy products now before tariffs go up, 25% are waiting to see if prices increase and 28% plan to wait and potentially switch to cheaper alternatives. Close to three-in-10 (28%) respondents plan to remain loyal to their preferred brands. However, when asked the best ways to keep them brand-loyal, respondents were most likely to cite frequent discounts or promotional offers (54%), consistent product quality (37%) and better prices (33%). While 37% of respondents said cite product quality is key to building brand loyalty, only 8% prioritize quality in their purchasing decisions. The survey also found that the two biggest communication asks for brands right now are transparent pricing updates and clear info about delays or supply chain issues.