Flipkart’s ad business can promote brands by playing with data analytics and customised searches

Indian e-commerce giant Flipkart wants big brands like Samsung and Microsoft to help it speed up its advertisement business, which is still in its early days and is expected to drive profitability.

Flipkart will offer to promote these brands prominently during searches by customers on its website and mobile app, while also helping them to help identify their target customers by data analytics and tracking consumer behaviour.

Brands will make up for as much as 70% of the advertisement unit's business, while the remaining 30% would come from product listing solutions (PLA) that is used by thousands of Flipkart’s merchants.

The advertisement business has already hit an annual revenue run rate of Rs 80 crore in February this year, and is now targeting to grow two to three times every year.

It has already started to monetise its relationship with Samsung, selling ads and also launching a brand store on its mobile app.

The advertisement unit was started last year, and 20,000 of its 85,000 merchants have already used it till now, running 10,000 active campaigns per month.

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