Carousell Group's new ad platform enables advertisers to target its users across the web

Carousell has added demand-side capabilities to its marketing offering, allowing advertisers to target its users both on and off its marketplaces—in a move it says will give advertisers a "viable alternative to the closed environments like Google and Facebook".

Carousell first launched an advertising arm, Carousell Media Group, in February 2021, which acts as a single entry point for brands looking to purchase ads across its five marketplaces Carousell, Mudah.my, ChoTot, OneKyat and Ox Street.

Now it has launched a 'recommerce' programmatic buying platform called Connect that will use buying, selling and search data signals generated from its users to allow advertisers to target its audiences across the open web, not just on its owned platforms. Connect will integrate first-party and third-party data sets to deliver full-funnel campaigns.

'Recommerce', otherwise known as reverse commerce, refers to the buying and selling of pre-owned goods.

Carousell Group claims its has tens of millions of monthly users across Southeast Asia, Taiwan and Hong Kong, and that its platforms witness 150 million-plus average monthly searches.

"We have witnessed unprecedented growth in recommerce over the last 12 months, that's being propelled by consumer demand for sustainability as well as ecommerce, and it's quickly becoming an important component of the consumer-brand relationship. However, because inspiration, discovery and purchase can happen anywhere, we launched the Connect platform to allow brands to reach our buyers and sellers both on and off our marketplaces," said JJ Eastwood, managing director of Carousell Media Group.

The platform was initially offered to selected advertisers, with Decathlon being a prominent one. The sports and outdoor gear maker used Connect to identify active lifestyle shoppers and fitness enthusiasts during its 2021 11.11 campaign in Singapore. Charles Tan, search engine marketing lead for Decathlon, said the traffic generated by using this solution "exceeded our initial expectations from the campaign" and also helped the brand "scale this tactical campaign and reach more users in what was a competitive period."

Carousell Media Group will be launching new ad products under Connect this year such as Carousell Search Ads, which will enable advertisers to use real-time keyword searches.