India’s leading e-commerce players’ growth execution strengthened by strategy consulting

Executive Summary 

A leading e-commerce player engaged Redseer Strategy Consultants to take a closer look at its digital ads business and see how it can grow its digital ads revenues by deriving learnings from the competition’s ad business models. Through detailed analysis of customer journeys, ad placements, seller feedback, and competitor strategies, Redseer helped build a clear action plan for Flipkart to make its ads platform more effective, relevant, and trusted by sellers and brands. 

About the Client 

India’s biggest online shopping platforms and has been steadily growing their digital ads business. Its ads help sellers to improve the discovery of their products on a highly competitive marketplace.

The Strategic Imperative

As online shopping grows, advertising is no longer just a way to earn extra revenue; it’s becoming essential. But with more ads across platforms, users are getting fatigued, and sellers expect better returns on their ad spends. 

Seeking clarity on three fronts: 

• Where does our client have potential to improve its ad funnel performance, in terms of the mix of different ad types and product categories, and the ad funnel, including impressions, click-through rates, and cost per click? 

• Gaps in ad visibility across its pages and categories move the most significant needle on the ad funnel performance?

• What improvements in our clients’ ad performance can be enabled by maximising the return on ad spends for brands & sellers?  

Redseer’s Strategic Engagement

1. Ad Funnel Benchmarking: 
   Engaged 10–15 ad product managers from the competition to understand features, funnel strategies, and monetisation levers, and benchmarked the same against our client to pinpoint the growth potential & levers. 
2. Customer Journey Mapping:
   Tracked ~2,200 user journeys across our client and its competitors to analyse gaps in ad load concentration, format type, pixel size, and redirection patterns across key pages (home, search, category, product).
3. Ad Format and Performance Analysis 
   Benchmarked PLA, PCA, and video ads to assess engagement gaps. Identified underperformance in video ad share and pixel size of our clients relative to peers. 
4. Seller and Brand Insights 
   Conducted 25 interviews to capture seller sentiment on ROI, dashboard usability, and transparency. Assessed what drives platform preference and spending allocation. 

Outcomes & Impact 

• Identified key pages and categories where expanding video and PCA ad formats can lift CTR by 3x and beyond. 
• Highlighted category-wise and page-level ad load gaps, particularly in Mobiles, Grocery, and General Merchandise. 
• Delivered actionable roadmap to increase ad effectiveness and revenue through richer formats, sharper targeting, and more differentiated seller enablement. 
• Stitched the improvement recommendations with their impact on the overall ad funnel and ad revenue growth. 

This was a well-rounded engagement, wherein we consolidated perspectives from the industry experts, brands, and client leadership, to come up with a distilled POV on the ad revenue opportunity size for the client and the priority list of efforts required by the client to win the same. The nuanced recommendations entailing ad load boost on specific platform pages, ad format upgrades, and brand/ seller education, were implemented by the client, and translated into a significant boost in the ad revenues – Kushal Bhatnagar, Associate Partner, Redseer

What This Means for the Industry 

India’s e-commerce advertising is entering a more mature phase, one where performance, trust, and personalization matter as much as reach. The traditional model of pushing ad inventory at scale is giving way to a more nuanced approach focused on contextual targeting, creative quality, and seller empowerment. Platforms are now expected to offer not just visibility, but measurable ROI and deeper campaign insights. As consumer journeys fragment across pages and formats, ad experiences must be tailored to micro moments, from product discovery to purchase intent. The broader industry imperative is clear – build ad ecosystems that are data-rich, technologically advanced, format diverse, and insight-led. Platforms that succeed in delivering this differentiated value to users, brands, and sellers will shape the next phase of commerce media in India.

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