Elevating Retail Media to Retail Experiences

By Harvey Ma, Vice President & General Manager, Sam's Club Member Access Platform

Key Insights

• Sam’s Club MAP is evolving into the first Retail Experience Network™, turning traditional ads into personalized, seamless experiences that enhance shopping and drive brand growth.
• New data tools like Brand Lift, Customer Lifetime Value, Multi-Touch Attribution and Propensity Modeling are helping brands target smarter, optimize campaigns and create more relevant experiences for members.

April 29, 2025

Sam’s Club Member Access Platform (MAP) is entering a new era — evolving from a traditional retail media network into something more dynamic, more immersive and more aligned with how people shop. MAP is becoming the first Retail Experience Network™.

This transformation directly supports Sam’s Club’s mission to redefine the club channel and deliver exceptional value. With 42 years of history and a $90 billion business foundation, our continued growth is driven by members’ desire for faster, seamless shopping experiences.

We believe experience is a key differentiator. That’s why at Sam’s Club MAP, we’re building a network that goes beyond impressions, using first-party data to create personalized experiences that build trust, spark joy and drive measurable outcomes. For us, retail media isn’t just a revenue stream, it’s a way to enrich the member experience as well as support growth for brands alongside Sam’s Club. Importantly, any revenue generated through advertising is reinvested directly back into Sam’s Club operations, funding associate wages, club remodeling, new growth opportunities and more. At MAP, advertising doesn't extract value from the ecosystem — it enhances it.

Creating experiences at every member touchpoint

This evolution brings brands closer to members at every stage of their shopping journey whether they are browsing online, shopping in-club or engaging across channels in between. It’s a seamlessly connected, omnichannel experience designed to drive awareness, deepen loyalty and boost conversions.

MAP’s Omni Experiences offering exemplifies this approach. By combining high-performing digital performance tactics like Search and Display with immersive experiences in and around club media activations, brands can create unforgettable moments that celebrate everything from large-scale seasonal events like tailgating and back-to-school, to smaller brand-led localized events.

These experiences don’t just resonate — they deliver. The impact is measurable and incremental. A recent Omni Experience campaign drove a 9.6% increase in sales and attracted an average of 40% new buyers, proving the power of meeting members wherever — and however — they shop.

Turning data into delight

At MAP, we believe experiences should feel effortless, personal and precisely timed. By analyzing member behavior across channels, we help brands deliver highly relevant item recommendations, tailored promotions and meaningful content that drive deeper engagement and measurable results. 

One powerful example is Scan & Go™ Display Ads which offers brands an unmatched opportunity to connect with members through the most powerful screens in the club: their mobile devices. Unlike traditional in-store media, Sam’s Club MAP is uniquely positioned as the first and only platform to seamlessly integrate display ads within a mobile self-checkout experience. With Scan & Go — a feature in the Sam’s Club mobile app — members scan items as they shop, complete payment on their devices and skip the checkout line entirely. Since launching in July 2024, Scan & Go Display Ads have driven an average sales lift of 15.5%, with 71% of members reached being incremental to other tactics. Additionally, these ads delivered a 10x higher CTR compared to standard display placements, underscoring their effectiveness.

Beyond Scan & Go, brands can amplify their impact by complementing these mobile touchpoints with MAP’s growing portfolio of onsite, offsite and in-club solutions.

And members are responding. Membership and renewals are at all-time highs with nearly half of new member growth coming from Gen Z and Millennials. And about 40% of in-club shoppers engage with our app or site the week before they buy, proving that today’s shopping journey is always-on and omnichannel.

What’s ahead for 2025 and beyond

Looking ahead, we’re creating even more ways for brands to engage and for members to benefit that will make the Sam’s Club experience faster, easier and more trustworthy.

We are launching new formats for connection, including influencer and creator-led content. For the first time, brands will be able to combine the power of influencer marketing with MAP’s first-party data to deliver more targeted, effective campaigns, both online and in-club.

Additionally, we’re exploring how GenAI can enhance the member journey, from smarter search to personalized product discovery. The goal is to help members make faster, more informed decisions while enabling inspiration and discovery.

MAP’s evolution will redefine how brands connect with members through content, community and smarter media strategies backed by cutting-edge measurement capabilities that few, if any, retailers can match:

• Brand Lift: Provides advertisers with full-funnel visibility by incorporating upper-funnel metrics, such as brand preference, favorability and purchase intent, into MAP’s existing conversion reporting. This enables brands to optimize campaigns around objectives such as product launches or new brand positioning. For members, it means more relevant, resonant advertising that enhances the overall experience.

• Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV): Integrates CLTV and longitudinal measurement to help brands better understand the full value of a consumer. With these insights, brands can refine their media strategies based on buyer segments, behaviors and potential long-term return on investment (ROI).

• Multi-Touch Attribution (MTA): Offers unified measurement across all channels, from search to display, offsite and in-club. Powered by AI, MTA helps brands understand how every touchpoint contributes to conversion, supporting better planning and media mix optimization. These insights lead to smarter, more coordinated messaging that reflects how members actually move through the path to purchase.

• Propensity Modeling with Signal Fidelity: Utilizes dynamic AI and machine learning to predict which members are most likely to engage, based on nuanced data such as past purchases, product preferences, demographics and shopping behavior. These models adapt based on category (e.g., consumables vs. beauty) and reduce irrelevant impressions. That means advertisers can reach the right audiences more effectively, and members enjoy a more personalized and streamlined experience.

By combining performance-driven innovation with a deep understanding of members, MAP is unlocking the future of retail engagement.

A seamless, connected future

MAP is building more than media campaigns — we’re creating meaningful experiences that deliver real value for both members and brands. Our experience-driven approach is already resonating, with Sam’s Club recently ranking No. 1 among general merchandise retailers in the American Customer Satisfaction Index.

Our members have made their expectations clear. They want more. They want it faster. And they want it all delivered through one connected, seamless experience. MAP is answering this call by pioneering the first retail experience network, transforming traditional retail media advertising into interactions members truly value, driving sustained growth and loyalty for Sam’s Club and our brand partners.