Retail media is rapidly becoming a cornerstone of monetization for marketplaces across Asia. In a recent discussion with Gibson, who leads digital advertising at Carousell Group, several important themes emerged about how to grow revenue, manage ad tech infrastructure, and balance monetization with user experience.
Strategic priorities for growth
Carousell’s advertising goals are focused on three areas:
- Revenue growth across direct and programmatic channels.
- Efficiency improvements in yields, fill rates, and ROI from retail media campaigns.
- Driving adoption of new ad formats across different markets.
The guiding principle is balance: delivering results for advertisers while ensuring ads integrate seamlessly into the user experience.
Building a scalable ad tech stack
Carousell’s journey with its ad stack reflects the challenges and opportunities of scaling across multiple markets:
- Migration from a proprietary ad server to Google Ad Manager as the unified core.
- Integration of in-app header bidding via PubMatic OpenWrap.
- Partnerships with SSPs such as PubMatic, Magnite, InMobi, and Index Exchange.
- Collaboration with DSPs like The Trade Desk and DV360.
- Development of an internal DMP, supplemented by LiveRamp for advanced targeting and measurement.
- Centralized reporting and optimization powered by Tercept, enabling daily visibility into both app and ad performance through a “Holy Grail” dashboard.
The shift from fragmented, market-specific setups to a unified regional stack has significantly improved scalability and agility, particularly for a lean team managing multiple geographies.
User experience first
Carousell emphasizes that monetization must never come at the cost of user trust. Every new ad format is subjected to:
- Rigorous UX testing and product reviews.
- Controlled A/B experimentation.
- Approval across buyer, seller, and product design teams.
Native and commerce-friendly formats, such as shopping ads, are prioritized, while attention-grabbing formats like interstitials are strictly capped (only one per day) and limited to premium advertisers. This user-first approach ensures advertising remains impactful without being intrusive.
Feedback loops reinforce this principle: app reviews, AI-powered sentiment analysis, and direct outreach to users all feed into ongoing refinement of ad experiences.
The role of retail media
Carousell has embraced retail media as a major revenue driver, positioning itself as a leading retail media network in Asia. Key initiatives include:
- Shopping ads integrated with advertiser catalogs and search intent signals.
- Branded experiences such as video, native placements, and shoppable landing pages.
- High-impact ad formats for launches, seasonal campaigns, and brand awareness.
While endemic categories like electronics, fashion, and autos drive much of the demand, non-endemic advertisers – such as banking, insurance, and F&B – are increasingly leveraging Carousell’s high-intent signals for performance campaigns.
Measurement and attribution challenges
Closing the loop on measurement continues to be an industry-wide challenge. While Carousell integrates tracking pixels and shares campaign dashboards, discrepancies often arise between its reporting and advertiser-side analytics.
To mitigate this, the team focuses on incremental uplift analysis, evaluating performance shifts in organic traffic during campaigns to better attribute impact. This approach builds trust and guides future optimization, even when attribution models differ.
Beyond traditional metrics
Carousell tracks more than just impressions and CTRs. Two often-overlooked metrics highlighted by Gibson include:
- Time-to-resolution for campaign issues, a critical factor in maintaining advertiser trust.
- Incremental uplift, measuring the true contribution of campaigns beyond organic performance.
These operational and outcome-based metrics complement traditional KPIs and offer a more holistic view of campaign success.
Alternative identifiers and privacy-first solutions
As the industry adapts to privacy regulations and the uncertainty around cookies, Carousell has implemented LiveRamp’s ATS SDK. This single integration enables access to multiple ID frameworks (RampID, Google PAIR, UID 2.0, Yahoo ConnectID, Panorama ID, etc.), improving addressability without requiring multiple integrations.
The results have been clear: improved fill rates, stronger click-through rates, and enhanced monetization opportunities.
Key takeaways
Carousell’s approach illustrates how marketplaces can grow ad revenue while staying true to a user-first philosophy:
- Unified regional ad stacks drive scalability.
- Retail media, powered by shopping intent signals, opens new opportunities across verticals.
- Transparent reporting and faster campaign issue resolution build advertiser trust.
- Privacy-first identity solutions are unlocking incremental value.
Above all, Carousell shows that sustainable monetization comes from balancing growth with user experience – a lesson that resonates across the digital advertising ecosystem.
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