Flipkart Sponsored Listings: Diagnosing and Filling Empty Ad Slots on Listing Pages

You are the product manager for sponsored product ads at Flipkart. How would you increase the fill rate of the sponsored ad slots on listing pages, that is, the share of those slots that actually show an ad? ```hint Ask why each slot is empty Before proposing fixes, sort the empty slots by the reason they went unfilled. A slot with no matching ads at all needs a different fix from one where ads existed but were screened out. ``` ### Clarifying Questions - Do listing pages mean search results, category browse pages or both, and on the app, the website or both? - Has fill rate dropped recently, or has it always been below target? - Is fill measured against every sponsored slot on a rendered page, or only the slots the shopper actually scrolled to? - Is the real target ad revenue, advertiser growth or the fill number itself, and is there a cap on sponsored slots per page? ### What a Strong Answer Covers - A precise definition of fill rate and of the business goal it serves, so that filling slots never means filling them with irrelevant ads. - A breakdown of empty slots by the stage of ad serving where they were lost, and by search type, category and time. - Levers matched to each cause across advertiser demand, ad matching and the page itself, prioritized by the value of the impressions they recover. - Metrics with guardrails for shopper search conversion, advertiser return and latency, and a testing plan that accounts for advertisers sharing auctions. ### Follow-up Questions - You lower the relevance threshold; fill and ad revenue rise, but orders per search fall. What do you do? - A teammate proposes showing fewer sponsored slots on pages where demand is thin. Is that a real improvement? - Fill is healthy most of the day but collapses during the evening peak. What do you check first?