Outbrain, the world’s leading discovery and native advertising platform on the open web, announced the launch of Carousel, an interactive Smartad format. With the new ad experience, Outbrain is bringing a familiar swipeable gallery experience to the open web so that brands can showcase various products and offers, and allow consumers to browse through the items most relevant to them.

“COVID-19 has heavily influenced consumer shopping habits, further accelerating the shift towards e-commerce,” said Eytan Galai, CRO at Outbrain. “With Carousel, marketers are able to successfully mimic the physical shopping experience of comparing products, at the point when consumers are the most engaged. By showcasing many of the products and offerings most relevant to a brand’s target audience, we’re making it easier to tell a brand story while driving real results digitally.”

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In the U.S. alone, e-commerce sales grew more than 30% between Q1 and Q2 of 2020 — demonstrating that the pandemic has pushed more spending online. And the upcoming holiday season will be as busy as ever – even more, hectic as big-box retailers, like Target and Wal-Mart, close up shop on Black Friday.

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“With the increased surge to digital and the impacts of COVID-19, marketers are faced with even more challenges, including more platforms and channels to consume content, leading to increased fragmentation of audiences,” said Amit Elisha, VP Products at Outbrain. “With our Smartfeed technology, we are able to introduce new Smartad formats. Carousel is part of our fuller effort to make it easier for marketers to recreate the same social media-style ad experiences, available across our trusted premium publishers — allowing advertisers to scale their impact outside of the walled gardens.”

Carousel’s multi-ad experience encourages consumers to discover and interact with brands — giving marketers the opportunity to expand their strategy outside of standard display and video formats to increase awareness and consideration while maximizing return on ad spend. Driving more conversions, this ad type now provides marketers more ad space possibilities for the same Cost-Per-Click, maximizing cost efficiency.

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