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Amazon vs. Walmart: Which Marketplace Should Your Pet Brand Prioritize in 2026?

by | May 25, 2026 | Blog article, Marketplace Strategy

Amazon vs. Walmart: Which Marketplace Should Your Pet Brand Prioritize in 2026?

Cash Riley Jr.
Founder & CEO, The Machine Agency, Dallas, Texas

Amazon and Walmart.com are the two dominant e-commerce platforms for pet brands. Here is how to think about which one deserves your focus – and when it makes sense to operate on both.

If you are a pet or consumer product brand selling online, the Amazon versus Walmart question is coming up more frequently than it did even two years ago. Walmart.com has invested heavily in its marketplace infrastructure, and its seller base and sales volume have grown significantly. But Amazon remains the dominant force in e-commerce.

So which should you prioritize — and does the answer depend on your specific situation?

The Case for Amazon First

For most pet brands, Amazon remains the primary opportunity. The platform has over 300 million active customer accounts worldwide, a deeply embedded shopping habit, and a fulfillment infrastructure that gives small and mid-size brands access to fast, reliable delivery without building their own logistics operation.

Amazon’s advertising ecosystem is also significantly more mature. Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Display, and Amazon DSP give brands a full advertising funnel with robust reporting and attribution. The ability to see exactly how ad spend translates to sales – and at what cost – makes Amazon a measurable, manageable channel.

Pet products is one of the fastest-growing categories on Amazon, with strong year-over-year volume growth across supplements, food, accessories, and health products. If you are building a marketplace-first strategy, Amazon’s ceiling is high.

The Case for Walmart

Walmart.com’s greatest strength is access to a customer segment that shops differently than the average Amazon customer. Walmart shoppers tend to be more value-oriented and loyal to brands they already know from brick-and-mortar retail. For pet brands with existing retail distribution, Walmart.com can be a natural extension of that presence.

Competition on Walmart is also meaningfully lower than on Amazon in most pet categories. That means it is often easier and less expensive to achieve visibility on Walmart – at least for now.

That window will not last forever as more brands recognize the opportunity.

Walmart also provides strategic value for brands that want to diversify their marketplace exposure. Over-reliance on a single platform is a genuine business risk, and Walmart offers a meaningful alternative channel.

How to Think About Both

The approach TMA typically recommends is an Amazon-first strategy with Walmart as a structured secondary investment. Establish strong foundations on Amazon – optimized listings, active advertising, healthy review velocity, stable inventory — and then layer in Walmart once those systems are in place.

Trying to scale both simultaneously without the operational bandwidth to manage both well often results in mediocre performance on both platforms.

The one exception: if your brand has significant existing Walmart retail presence, launching on Walmart.com alongside Amazon can make strategic sense, since you can leverage your existing brand equity with that customer base.

    The Bottom Line

    Amazon should be the primary focus for most pet brands in 2026. Walmart is a legitimate and growing channel that deserves a place in your long-term strategy – but not at the expense of building a strong Amazon foundation first.

    TMA manages Amazon and Walmart for pet and consumer brands. Schedule a free consultation at themachineagency.com/free-amazon-audit to talk through your marketplace strategy.

    The True Cost of a High ACoS: How Pet Brands Are Quietly Losing Margin on Amazon

    by | May 25, 2026 | Amazon Advertising, Blog article

    The True Cost of a High ACoS: How Pet Brands Are Quietly Losing Margin on Amazon

    Cash Riley Jr.
    Founder & CEO, The Machine Agency, Dallas, Texas

    ACoS is one of the most watched metrics in Amazon advertising – but most pet brands are misreading it. Here is what it actually tells you and how to use it to protect your margin.

    Advertising Cost of Sales. ACoS. If you are selling on Amazon, you know the metric. You probably check it regularly. You may even have a target ACoS you are working toward. But there is a good chance you are not using it the way it was designed to be used — and that gap is quietly eroding your margin.Here is what most pet brands get wrong about ACoS, and how to fix it.

    What ACoS Actually Measures

    ACoS is the ratio of your Amazon ad spend to the revenue that ad spend generated. If you spend $100 on ads and those ads generate $400 in sales, your ACoS is 25%.

    What ACoS does not tell you is whether that 25% is good or bad. That depends entirely on your unit economics — your product cost, your FBA fees, your referral fees, your return rate, and your desired profit margin.

    A 25% ACoS on a product with a 60% gross margin is a profitable campaign. A 25% ACoS on a product with a 20% gross margin is a money-losing one. The metric is the same. The outcome is completely different.

    Your Break-Even ACoS

    Every product you sell on Amazon has a break-even ACoS — the point at which your ad spend exactly consumes your available margin. If your ACoS exceeds your break-even, you are losing money on every advertised sale.

    To calculate it: take your gross margin percentage after all Amazon fees and cost of goods. That number is your break-even ACoS. If your product sells for $30, costs $8 to produce, and your Amazon fees total $9, your gross margin is $13 — roughly 43%. Any campaign running above a 43% ACoS is operating at a loss.

    The Mistake Most Pet Brands Make

    Most pet brands set ACoS targets based on benchmarks they read somewhere – “20% is good” or “30% is acceptable” – without anchoring those targets to their actual unit economics.

    The result is that brands running at “acceptable” ACoS levels are often losing money without knowing it. And brands fixated on driving ACoS below a generic target are sometimes cutting off profitable campaigns in the process.

    What to Do Instead

    Calculate your break-even ACoS for every product in your catalog. This is not a one-time exercise – it needs to be updated when your costs change. Separate your awareness campaigns from your conversion campaigns. A top-of-funnel Sponsored Brands campaign may warrant a higher ACoS than a Sponsored Products campaign targeting high-intent keywords. Blending them into a single ACoS target obscures what isactually performing.

    Consider Total Advertising Cost of Sales (TACoS) – the ratio of ad spend to total revenue including organic sales. TACoS gives you a more complete picture of how your advertising investment is contributing to your overall business, not just ad-attributed revenue.

      The Bottom Line

      ACoS is a useful metric, but only when anchored to your actual economics. If you do not know your break-even ACoS for every product you are advertising, you do not have a complete picture of whether your campaigns are making you money or costing you money.

      TMA conducts profitability analysis as part of every engagement. Schedule a free Amazon audit at themachineagency.com/free-amazon-audit to see where your advertising margins really stand.

      A+ Content vs. Brand Story: Which Actually Drives More Sales on Amazon?

      by | May 25, 2026 | Amazon Content & SEO, Blog article

      A+ Content vs. Brand Story: Which Actually Drives More Sales on Amazon?

      Cash Riley Jr.
      Founder & CEO, The Machine Agency, Dallas, Texas

      A+ Content and Brand Story are both powerful Amazon tools – but they serve different purposes. Here is how to use both strategically to increase conversions and build customer loyalty.

      If you have access to Amazon Brand Registry, you have two of the most underutilized conversion tools on the platform available to you: A+ Content and Brand Story. Both can appear on your product detail pages. Both can meaningfully improve performance. But they are not the same thing – and treating them interchangeably is a missed opportunity.

      Here is how to deploy each one strategically.

      What Is A+ Content?

      A+ Content replaces the plain-text product description with a richly formatted multimedia section. It allows you to add images, comparison charts, feature callouts, and layered storytelling that goes beyond what bullet points can convey.

      A+ Content is product-focused. Its primary job is to answer one question: why should I buy this specific product? It helps customers understand what they are getting, overcome objections, and make a confident purchase decision.

      Amazon has reported that well-executed A+ Content can increase conversion rates by 3 to 10 percent on average. For pet products – where customers often have real concerns about ingredients, safety, and efficacy – the impact can be significantly higher.

      What Is Brand Story?

      Brand Story is a separate module that sits above your A+ Content on the product detail page. It is brand-focused rather than product-focused. Its primary job is to answer a different question: why should I buy from this company?

      Brand Story is where you introduce your brand’s values, mission, and origin. For pet brands, this is where you speak to what makes your company different from the dozens of competitors who also sell joint supplements or grain-free food.

      Brand Story also displays your full product catalog, giving customers a direct pathway to explore everything you offer. This makes it a meaningful driver of cross-selling and repeat purchase behavior.

      Which One Drives More Sales?

      The honest answer is that it depends on where the customer is in their journey. A first-time visitor who has never heard of your brand benefits most from Brand Story – it builds the context and trust that makes the product purchase feel safe. A returning customer who already trusts your brand and is comparing products benefits most from A+ Content.

      This is why the strongest Amazon presences use both – and use them to complement each other rather than repeat the same information. Your Brand Story should not say the same things as your A+ Content. They should work together: who you are, why you exist, and why this specific product is the right choice.

      Common Mistakes to Avoid

      Generic A+ Content that could belong to any brand in your category. If a competitor could swap in their logo and nothing would change, your A+ Content is not doing its job.

      Treating Brand Story as optional. For pet brands especially, the emotional connection between the brand and the customer’s pet is powerful. Brand Story is where that connection gets built.

      Ignoring mobile rendering. A significant share of Amazon shopping happens on mobile. A+ Content and Brand Story that look great on desktop can be difficult to navigate on a phone. Always preview and optimize for mobile before publishing.

        The Bottom Line

        A+ Content converts the visitor. Brand Story converts the visitor into a loyal customer. Together, they build the kind of brand equity that is difficult for competitors to undercut on price alone.

        TMA creates high-converting A+ Content and Brand Story for pet and consumer brands. Schedule a free audit at themachineagency.com/free-amazon-audit to see how your current content stacks up.

        Inventory Planning for Pet Brands: How to Avoid Stockouts During Peak Season

        by | May 25, 2026 | Amazon Operations, Blog article

        Inventory Planning for Pet Brands: How to Avoid Stockouts During Peak Season

        Cash Riley Jr.
        Founder & CEO, The Machine Agency, Dallas, Texas

        Running out of stock on Amazon is more damaging than most pet brands realize. Here is how to plan inventory strategically so you never lose your ranking at the worst possible time.

        Of all the operational challenges pet brands face on Amazon, inventory planning is the one most likely to undo months of hard work in a matter of days. A stockout does not just cost you immediate sales – it sets your organic ranking back, increases your advertising costs to rebuild momentum, and hands market share to competitors who were prepared when you were not.

        How Stockouts Damage Your Ranking

        Amazon’s algorithm rewards in-stock reliability. When you run out of stock, your listing either goes inactive or displays as unavailable. During that window, your organic ranking decays – sometimes rapidly, depending on how competitive your category is.

        When you restock and reactivate, you do not pick up where you left off. You are starting the ranking rebuild process from a lower position, which means more advertising spend to regain visibility. The true cost of a stockout extends far beyond the sales lost during the out-of-stock window.

        Build a Demand Forecast

        Effective inventory planning starts with accurate demand forecasting. For most pet brands, this means looking at three data sets: historical sales velocity, seasonal trends in your category, and the impact of your planned promotions and advertising campaigns.

        Your historical velocity tells you what you have sold in comparable time periods. Amazon’s Brand Analytics tools can show you seasonal trends in your category. And your promotional calendar tells you when you are planning to accelerate sales, which will consume inventory faster than your baseline forecast.

        Account for Amazon’s Lead Times

        One of the most common inventory planning mistakes is underestimating the time it takes to get product into FBA. Amazon’s inbound receiving can take anywhere from several days to several weeks during peak periods. If you are waiting until you are nearly out of stock to send your next replenishment, you are planning to fail.

        Build your replenishment triggers around realistic lead times – not best-case scenarios. Account for production time, shipping time, and FBA processing. Build in buffer stock that covers you if any of those timelines extend.

        Plan for Peak Season Early

        For pet brands, the calendar has predictable high-demand periods: the holiday season, the spring pet adoption surge, Prime Day, and summer. The mistake most brands make is treating peak season preparation as something they will get to. By the time they think about it, their production slots are taken, their freight options are limited, and they are scrambling to avoid a stockout during the highest-volume period of the year.

        Effective brands treat peak season inventory planning as a strategic function that starts 90 to 120 days before the peak. That timeline gives you enough runway to order production, ship product, and get inventory into FBA before the rush begins.

        Use Amazon’s Data Tools

        Amazon provides inventory-related data in Seller Central that most brands underutilize. The Inventory Performance Index score, the Days of Supply metric, and the Restock Recommendations report all give you actionable information about the health of your inventory position.

        Pay particular attention to your Days of Supply metric. Amazon’s algorithm flags listings with low days of supply for potential suppression. Keeping this metric healthy is both an operational necessity and a ranking strategy.

          The Bottom Line

          Inventory planning is not glamorous – but it is the foundation everything else is built on. Brands that get it right have a compounding advantage: their ranking stays strong, their advertising efficiency improves, and their customer experience is consistent.

          TMA manages inventory planning and FBA strategy for pet and consumer brands. Schedule a free audit at themachineagency.com/free-amazon-audit to review your current inventory position.

          Why Your Amazon Ad Spend Is Not Working – And What to Do About It

          by | May 25, 2026 | Amazon Advertising, Blog article

          Why Your Amazon Ad Spend Is Not Working – And What to Do About It

          Cash Riley Jr.
          Founder & CEO, The Machine Agency, Dallas, Texas

          High spend, low returns. If your Amazon advertising is underperforming, the problem is almost never the platform. Here are the most common reasons campaigns fail for pet brands – and how to fix each one.

          You are spending money on Amazon ads. You are not seeing the results you expected. You are not alone – this is one of the most common situations TMA encounters with pet brands coming to us for the first time. And in the overwhelming majority of cases, the problem is not the platform. It is how the campaigns are structured.

          Here are the most common reasons Amazon advertising underperforms for pet brands, and what to do about each one.

          Problem 1: No Campaign Structure

          Random collections of keywords thrown into broad match campaigns are not a strategy – they are noise. Without a deliberate campaign structure that separates brand keywords from category keywords, competitor targeting from product targeting, and awareness objectives from conversion objectives, you cannot understand what is actually working.

          Fix: Build a three-tiered campaign structure: brand campaigns to protect your own keywords and brand name, category campaigns to capture customers searching for products like yours, and competitor campaigns to intercept shoppers looking at alternatives. Each tier requires different bids, different budgets, and different success metrics.

          Problem 2: No Negative Keywords

          If you are not actively adding negative keywords to your campaigns, you are paying for irrelevant traffic. Amazon’s broad match will serve your ads against searches that have nothing to do with your product, and you will pay for every click whether it converts or not.

          Fix: Run a search term report weekly. Any search term that has generated spend without a sale – especially after a reasonable number of impressions – should be added as a negative keyword. This alone can improve campaign efficiency significantly within the first 30 days.

          Problem 3: Bids That Do Not Match Objectives

          Setting one bid for all keywords across all placements is one of the most expensive mistakes Amazon advertisers make. Keywords at different stages of the purchase funnel have fundamentally different conversion rates, and your bids need to reflect that.

          Fix: Adjust bids based on historical conversion data for each keyword. High-converting, high-intent keywords warrant higher bids. Exploratory keywords warrant lower bids until you have data showing they convert. Use placement bid modifiers to increase or decrease bids for top-of-search versus product page placements based on where you see the best performance.

          Problem 4: Listings That Cannot Convert the Traffic

          This is the most overlooked issue in Amazon advertising. You can build perfect campaigns, but if your listing does not convert the traffic those campaigns deliver, you are pouring money into a leaky bucket.

          Fix: Before scaling ad spend, audit your conversion rate. If your listing is converting below the category average, invest in your listing first – better primary images, stronger bullet points, more compelling A+ Content. Every percentage point of improvement in conversion rate makes your ad spend more efficient.

          Problem 5: No Performance Cadence

          Amazon advertising is not something you set up and check monthly. Campaigns drift. Bids become outdated. Keywords that were profitable stop performing. New opportunities emerge that you are missing entirely.

          Fix: Establish a weekly performance review cadence. At minimum, check your search term reports, adjust bids on significant keywords, and review your campaign-level ACoS against your break-even targets. Monthly reviews are too infrequent to maintain meaningful campaign performance.

            The Bottom Line

            Underperforming Amazon advertising is almost always a fixable problem. The platform works – but it rewards structure, discipline, and active management. Brands that treat advertising as a set-it-and-forget-it function consistently leave money on the table.

            TMA manages Amazon advertising for pet and consumer brands with a data-driven, actively managed approach. Schedule a free audit at themachineagency.com/free-amazon-audit to see exactly where your campaigns can improve.