Snapdeal Launches Ad Platform for Sellers

Snapdeal announced the launch of its advertising platform Snapdeal Ads on Monday, enabling its 200,000-strong seller community to reach customers through product advertisements.

Seller-side ads will run an ad format called Product Ads, a native advertising format similar to product listings, but promoted and shown higher than other similar products. Product ads can be showcased across various Snapdeal properties and channels, including the website, mobile site, and apps.

Snapdeal already has an existing inventory of content for the ad format, called PLA (product listing advertisement), which allows the seller to create a new campaign very quickly. The ad platform fits with the company's broader narrative of bringing a million sellers, and isn't been viewed internally as a separate revenue model said Anand Chandrasekaran, Chief Product Officer, Snapdeal in a phone conversation with Gadgets 360.

"When we talk to sellers, and ask them what it is that they want to do, controlling their own discovery process has been one of the most requested areas. We are working with some sellers to get some feedback, so it has been exposed to some sellers. We are going to be launching a much broader set of tools for sellers. The ads panel will be directly integrated into our seller product," he said.

The platform will be based on pay per click advertising technology, and enable a reach of reach over 90 million customers, wrote Asif Ali, founder of Reduce Data on the Ads blog, earlier this month. The Silicon Valley-based startup was acquired by Snapdeal in September.

There is no minimum budget for sellers Chandrasekaran said. The platform works on a cost per click model, based on the category. "The pricing is done algorithmically, so there's no manual fixed price. In most categories, I believe it starts at as little as 50 paise to one rupee, and two rupees, on average in many categories." he added.

Snapdeal Ads features a simple self-service panel integrated into the seller platform where sellers can purchase ads and begin promotions without any prior campaign management experience, the company said.

The platform provides sellers campaign analytics features to measure impact and return on investment on real-time basis, and is currently a part of the Snapdeal seller console. Large sellers and brands who wish to develop more elaborate campaigns can further customise their advertising plans using a comprehensive self-serve platform, the company said.

Flipkart had acquired Bengaluru-based mobile ad network AdIQuity in March this year, and hired Tarun Jain as the Head of Product of the Ads group last week.