Walmart
In 2021, I joined Walmart with a mission: to lead and scale the ad tech UX team for Walmart Connect. At that time, we were a lean team of three designers managing UX across two platforms. Fast forward to 2024, and we’ve grown into a team of 15 designers spanning six diverse advertising platforms. The platform itself has evolved remarkably, moving from zero revenue to a projected $6 billion by 2025.
This growth wasn’t accidental—it required a strategic approach to design systems, efficiency, and a long-term vision, all built on an understanding of the advertisers’ needs and Walmart’s ambitious goals. Here’s a look at how we built and scaled Walmart Connect’s B2B advertising tools from the ground up.
When I joined, Walmart Connect’s tools were highly complex, requiring 12-14 steps to create a campaign, with each tool operating on its own isolated design system. Advertisers, particularly third-party marketplace sellers, found it difficult to create and manage campaigns, which in turn hindered their ability to grow their businesses through Walmart Connect. This complexity was reflected in low customer satisfaction scores and a fragmented user experience that didn’t support Walmart’s broader vision for growth.
Task Analysis and Strategic Goals
To address these issues, we focused on three core areas:
Unified Design System: Consolidating disparate systems into a single design framework to streamline workflows.
North Star Visioning: Establishing a 1-3 year vision through North Star designs, aligning our UX strategy with long-term goals.
End-to-End Consistency: Creating a consistent, frictionless experience by aligning the advertising tools with supplier and e-commerce platforms.
A fundamental step in our process was understanding the specific pain points of our primary users—sellers and advertisers. Through in-depth interviews, we gathered critical insights into the friction points they faced. Sellers wanted simplicity, ease, and tools that supported, rather than complicated, their journey to grow on Walmart. Armed with this feedback, we created several design artifacts to guide our approach, including:
Heuristic Evaluations: Identifying usability flaws and inconsistencies across tools.
End-to-End Journey Maps: Mapping out the seller’s journey from campaign creation to management, highlighting pain points and opportunities for improvement.
North Star Designs: Providing a vision for a simpler, more intuitive platform that supported growth through better usability and education.
Equipped with a clear understanding of user needs, we set out to transform Walmart Connect’s tools from a fragmented set of platforms into a cohesive ecosystem. Here’s how we did it:
Redesigning Core Workflows: We streamlined the complex, multi-step campaign-building process into fewer, more intuitive steps. By aligning with a centralized design system shared with other Walmart enterprise tools, we created a seamless experience that extended beyond advertising into supplier and e-commerce tools.
Implementing Scalable Design Systems: We built a unified design system that not only brought visual and functional consistency but also made our tools scalable. This enabled Walmart Connect to quickly launch new features, such as Brand Shops, Shelves, and in-store advertising, all within the same cohesive system.
Introducing Advanced Targeting and Optimization: To ensure our tools served both Walmart’s needs and those of the advertisers, we incorporated advanced targeting methodologies like tROAS (Targeted Return on Ad Spend). This feature enabled advertisers to better control their investments, aligning with the platform’s future-focused design.
Building Cross-Functional Collaboration: We worked closely with product and engineering teams to ensure that our North Star vision was feasible and valuable across departments. By fostering this partnership, we established a design process that allowed for quicker, more impactful iterations and phased releases.
Walmart Connect's transformation of its B2B tools has had a profound effect on client satisfaction and the company’s economic performance: Enhanced Client Response: We've seen a steady rise in customer satisfaction scores, testament to the efficacy and user-friendliness of our integrated platform. Agility and Consistency: The design scheme we've deployed allows us to swiftly add and scale new features and platforms, supporting Walmart’s accelerating growth demands and maintaining a uniform, recognizable experience for advertisers. Financial Uplift: Starting from zero, Walmart Connect is expected to generate $6 billion in revenue by 2025–a clear reflection of the synergy between UI/UX, business goals, and customer requirements. By mixing strategic foresight, user-focused design, and team-wide cooperation, we’ve developed a platform that not only boosts business metrics but also promotes our sellers’ expansion, aligning Walmart Connect’s services with the requirements of our diverse market. Moving ahead, our guiding light vision leads the continuous improvements, ensuring that Walmart Connect stays at the cutting edge of B2B advertising progress.
