MARKETING

Sam’s Club Member Access Platform (MAP) Advertiser’s Guide

Published

1 year ago

November 21, 2023

Sam’s Club Member Access Platform (MAP) Advertiser’s Guide

As the cost of groceries and other goods continues to climb, shoppers are increasingly looking for reliable ways to save money. The everyday value offered by member-based warehouse clubs like Sam’s Club have made them a consistently popular choice for consumers, with today’s economic climate making them an even more important space for advertisers to improve visibility.

With today’s far-reaching inflation concerns, even high-income shoppers are increasing their warehouse club shopping trips for savings in-club, online, and in the parking lot—for example, Sam’s Club offers savings on fuel as one of its membership benefits. As seemingly everything gets more expensive, the up-front membership fee may become less of a concern for many consumers thanks to the overall savings potential. That can translate to more members’ feet on the ground in-club, more purchases on SamsClub.com and in the app, and more opportunities for your brand to be front-and-center for in-club and online shoppers.

“Wholesale clubs still account for more than 15% of US membership revenues. Costco and Sam’s Club hold a strong share after years of taking on new competition from many digitally forward retail memberships. These retailers, along with smaller players like BJ’s Wholesale Club, have proven the resiliency of the wholesale model, even in the era of subscription fatigue.”

— eMarketer

In this article, we’ll unpack the Sam’s Club advertising opportunities available through their Member Access Platform (MAP), including key capabilities and best practices. Let this guide be your compass to successfully navigating Sam’s Club MAP and finding golden advertising treasures along the way!

What is Sam’s Club Member Access Platform?

Source: https://map.samsclub.com/capabilities.html

Founded in 1983, Sam’s Club is owned and operated by Walmart, Inc. In fact, Sam’s Club is named after Walmart’s founder, Sam Walton. Sam’s Club Member Access Platform—often shortened to MAP—is the proprietary retail access and advertising platform for the now 40-year-old membership warehouse club.

MAP is designed to help advertisers, ad tech platforms, and agencies like Tinuiti effectively reach Sam’s Club’s exclusive member base with targeted, personalized ads and widely appealing in-club experiences.

With a laser focus on members, the ad options available through MAP are designed to be a true value-add for shoppers, enhancing their Sam’s Club shopping experience.

“With MAP, our journey will always start FIRST with our member. Next, we will create and give partners experiences, tools, and opportunities that help members discover new products at the time they need and want them.”

— Sam’s Club MAP

MAP helps advertisers reach Sam’s Club members in a number of ways, including through:

In-app and on-site Search & Sponsored Products ads
On-site display ads
Programmatic off-site display ads
In-club member additive experiences

Thanks to their extensive and valuable trove of real-time, first-party member insights, MAP provides advertisers an opportunity to optimize ad spend and glean learnings to improve their Sam’s Club advertising strategy.

Increasing visibility and sales of your product through advertising can also improve your organic product ratings, with increased engagement translating to stronger organic rankings.

Key Capabilities of Sam’s Club MAP

In July 2023, Sam’s Club Member Access Platform released new design, targeting, and user experience tools to help omnichannel advertisers create effective ads and memorable touchpoints. Below, we unpack some of the key features and capabilities of MAP today:

Target audiences based on their demographics, behavior, transaction history and more, including the option to target online shoppers who will be picking up their purchase in-store. Behavioral targeting leverages real-time, first-party member insights.
See how much revenue their Search and Sponsored Products ads bring in across both online and in-club sales, giving a more accurate read of campaign impact. “Sam’s Club is among the first and possibly the only retail media platform to connect search and sponsored product ads to offline sales.” (source) “For Sam’s Club MAP advertisers, overall ROAS has increased an average of nearly 30% since adding in-club sales to the attribution mix.” (source)
Enable members to add products to their cart directly from an ad.
Use Brand Amplifiers, a Sponsored Products placement, to target category or “browse” pages in addition to search/keyword targeting.
Highlight “hero” products or new offerings in ads.
Leverage advanced display retargeting ads—eligible to show across tens of thousands of sites—to reach members using real-time, first-party member insights, advertiser data, and Sam’s Club’s AI-based behavioral insights.
Understand incremental return on ad spend (iROAS) at the tactic level.

How Sam’s Club Member Access Platform Works

Thanks to Sam’s Club’s incredible real-time insights into their members’ search and shopping behavior, MAP provides omnichannel reach with closed-loop attribution—no extrapolations required.

For example, you’ll never have to piece together a reporting puzzle to (try to) determine whether a member who made an in-club purchase saw an ad placement for that product when browsing SamsClub.com; with MAP, you’ll know.

MAP Ad Placements

Available in-app and on-site MAP ad placements include: Search Grid; Category Carousels; Recommendation Carousels; Buy Box; Brand Amplifier; and additional on-site display placements.