Walmart

America’s biggest department stores are changing, and changing fast.

AudienceMix, a new curation startup, aims to make it more cost effective to mix and match different audience segments using only the data brands need to execute their campaigns.

Walmart’s AI shopping deal with ChatGPT might ding its retail media biz; the MRC shares updates on which platforms won and lost accreditation; and kids’ sports streaming is becoming a real media channel.

Marketing films is one battle after another; AI gets stymied by the cloud; and bots are causing brand backlash.

Private equity firm Novacap acquires IAS; many large online retailers are seeing an uptick in referral traffic from ChatGPT; and the IAB downgraded its US ad spend projection for the rest of the year.

The FTC probes Google and Amazon over transparency in their search businesses; Walmart will only allow authorized sellers; and Perplexity’s ad business garners criticism.

Concrete findings on how effective QR codes are at driving ad interactions are now available, and some industry best practices are emerging.

Google’s SSP tries to cut out its DSP ahead of a possible ad tech breakup; Perplexity’s head of ads skips town; and Amazon’s search ad pause flooded the market with big spenders.

Walmart’s CTV and DSP business shine in a meh Q2; plummeting search traffic is blowing up cost-per-click pricing; and TikTok annoys brands with its black box optimization.

Walmart has some new rules for third-party sellers; WPP wins Mastercard; and marketers should get into VTubers.