Walmart's $1B+ Vibe.co Buy Signals Retail Media's CTV Land Grab

Walmart now controls CTV hardware (Vizio), self-serve ad buying (Vibe.co), and deterministic shopper data — a vertically integrated stack that Crawford expects only the largest retailers to build through acquisitions. Kroger and Albertsons are pursuing the same commerce-media thesis through partnerships rather than M&A, activating shopper data across YouTube and TikTok via LiveRamp and DV360. Watch whether Walmart's closed-loop measurement can deliver proven incrementality at scale — the core differentiator all these retailers are pitching to CPG brands.

Per Walmart's corporate announcement (June 23, 2026), Vibe.co CEO and co-founder Arthur Querou and CTO Franck Tetzlaff will join Walmart Connect post-close, expected by the end of fiscal year 2027. The Wall Street Journal reported the deal price at $1.4 billion, per AdExchanger (June 2026). Vibe.co raised a $22.5 million Series A in early 2024 and was valued at $410 million following its Series B, generating $100 million in annual recurring revenue, per Digiday (June 2026). The platform serves more than 10,000 SMB and mid-market advertisers.

The acquisition builds on Walmart's $2.3 billion Vizio purchase, which closed in December 2024. Per eMarketer (2025), that deal helped Walmart's global ad business grow 50% year-over-year in FYQ1 — or 27% excluding Vizio. Vizio's SmartCast operating system had 19.1 million active users as of Q3 2024. Walmart CFO John David Rainey reported "triple-digit growth" in Vizio advertising on an earnings call, per Digiday (May 2025).

However, Walmart's CTV measurement remains a work in progress. Per Digiday (May 2025), an early point-of-sale test yielded unimpressive results, and Georgia-Pacific abandoned a planned Vizio campaign over measurement gaps. Advertisers are waiting for Walmart to solve incrementality and clean-room integration before committing larger budgets. Meanwhile, eMarketer's H2 2025 forecast projects Amazon and Walmart together will capture over 89% of incremental retail media ad dollars in 2026, with total U.S. off-site retail media spend reaching $17.05 billion.