3 automated catalog examples, and the results behind them

But if you instead generate the catalog directly from your product feed, you can do more than okay. Much more.

Below are three digital leaflet examples from retailers who went further, and what they got out of it.

What do retailers use digital leaflets for?

Three uses come up again and again among retailers running feed-based digital catalogs:

• campaigns that don't need print or would never have existed otherwise
• themed leaflets tied to a specific season or an event
• leaflets built for a single product category

All three are practical for the same reason. They take the creation of catalogs, which can often be a slog and a massive undertaking, from being a whole project to being a no-brainer opportunity.

When the leaflet is generated from the product feed, it's easy to make many beautifully designed catalogs created for specific purposes.

If you want the wider view across formats and industries, from supermarkets to B2B to direct selling, we've collected 10 online catalog examples in a separate piece.

1. Campaigns that don't need print

Not every campaign needs a print run behind it.

Once production time drops, online-only leaflets become practical:

• test a new assortment
• push web-only offers
• run a new campaign that got greenlit earlier in the week

10-4, a Danish DIY and hardware retailer, took this idea to heart and ran with it.

Print had worked for them until the cost climbed and the reach fell, so they stopped printing and now publish digital leaflets only, built straight from their product feed.

Then they measured the impact.

Across more than 6 million webshop sessions in 2025, 10-4 compared sessions that included a digital leaflet visit against sessions that didn't. Sessions with a leaflet ran 72.5% longer, covered 87.0% more pages and carried a 5.1% higher average basket value.

Those are 10-4's numbers on 10-4's own traffic, not an industry average. What they answer is the question most marketing teams have about the format: does an online-only leaflet change anything on the webshop? For 10-4 it did, and now they know by how much.

Dive into the full 10-4 case here.

One thing worth saying early, because 10-4 is the first example here. Going digital-only was 10-4's own call, not a condition of the format.

Conforama, further down, keeps 40 to 43 printed editions a year and runs digital leaflets alongside them.

2. Themed leaflets for a season or an event

Halloween, back-to-school, Christmas, Black Friday. And so on and so forth.

Seasonal moments arrive with a reason to buy already attached, and they reward whoever gets there first.

Harald Nyborg builds themed digital leaflets for these, straight from the product feed.

We don't have published results from them, however, so treat this one as an approach rather than a proof point.

What it does show is the production side.

When a themed leaflet doesn't need a print run behind it, running one stops being a budget decision, and a theme or an idea you thought of late in the week is still a theme you can ship.

3. Leaflets for a single product category

A general leaflet has to serve everyone at once. A category leaflet can be aimed at a single buyer.

Conforama Switzerland, part of the XXXLutz Group, builds category-specific digital leaflets from their Google product feed. Their CMO, Eva Matoua, puts the reasoning plainly:

"With Horizon, we can tailor our communication for each product category. We don't sell a sofa the same way we sell a TV. For example, for furniture, we can make the Horizon experience more lively and inspiring. For TVs, we can highlight the best last-minute deals and publish them quickly. So, we'll be able to give each product category a voice."

Conforama runs all of this alongside a substantial print program, 40 to 43 printed catalog editions to Swiss households every year. Matoua's own summary of that is "Print is still king." The digital leaflets cover what print can't turn around in time, including offers with a one-week validity, and they take work off the agency: "When we create a Horizon leaflet using our feed, we don't need to work with an external agency." Read the Conforama case.

There's a second payoff that's easy to miss. A category leaflet is the obvious move for a category you're already known for, but the harder-working version is the one you build for a category shoppers don't associate with you yet, where the leaflet is doing the introducing rather than restating what people already expect from you.

See a few live

If you want to poke at a real one rather than read about it, these are iPaper demo leaflets you can open now:

• Weekly leaflet
• Halloween
• Furniture
• Groceries
• Clothing, B2B

Where to start

Pick the use case closest to something already on your campaign calendar, not the most ambitious one on the list. If a category is underperforming, build that category a leaflet. If a seasonal push is coming, theme it. If a campaign is web-only anyway, skip the print run and watch what the sessions do.

For a wider spread of examples across industries and formats, go through our 10 online catalog examples. And if you want to know what a feed-based leaflet would cost for your setup, Horizon pricing is public.

Frequently asked questions

What is a digital leaflet?

A digital leaflet is a short, campaign-led catalog built for browsing on a phone or a desktop rather than for print. Feed-based leaflets are generated from your product data, which means the prices and product details come from the same source your webshop uses. As Conforama Switzerland's CMO puts it, if a price changes or a product goes out of stock, that updates in the leaflet too.

How is a digital leaflet different from a PDF flipbook?

A Flipbook starts from a finished PDF and turns it into an interactive, page-flipping catalog online. A feed-based leaflet skips the PDF and is generated from your product feed instead, which is what makes it quick to produce more of them and quick to change after publishing. Both are digital catalogs. They just start from different material.

Do digital leaflets mean giving up print?

No. Conforama Switzerland sends 40 to 43 printed catalog editions a year and runs digital leaflets on top of them. Some retailers do go digital-only, as 10-4 did, but that's a choice about their own economics rather than something the format requires.

How long does it take to make another digital leaflet?

Once the templates and automations are set up, an extra leaflet is a new selection of products rather than a new design project. Conforama Switzerland describes their process as filling an Excel sheet with SKUs, uploading it to Horizon, making a few manual tweaks and publishing.

Do digital leaflets drive sales?

They can, and it's measurable. 10-4 analyzed more than 6 million webshop sessions in 2025 and found that sessions including a digital leaflet visit carried a 5.1% higher average basket value than sessions without one. That's 10-4's result on 10-4's traffic, so treat it as evidence the format can move behavior, not as a number to forecast with.