Ei Samay Advertising: Book Classified and Display Ads Online at the Best Rates in 2025

Ei Samay has quietly become one of the most strategically undervalued advertising platforms in the Bengali language newspaper market — and most brands outside West Bengal have not yet caught on to what that means for their media budgets. The newspaper, which commands a fiercely loyal urban Bengali readership, offers advertisers a combination of print depth and digital scale that few vernacular titles in India can match in 2025. What surprises most of our clients when they first look at the Ei Samay rate card is how much reach they can buy compared to what they are spending on equivalent digital placements targeting the same Bengali-speaking audience.

What Is Ei Samay Advertising and Why Should You Use It?

Ei Samay — written ?? ???? in Bengali, meaning "This Time" — was launched in 2012 by Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd., the media conglomerate behind The Times of India and the broader Times Group empire. It entered the Bengali language daily newspaper market as a direct challenger to the long-dominant Anandabazar Patrika, and within a few years it had carved out a substantial urban readership concentrated in Kolkata and the surrounding districts of West Bengal. In 2024, ownership of the title was transferred to Tidings Media & Communications Private Limited, which now manages both the print edition and the digital properties including eisamay.com, News Ei Samay, and Samachar Ei Samay — a transition that has, if anything, sharpened the editorial focus and brought fresh investment into the digital platforms.

What we tell our clients at SmartAds is that Ei Samay advertising is not simply about buying space in a newspaper; it is about accessing a specific, high-value demographic that is disproportionately concentrated in the SEC A and A+ income brackets of Kolkata and urban West Bengal. The Indian Readership Survey data has consistently shown that Ei Samay's core reader skews younger than the average Bengali newspaper reader — typically between 25 and 45 years old, educated, digitally active, and with significant purchasing power across categories like real estate, automobiles, financial products, and consumer electronics. That profile makes Ei Samay advertisement inventory genuinely premium, not just in terms of print circulation but across the digital ecosystem as well.

On top of that, the Tidings Media transition has opened up interesting new possibilities for advertisers who want integrated Bengali-language campaigns. The eisamay.com digital news platform now sits alongside the print edition as a co-equal advertising vehicle, and the emergence of News Ei Samay as an English-language digital vertical and Samachar Ei Samay as a Hindi-language platform means that advertisers can now reach multilingual Bengali-speaking audiences through a single publisher relationship. We have found, in our experience booking campaigns across both print and digital for clients in the FMCG, education, and financial services sectors, that bundling print Ei Samay advertising with digital placements on eisamay.com consistently delivers better cost-per-reach outcomes than buying either channel in isolation.

Ei Samay Advertising Rate Card 2025: Print and Digital Pricing Guide

Frankly speaking, the single biggest frustration advertisers have when researching Ei Samay ad rates is that most agency websites either refuse to publish actual numbers or bury the pricing behind a contact form. We are going to be more useful than that. For classified text ads in Ei Samay, the pricing is structured on a per-word or per-line basis depending on the category, with rates running somewhere in the range of ₹150 to ₹300 per line for standard categories like matrimonial, recruitment, and property — though the exact figure varies by edition and by the day of publication, with Sunday editions commanding a premium that can be anywhere from 20 to 40 percent above the weekday base rate.

Display advertising in Ei Samay is priced on a per-square-centimeter basis, which is the standard model across Indian print media. For the Kolkata main edition, the rate for a display ad in a general news page works out to roughly ₹400 to ₹600 per square centimeter, which means a quarter-page ad — typically around 270 square centimeters — would land somewhere in the ballpark of ₹1.1 lakh to ₹1.6 lakh depending on the position and the day. Front page advertising in Ei Samay, which is among the most sought-after inventory in Bengali newspaper advertising, carries a significant premium; Ei Samay front page ad rates can run to three or four times the equivalent inside-page rate, and positions like the front page strip or the jacket format are often booked weeks in advance, particularly around festivals and election periods.

For Ei Samay digital advertising on eisamay.com and the app, the pricing model shifts to CPM advertising and CPC advertising structures that are more familiar to performance marketers. Banner ad inventory on the website is typically available at a CPM that works out to roughly ₹80 to ₹150 per thousand ad impressions for standard display formats, which is a number that surprises most first-time advertisers when they compare it to what they are paying for equivalent Bengali-language audience targeting on programmatic platforms — because the contextual relevance of eisamay.com inventory is substantially higher. Video ad formats on the app carry higher CPMs, generally in the range of ₹200 to ₹350, reflecting the stronger engagement metrics that in-stream video consistently delivers. The Ei Samay rate card for 2025 is available on request through authorized booking partners, and we always recommend getting a current version because rates are revised periodically, particularly around the Durga Puja season when demand spikes sharply.

What Are the Different Types of Ads You Can Book in Ei Samay?

The taxonomy of Ei Samay advertisement formats is broader than most advertisers initially realize, and getting this right at the planning stage makes a meaningful difference to both cost efficiency and campaign impact. The most basic format is the classified text ad, which is a text-only listing published in the dedicated classified sections of the newspaper — think of it as the print equivalent of a Google text ad, where the ad runs alongside similar listings in the same category and the reader is actively browsing for that type of content. Classified text ads in Ei Samay are priced by the word or line, making them the most accessible entry point for small businesses, individuals, and organizations with limited budgets; a matrimonial ad or a recruitment ad in this format can be placed for as little as ₹500 to ₹1,500 depending on the word count and the edition.

The classified display ad is a step up from the classified text ad in that it allows the advertiser to incorporate a logo, a border, and some basic design elements within the classified section, which makes it stand out visually from the surrounding text listings. Classified display ads in Ei Samay are priced per square centimeter rather than per word, and they occupy a middle ground between the economy of classified text and the full creative freedom of a display ad — making them particularly effective for property ads, education ads, and recruitment ads where a visual element like a logo or a property image can meaningfully improve response rates. We have seen classified display ads consistently outperform classified text ads in terms of inquiries generated per rupee spent, particularly in the property and education categories, though the absolute cost is higher.

Display ads in Ei Samay — the full-format advertisements that appear across news pages, supplements, and special features — represent the premium end of the print advertising spectrum and are the format of choice for brand awareness campaigns, product launches, and public notice advertisements that require a specific minimum size as per legal requirements. Display ads can be booked in sizes ranging from a small single-column centimeter unit all the way up to a full-page or double-page spread, and they offer complete creative freedom in terms of design, color, and imagery. Beyond these core formats, Ei Samay also offers specialized positions like the front page strip, the solus position (where your ad appears alone on a page without competing adjacencies), and the jacket format that wraps around the entire newspaper — formats which, in our experience, are particularly effective for high-impact launches and announcements targeting the Kolkata market.

How to Book an Ei Samay Ad Online in Three Simple Steps

The process of Ei Samay ad booking has become considerably more streamlined over the past few years, and advertisers no longer need to physically visit a newspaper office or go through a traditional space-booking agent to place an advertisement. The first step is to determine your ad format, category, edition, and publication date — decisions which sound straightforward but which, in our experience, are where most first-time advertisers make costly mistakes by choosing the wrong edition for their target geography or booking a midweek date when their category performs better on weekends. For matrimonial classified bookings, for instance, Sunday is almost universally the highest-readership day for that category, and booking on a Tuesday to save a few hundred rupees on the rate typically results in significantly lower response.

The second step is to submit your ad copy or creative material along with the booking details through an online ad booking platform or through a registered INS accredited agency. The Indian Newspaper Society accreditation is worth paying attention to here — INS accredited agencies have formal rate agreements with publishers and are authorized to book space at card rates, which means you are protected from inflated pricing and you have a formal dispute resolution mechanism if something goes wrong with your booking. At SmartAds, we hold INS accreditation and have direct booking relationships with Ei Samay's advertising team, which means we can confirm space availability, negotiate position preferences, and handle the creative submission process on behalf of our clients without the back-and-forth that individual advertisers often experience.

The third step is payment and confirmation, after which you will receive a booking confirmation that specifies the publication date, the edition, the ad size, and the position. For display ads above a certain value, most publishers including Ei Samay will provide a tear sheet — a physical copy of the newspaper page on which your ad appeared — as proof of publication, which is particularly important for public notice advertisements and legal notice ads where documentary evidence of publication may be required. For digital bookings on eisamay.com, the confirmation will include campaign parameters including start date, end date, targeting specifications, and estimated ad impressions, and post-campaign reports showing actual delivery, ad clicks CTR, and reach are standard practice. To book Ei Samay ad online at the best available rates, working through an authorized newspaper ad agency India with direct publisher relationships is consistently the most cost-effective route.

How Much Does It Cost to Advertise in Ei Samay? Classified vs Display

The cost comparison between classified and display advertising in Ei Samay is a question we field constantly, and the honest answer is that the right choice depends entirely on what you are trying to achieve rather than simply which format is cheaper. A classified text ad is the most economical option in absolute terms — as noted earlier, a standard matrimonial ad or property ad can be placed for under ₹2,000 — but the cost-per-response calculation often favors classified display or even small display ads when you factor in the higher visibility and the ability to include brand elements that build recognition over time.

For display ad newspaper placements, the per-square-centimeter rate model means that the total cost scales directly with the size of the ad, which gives advertisers significant flexibility to right-size their investment. A small display ad of around 30 to 40 square centimeters — roughly the size of a business card advertisement — can be placed in Ei Samay for somewhere between ₹12,000 and ₹24,000 depending on the page and edition, which puts display advertising within reach of small and medium businesses that might assume it is exclusively a large-brand format. What a lot of people miss is that even a modest display ad in a high-readership Bengali language daily newspaper like Ei Samay can deliver brand awareness outcomes that would cost significantly more to replicate through equivalent digital targeting of the same demographic.

One of our retail clients in Kolkata — a mid-sized jewelry brand preparing for the Dhanteras season — came to us with a budget of roughly ₹3 lakhs for West Bengal advertising and an initial preference to spend the entire amount on social media. We recommended splitting the budget, with approximately ₹1.8 lakhs going to a combination of Ei Samay classified display ads and a half-page display ad in the Durga Puja special supplement, and the remaining ₹1.2 lakhs allocated to eisamay.com banner ads and targeted social. The print component delivered an estimated reach of over 8 lakh readers across the Kolkata and Howrah editions, and the client reported a 34 percent increase in store walk-ins during the campaign period compared to the previous year — an outcome that would have been difficult to achieve with a digital-only approach at that budget level.

Which Ei Samay Edition Should You Choose for Your Advertisement?

Ei Samay publishes across multiple editions covering the key markets of West Bengal and beyond, and the edition selection decision is one that deserves more careful thought than most advertisers give it. The Kolkata edition is the flagship, with the highest circulation and the most premium advertising rates; it is the right choice for brands targeting the Kolkata metropolitan area and for campaigns where maximum urban reach is the primary objective. However, the Kolkata edition is not a proxy for all of West Bengal advertising — districts like Burdwan, Siliguri, Hooghly, and Midnapore have their own distinct media consumption patterns, and a Kolkata edition booking may not deliver meaningful reach in those markets.

For advertisers whose target audience extends beyond the Kolkata urban agglomeration, Ei Samay's district and zonal editions offer more targeted and often more cost-efficient options. A real estate developer advertising residential projects in North Bengal, for instance, would be better served by a Siliguri or North Bengal edition booking than by paying Kolkata edition rates for reach that is geographically misaligned with their inventory. Similarly, brands targeting the Bengali-speaking populations of Tripura, Assam, and Jharkhand — which represent meaningful secondary markets for many consumer categories — should explore whether Ei Samay's circulation in those states is sufficient to justify a pan-India newspaper coverage booking, or whether a combination of Ei Samay and a local vernacular newspaper is more appropriate.

The pan-India dimension of Ei Samay advertising has become more relevant since the expansion of the eisamay.com digital news platform, which reaches Bengali-speaking audiences across India regardless of where the print edition is physically distributed. Bengali-speaking audience India is a larger and more geographically dispersed population than many national advertisers realize — the Bengali diaspora in cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, and Hyderabad is substantial, and eisamay.com provides a direct channel to those readers that the print edition simply cannot. At SmartAds, we have planned campaigns for education clients and financial services brands that combined Ei Samay print advertising in West Bengal with eisamay.com digital placements targeting Bengali-speaking users in metro cities outside Bengal — a combination that delivered pan-India Bengali audience coverage at a fraction of what a national newspaper buy would have cost.

What Are the Best Ad Categories in Ei Samay for Businesses?

Ei Samay classified ads are organized across a wide range of categories, each of which has its own pricing structure, readership behavior, and response rate profile. The matrimonial ad category is one of the highest-volume classified categories in any Bengali language daily newspaper, and Ei Samay's matrimonial section has a strong reputation among the Bengali community both in West Bengal and in the diaspora. Matrimonial classified bookings in Ei Samay are typically placed for Sunday editions, where readership of that specific section is highest, and the category supports both classified text and classified display formats depending on the advertiser's budget and the level of detail they want to include.

Property ads represent another high-performing category in Ei Samay, driven by the active real estate market in Kolkata and the surrounding districts. Developers, brokers, and individual sellers all use the property classified section, and the category has seen consistent growth in classified display ad bookings as developers recognize the value of including project visuals and location maps even in the classified section. Recruitment ads — both for corporate hiring and for government and public sector positions — are a significant category as well, and government recruitment notices in particular often have legal requirements specifying publication in recognized newspapers, which makes Ei Samay a compliant and high-reach option for those bookings.

Public notice advertisement, court notice ad, tender notice ad, and name change ad bookings represent a distinct category of legal and statutory advertising that follows specific format and size requirements set by government and judicial authorities. These categories require careful handling because errors in the ad copy or the publication date can have legal consequences; we always advise clients placing a public notice advertisement or a court notice ad to work through an experienced newspaper ad agency India that understands the compliance requirements and can provide certified copies of the published advertisement if required. Education ads, obituary ads, and lost-and-found notices round out the major classified categories, each with its own rate structure and readership profile within the broader Ei Samay advertisement ecosystem.

How Does Ei Samay Digital Advertising on the Website and App Work?

The eisamay.com digital news platform has grown into one of the most visited Bengali-language news websites in India, and the advertising opportunities it offers are meaningfully different from — and in many ways complementary to — the print edition. Ei Samay website advertising is available in standard display formats including leaderboard banners (728x90), medium rectangle banners (300x250), and large format skins that wrap around the page content, all of which are sold on a CPM advertising basis where the advertiser pays per thousand ad impressions served. The CPM rates for eisamay.com are, as mentioned earlier, in the range of ₹80 to ₹150 for standard display, which compares favorably to what advertisers typically pay for contextually targeted Bengali-language inventory on open programmatic exchanges.

Ei Samay app advertising introduces additional formats that are not available on the desktop website, including in-stream video ads that play within the app's video content feed and spotlight frames that appear between article swipes — a format which, in our experience, delivers significantly higher ad clicks CTR than standard banner inventory because the user is in a full-screen, high-attention browsing mode. The app's audience tends to be younger and more mobile-first than the desktop website audience, which makes Ei Samay app advertising particularly relevant for brands targeting the 25-to-35 age segment within the Bengali-speaking audience India. CPC advertising models are available for some formats, particularly for performance-oriented campaigns where the advertiser wants to pay only for clicks rather than impressions, and the effective CPC on Ei Samay app inventory tends to be competitive relative to social media platforms when the target audience is Bengali-speaking urban consumers.

One automotive brand we worked with was launching a new compact SUV in the Bengal market and wanted to build awareness among urban Bengali professionals aged 28 to 40 in the weeks before their dealership events in Kolkata. We planned a two-week Ei Samay digital advertising campaign combining homepage takeovers on eisamay.com with in-stream video ads on the app, targeting by geography (Kolkata, Howrah, and Siliguri) and by content category (business and lifestyle sections). The campaign delivered just over 45 lakh ad impressions across the two platforms over the 14-day period, with the video ads achieving an average view-through rate of 62 percent — a number that compared favorably to the brand's benchmarks from similar campaigns on YouTube targeting the same demographic. The advertise on Ei Samay website CPM CPC combination gave us the flexibility to optimize toward the formats that were performing best in real time, which is something that pure print campaigns simply cannot offer.

What Is Ei Samay's Readership and Circulation in West Bengal?

Readership and circulation data for Ei Samay is a topic where we encourage clients to look beyond the headline numbers and understand what the figures actually mean for their campaign. Circulation refers to the number of copies physically printed and distributed, while readership — as measured by the Indian Readership Survey — reflects the total number of individuals who read each copy, which in the Indian context is typically a multiple of three to five readers per copy. Ei Samay's circulation in West Bengal has been estimated at several lakh copies per day across all editions, with the Kolkata edition accounting for the largest share; the IRS data, which is the most widely referenced source for Bengali readership audience measurement, has consistently placed Ei Samay among the top two Bengali language daily newspapers in urban West Bengal.

What the raw circulation numbers do not capture is the quality and engagement depth of the Ei Samay readership, which is where the platform's real advertising value lies. The FICCI-EY Media and Entertainment Report has noted that vernacular newspaper India readership, particularly in the Bengali and Marathi language markets, is characterized by higher average reading time and stronger editorial trust compared to English-language national newspapers — a finding that aligns with what we observe in response rates across the campaigns we manage. Bengali newspaper advertising in Ei Samay benefits from this high-trust, high-attention environment in ways that are difficult to replicate in digital display advertising, where ad avoidance and banner blindness are persistent challenges.

The Tidings Media transition in 2024 has, if anything, strengthened the editorial investment in Ei Samay's journalism, which matters to advertisers because editorial quality is directly correlated with reader loyalty and the brand safety of the advertising environment. Print media advertising India has faced structural headwinds from digital migration, but the TAM AdEx data has consistently shown that premium Bengali language titles have maintained advertiser demand more robustly than mid-tier vernacular titles, precisely because their readership retention has been stronger. For brands targeting the SEC A and A+ demographic in Kolkata and urban West Bengal, the Ei Samay readership profile remains one of the most efficient access points in the Bengali media market.

How Does Ei Samay Advertising Compare to Anandabazar Patrika?

This is the question we are asked most often by clients who are new to Bengali newspaper advertising, and the honest answer is more nuanced than the simple "which is bigger" framing that most people bring to the comparison. Anandabazar Patrika, published by the ABP Group, is the older and historically more dominant Bengali language daily newspaper in West Bengal, with a circulation and readership that has traditionally exceeded Ei Samay's; the Anandabazar Patrika competitor position in the market is well established, and for advertisers seeking maximum reach in a single print buy, it remains a strong option. However, the comparison is not simply about total numbers — it is about which audience profile, which editorial environment, and which price-to-reach ratio best serves a specific advertiser's objectives.

Ei Samay's readership, as noted earlier, skews younger and more urban than Anandabazar Patrika's, which has a broader geographic and demographic spread that includes a larger share of older and semi-urban readers. For categories like financial services, technology, automobiles, and premium real estate — where the SEC A and A+ urban demographic is the primary target — Ei Samay advertising often delivers a more concentrated reach of the right audience at a lower absolute cost than an equivalent Anandabazar Patrika buy. The Ei Samay ad rates, while not dramatically lower than Anandabazar Patrika rates for comparable positions, tend to offer better value on a cost-per-target-reader basis for urban-focused campaigns, which is a distinction that media planners who look beyond headline circulation figures will recognize.

To be fair, there are categories and campaign types where Anandabazar Patrika's broader reach is the right choice — mass-market FMCG campaigns, government public information campaigns, and any advertiser seeking maximum geographic coverage across all of West Bengal and the Bengali-speaking belt of neighboring states would likely benefit from the wider distribution network of the older title. What we typically recommend to clients with sufficient budgets is a split buy that places the primary creative in Anandabazar Patrika for reach and a complementary placement in Ei Samay for urban frequency — a combination that covers both the breadth and the depth of the Bengali readership audience without the inefficiency of putting the entire budget into a single title. The Kolkata newspaper advertising market is large enough to support both titles, and the most sophisticated campaigns we have planned have used both strategically rather than treating the choice as binary.

What Discounts and Bulk Packages Are Available for Ei Samay Advertising?

Bulk booking discounts in Indian newspaper advertising are real, meaningful, and significantly underutilized by advertisers who book on a one-off basis without a long-term plan. For Ei Samay advertising, the discount structure typically rewards volume in two ways — through frequency discounts for advertisers who commit to a certain number of insertions over a defined period, and through size discounts for advertisers who book larger ad formats. A client committing to, say, 12 insertions of a classified display ad over three months can expect a discount somewhere in the range of 15 to 25 percent off the card rate, which on a cumulative spend of even ₹2 to ₹3 lakhs represents a saving that is worth the planning effort.

Bundle packages that combine print Ei Samay advertising with eisamay.com digital inventory are increasingly available and, in our view, represent some of the best value in the Bengali media market right now. These packages — which are typically structured as a print insertion plus a defined number of digital ad impressions on the website or app — allow advertisers to extend the reach of their print creative into the digital space at a bundled rate that is lower than buying the two channels separately. The Ei Samay rate card for 2025 includes several such bundle options, particularly for the festive season around Durga Puja and Diwali, when the publisher offers special supplement advertising packages that combine print space in the festival supplement with digital placements on eisamay.com during the same period.

Seasonal advertising in Ei Samay deserves special mention because the Durga Puja period — which typically spans late September to mid-October — is the single most important advertising window in the Bengali media calendar, and the demand for Ei Samay advertisement inventory during this period is intense enough that space in premium positions is often fully booked two to three months in advance. We have had clients miss out on front page and supplement positions because they came to us in August expecting to book Puja advertising, only to find that the best inventory was already committed. The lesson is straightforward: if Durga Puja, Diwali, or the Bengal election cycle is relevant to your advertising calendar, begin the booking conversation at least three months ahead. At SmartAds, we maintain advance booking relationships with Ei Samay's advertising team that give our clients priority access to premium positions even during high-demand periods, which is one of the practical advantages of working with an Ei Samay advertising agency authorized partner rather than booking independently.

FAQ: Everything You Need to Know About Ei Samay Advertising

Q: How can I book an advertisement in Ei Samay online?

Booking an Ei Samay ad online can be done through the newspaper's official advertising portal, through third-party online ad booking platforms, or through an INS accredited agency like SmartAds that has direct booking relationships with the publisher. The process involves selecting your ad format and category, choosing your edition and publication date, submitting your ad copy or creative file, and completing payment. Working through an authorized agency typically gives you access to better rates, position preferences, and professional creative support that the self-service portals do not offer; for larger display bookings or integrated print-digital campaigns, the agency route is almost always more cost-effective than direct booking.

Q: What are the current Ei Samay advertising rates in 2025?

The Ei Samay rate card for 2025 reflects rates that have been revised upward modestly from 2024, in line with the broader trend of print media advertising India recovering advertiser demand post-pandemic. For classified text ads, rates run roughly ₹150 to ₹300 per line depending on the category and edition. Display ads are priced per square centimeter, with inside-page rates in the Kolkata edition in the range of ₹400 to ₹600 per sq cm. Digital advertising on eisamay.com is available at CPM rates of roughly ₹80 to ₹150 for display and ₹200 to ₹350 for video. These are indicative ranges — actual rates depend on position, day of publication, and whether you are booking through an agency with negotiated rates.

Q: What types of ads can I place in Ei Samay newspaper?

Ei Samay supports classified text ads, classified display ads, and full display ads across its print edition, as well as digital banner ads, video ads, and sponsored content on eisamay.com and the app. Within the classified section, categories include matrimonial, property, recruitment, education, obituary, name change, lost and found, public notice, court notice, tender notice, and several others. Display ads can be booked in a wide range of sizes from small single-column units to full-page and double-page spreads, with special positions like the front page strip, jacket, and solus available at premium rates.

Q: How is the cost of a classified ad in Ei Samay calculated?

Classified text ads in Ei Samay are priced on a per-word or per-line basis, with the exact unit depending on the category. The minimum booking typically covers a set number of words or lines, and additional words or lines are charged at the per-unit rate. Classified display ads, by contrast, are priced per square centimeter, with a minimum size requirement that varies by category. Surcharges apply for bold text, color printing, and premium placement within the classified section, and Sunday editions typically carry a rate premium of 20 to 40 percent over weekday rates in high-demand categories like matrimonial.

Q: Which Ei Samay edition should I choose for my advertisement?

The edition choice should be driven by the geographic distribution of your target audience. The Kolkata edition is the right choice for campaigns targeting the Kolkata metropolitan area and for brand-building campaigns where maximum urban reach is the priority. District and zonal editions are more appropriate for advertisers targeting specific parts of West Bengal outside Kolkata, and the eisamay.com digital platform is the right vehicle for reaching Bengali-speaking audiences across India regardless of geography. For pan-India Bengali audience coverage, a combination of the Kolkata print edition and eisamay.com digital inventory is typically the most efficient approach.

Q: What is the difference between a classified text ad and a classified display ad in Ei Samay?

A classified text ad is a plain-text listing published in the classified section alongside similar listings, priced per word or line, with no design elements beyond basic text formatting. A classified display ad allows the advertiser to include a logo, border, image, and custom layout within the classified section, and is priced per square centimeter. The classified display ad is more expensive but significantly more visible, and it is the preferred format for advertisers who want their listing to stand out from the surrounding text ads — particularly in competitive categories like property, education, and recruitment where visual differentiation drives higher response rates.

Q: How does digital advertising on the Ei Samay website and app work?

Ei Samay website advertising and app advertising are sold through the publisher's digital advertising team, typically on CPM or CPC models. Standard display formats on eisamay.com include leaderboard, medium rectangle, and page skin formats. The app offers additional formats including in-stream video and spotlight frames. Campaigns can be targeted by geography, content category, and device type, and post-campaign reports provide data on impressions delivered, clicks, CTR, and reach. Minimum campaign commitments vary, but digital campaigns can typically be initiated with budgets starting from around ₹50,000 for a meaningful run.

Q: What is the readership and circulation of Ei Samay newspaper?

Ei Samay is among the top two Bengali language daily newspapers in urban West Bengal by readership, as measured by the Indian Readership Survey. Its circulation spans multiple editions across West Bengal, with the Kolkata edition being the highest-circulation and highest-readership edition. The IRS data places Ei Samay's urban readership in the several lakh range, with a reader profile concentrated in the 25-to-45 age group and the SEC A and A+ demographic — a profile that makes it particularly valuable for premium consumer and B2B advertising categories.

Q: How far in advance do I need to book a public notice ad in Ei Samay?

For standard classified public notice advertisements, a booking lead time of three to five working days is typically sufficient. However, for display format public notice ads — particularly those with specific size requirements mandated by government or court orders — a lead time of five to seven working days is advisable to ensure that the creative can be prepared, reviewed, and submitted within the newspaper's production deadlines. During peak periods like Durga Puja, election campaigns, or year-end, lead times should be extended further because advertising inventory is heavily booked and production schedules are compressed.

Q: Are there bulk booking discounts available for Ei Samay advertising?

Yes, bulk booking discounts are available for both print and digital Ei Samay advertising. For print, frequency discounts of 15 to 25 percent are typically available for advertisers committing to multiple insertions over a defined period, and size discounts apply for larger format bookings. For digital, volume commitments on eisamay.com inventory can attract CPM discounts of 10 to 20 percent. Bundle packages combining print and digital inventory are available and offer the best overall value. Working through an INS accredited agency with established publisher relationships gives advertisers access to negotiated rates that are typically better than what is available through self-service booking channels.

Q: Can I advertise in Ei Samay for pan-India coverage?

The print edition of Ei Samay is primarily distributed in West Bengal, with limited circulation in neighboring states like Tripura, Assam, and Jharkhand. For pan-India coverage of Bengali-speaking audiences, the eisamay.com digital platform is the more effective vehicle, as it reaches Bengali-speaking users across India regardless of where they are located. A combined print-plus-digital strategy — print for depth in West Bengal and digital for breadth across the Bengali diaspora in other cities — is the approach we recommend for advertisers seeking pan-India Bengali audience reach through a single publisher relationship.

Q: What is the minimum ad size for a display ad in Ei Samay?

The minimum display ad size in Ei Samay is typically around 10 to 15 square centimeters for a single-column unit, though the exact minimum varies by edition and position. For classified display ads, the minimum size is generally around 4 to 6 square centimeters. Front page and premium