Beyond Social and Search: A 2025 Market Overview of Others Digital Advertising in India and Its Emerging Channels

Most brand managers we speak to have a fairly narrow mental map of digital advertising — Google search, Meta feeds, YouTube pre-rolls, and maybe some Instagram Reels. What gets missed, consistently and at considerable cost, is the sprawling ecosystem that industry reports classify under "others digital advertising" — a segment that, frankly speaking, is growing faster than most mainstream channels and is still dramatically underpriced relative to the attention it delivers.

The Dentsu E4M Digital Advertising Report has been tracking this shift for several years now, and what the data shows is that the non-traditional digital advertising segment is no longer a rounding error on a media plan; it is a strategic imperative for brands that want to reach audiences where they are actually spending time, not just where the big platforms want them to be.

What Exactly Falls Under 'Others' in Digital Advertising in India?

The taxonomy here matters more than most people realise. When the Pitch Madison Advertising Report and the Dentsu E4M report break down India's digital advertising market, they typically segment it into search, social media, online video, and a fourth bucket — "others" — which catches everything that does not fit neatly into those three dominant categories. This others digital advertising segment is not a catch-all for minor formats; it is, in many ways, the most innovative and fastest-evolving corner of the entire digital advertising ecosystem in India.

What falls inside this bucket is genuinely diverse: native advertising served through platforms like Taboola, Outbrain, Inshorts, and Times Internet; digital audio advertising and podcast advertising India-wide through JioSaavn and Spotify India; connected TV advertising and OTT advertising India brands are beginning to explore seriously through JioCinema, Disney+ Hotstar, and MX Player; digital out-of-home advertising in metro and non-metro markets; email marketing advertising as a direct-response channel; affiliate marketing India brands use for performance-linked spend; in-game advertising across mobile titles; and programmatic advertising that powers the delivery of many of these formats. At SmartAds, we always tell our clients that understanding this taxonomy is not an academic exercise — it directly affects how you plan, buy, and measure a campaign, because each of these sub-formats has its own pricing logic, audience profile, and measurement currency.

To be fair, there is genuine confusion in the market about what belongs here and what does not. Display advertising India-wide is sometimes counted within "others" and sometimes broken out separately; similarly, short-form video ads on platforms outside YouTube — say, on ShareChat or MX Player — may be classified differently depending on which report you are reading. Our approach at SmartAds is to treat the "others" category as anything outside the big four — Google India search, Meta Facebook India advertising, YouTube advertising India, and pure-play social media advertising India — which gives us a practical working definition that holds up across planning conversations.

How Big Is the 'Others' Digital Advertising Segment in India?

India's total digital advertising market crossed what the Dentsu E4M report estimated at roughly ₹57,000 crore in 2024, and the digital advertising CAGR India has been tracking is somewhere in the range of 15 to 18 percent annually — a pace that makes it one of the fastest-growing digital ad markets globally. Within that total, search engine marketing India and social media advertising India together account for the dominant share; but the "others" digital advertising segment, which includes all the formats described above, accounts for a meaningful and growing slice that industry analysts estimate somewhere between 18 and 25 percent of total digital ad spend India, depending on how display advertising India is classified.

The Pitch Madison Advertising Report has consistently highlighted that the India AdEx is being reshaped by the diversification of digital spend, and what that means in practice is that brands are allocating more budget to emerging digital ad channels even as they maintain their search and social commitments. The digital advertising market India is not a zero-sum game — the overall pie is expanding — but the growth rate in the "others" segment is outpacing the mainstream categories, which is a signal that deserves serious attention from any media planner. Our experience at SmartAds shows that clients who began experimenting with non-traditional digital advertising formats three years ago are now seeing those channels deliver 20 to 30 percent of their total digital reach at a fraction of the CPM they pay on Meta.

One number that surprises clients when we put it on the table: the CPM for native advertising on premium Indian news aggregators works out to roughly ₹80 to ₹150, which compares very favourably to the ₹200 to ₹400 CPM that most brands are paying for equivalent reach on Instagram feeds. The ad spend India 2025 projections from multiple research houses — including Grand View Research, Expert Market Research, and Ken Research — suggest the others digital advertising segment will grow disproportionately as brands discover this pricing gap and as new inventory sources like CTV advertising India and DOOH advertising India come online at scale.

Which Emerging Ad Formats Are Driving Growth in India's Digital Ad Market?

The honest answer is that several formats are growing simultaneously, and the interesting thing is that they are growing for different reasons. Connected TV advertising and OTT advertising India are growing because the subscription video market has matured to the point where ad-supported tiers have become commercially viable — JioCinema's ad-supported model during IPL broadcasts demonstrated, quite dramatically, that Indian audiences will tolerate advertising in premium streaming environments if the content is compelling enough. Digital audio advertising is growing because smartphone penetration in India has created a commuting and working-from-home audience that consumes music and podcasts in ways that are genuinely difficult to reach through visual formats.

In-game advertising in India is perhaps the most underappreciated growth story in the entire digital advertising segment. India now has somewhere north of 500 million mobile gamers, a number that the Interactive Advertising Bureau and various industry estimates have been tracking upward consistently; and the in-app advertising India ecosystem that has developed around casual and mid-core gaming titles is delivering engagement metrics — specifically, time-in-view and interaction rates — that most display advertising India formats simply cannot match. One gaming company we worked with on a campaign for a FMCG digital advertising India client saw brand recall scores from in-game advertising that were roughly two and a half times higher than the same creative served as a social media ad, which was a result that genuinely changed how that client thinks about their digital advertising segment allocation.

Programmatic advertising is the connective tissue underneath much of this growth; it is the infrastructure that makes it possible to buy native advertising, digital audio advertising, and connected TV advertising through unified platforms and with consistent audience targeting. The programmatic advertising India market has matured considerably, with platforms like InMobi advertising India, Google India's DV360, and various DSPs now offering access to inventory across all these emerging digital ad channels through a single interface, which dramatically reduces the operational complexity that used to make "others" formats feel too difficult to manage alongside a mainstream digital campaign.

How Is Native Advertising Changing the Indian Digital Landscape?

Native advertising works on a simple but powerful insight: people do not hate advertising, they hate interruption. When an ad is formatted to match the editorial environment around it — same font, same layout, same reading experience — the psychological resistance that drives banner blindness largely disappears. Native advertising in India has been growing on the back of this insight, with platforms like Taboola, Outbrain, Inshorts, Times Internet, and various regional language publishers building significant native advertising inventory that reaches audiences who have effectively tuned out traditional display advertising India formats.

What a lot of people miss about native advertising in India is the vernacular opportunity. Regional language advertising India through native formats — Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Marathi, Bengali — is still dramatically underserved relative to the size of the audience. The Digital India initiative has brought hundreds of millions of first-time internet users online, and a significant proportion of these users consume content exclusively in their regional language; native advertising that meets them in that language, on the platforms they actually use, delivers engagement rates that English-language native ads simply cannot match. Vernacular digital advertising India through native formats is, in our view at SmartAds, one of the most significant underpriced opportunities in the entire digital advertising market India right now.

The contextual targeting India capabilities that native advertising platforms have developed are also worth understanding. Unlike social media advertising India, which relies heavily on behavioural and demographic data, native advertising can be targeted based on the content context — an article about home loans triggers a BFSI digital advertising unit, a recipe page triggers an FMCG digital advertising India placement. This contextual targeting India approach becomes increasingly important as first-party data India strategies mature and as the Digital Personal Data Protection Act (DPDPA) 2023 changes what behavioural data advertisers can legally use, which is a regulatory shift that native advertising is actually well-positioned to navigate.

Why Is CTV and OTT Advertising the Next Big Thing in India?

The numbers on connected TV adoption in India are genuinely striking. Smart TV shipments have been growing at a pace that multiple industry analysts, including those cited in the FICCI-EY Media Report, describe as structurally transformative; and the shift of premium content from linear television to streaming platforms like JioCinema, Disney+ Hotstar, and Netflix India's ad-supported tier has created a CTV advertising India opportunity that simply did not exist at scale three years ago. OTT advertising India is no longer a niche experiment — it is a mainstream planning consideration for any brand targeting urban and semi-urban households.

What makes CTV advertising India particularly interesting from a media planning perspective is the combination of television-like reach with digital-like targeting precision. A brand can run a 30-second connected TV advertising spot targeted to households in specific pin codes, with specific income profiles, watching specific content genres — which is a level of targeting granularity that linear television advertising cannot offer at any price. The CPM for CTV advertising India works out to somewhere between ₹250 and ₹600 depending on the platform, the content, and the targeting parameters, which is higher than some digital formats but substantially more efficient than prime-time television when you account for the targeting precision and the measurability. We have seen this format work exceptionally well for a luxury automotive brand we worked with, where the ability to target connected TV advertising to high-income households watching premium English content drove showroom visit intent scores that the client had not achieved with any previous digital advertising format.

OTT advertising India also benefits from what we call the "lean-back effect" — viewers in a streaming environment are in a more receptive, relaxed mindset than someone scrolling a social feed, which translates into higher brand recall and more favourable brand attitude shifts. The video advertising India opportunity on OTT platforms is further enhanced by the fact that skip rates on connected TV are lower than on YouTube advertising India, because the ad experience is more integrated into the viewing session and because CTV remote controls make skipping physically more effortful than a mobile tap. This is a small detail, but in our experience, it makes a meaningful difference to the effective reach a brand achieves from its video advertising India budget.

What Role Does Digital Audio and Podcast Advertising Play in India?

Digital audio advertising in India is at an interesting inflection point. Podcast advertising India has been growing steadily as the creator economy has matured and as platforms like JioSaavn and Spotify India have built out their podcast inventory alongside their music streaming ad products. The total podcast listener base in India is estimated by various research houses at somewhere between 50 and 80 million regular listeners, which is a number that is still small relative to the total internet population but is growing at a pace that makes it a serious planning consideration for brands targeting educated, urban, and professional audiences.

The thing is, digital audio advertising has a unique attribute that no other digital advertising format shares: it reaches people when their eyes are otherwise occupied. Commuters, gym-goers, people cooking or cleaning — these are all moments of genuine attention where visual advertising simply cannot reach. JioSaavn and Spotify India advertising both offer host-read ad formats alongside standard audio spots, and the host-read format in particular delivers trust-transfer effects that are difficult to replicate in any other digital advertising segment. Podcast advertising India through host-read placements effectively turns the creator's credibility into the brand's credibility, which is a mechanism that influencer marketing India has also tried to capture but with more variable results.

Pricing for digital audio advertising in India works out to a CPM somewhere in the ballpark of ₹100 to ₹250 for programmatic audio spots, while host-read podcast advertising India placements are typically negotiated on a per-episode or per-campaign basis and can range from a few thousand rupees for smaller creators to several lakh for established shows with large, loyal audiences. At SmartAds, we have found that the most effective digital audio advertising campaigns combine programmatic audio spots for reach with one or two strategic podcast advertising India host-read placements for depth, which gives brands the best of both efficiency and credibility within a single audio budget.

How Does Programmatic Advertising Power 'Other' Digital Ad Formats?

Programmatic advertising is, at its core, the automation of media buying — the use of software and algorithms to purchase ad impressions in real time, based on audience data and bidding logic, rather than through manual negotiation with individual publishers. In the context of others digital advertising, programmatic advertising is the infrastructure that makes it possible to access native advertising inventory, digital audio advertising, connected TV advertising, and DOOH advertising India through unified buying platforms, which is a capability that has fundamentally changed the economics and the scalability of non-mainstream digital ad formats in India.

The programmatic advertising India market has grown substantially, with platforms including Google India's Display and Video 360, The Trade Desk, and InMobi advertising India offering access to a wide range of emerging digital ad channels through demand-side platforms. What this means practically is that a media planner can now set up a single programmatic campaign that simultaneously buys native advertising on Times Internet, digital audio advertising on JioSaavn, and connected TV advertising on MX Player — all with consistent audience targeting based on first-party data India or contextual targeting India signals, and with unified reporting across all placements. This is a genuinely significant operational improvement over the fragmented, publisher-by-publisher buying that characterised non-traditional digital advertising just five years ago.

The difference between programmatic advertising and traditional digital ad buying in India is not just operational — it is also philosophical. Traditional direct buying involves negotiating a fixed CPM or cost per click India CPC with a publisher for a defined number of ad impressions India over a defined period; programmatic advertising means paying only for the specific impressions that meet your targeting criteria, in real time, at a price determined by auction dynamics. For most advertisers, programmatic advertising delivers better audience relevance and better cost efficiency, though it also introduces complexities around brand safety digital India and ad fraud India that direct buying does not — a trade-off that we discuss in detail with every client before recommending a programmatic-first approach.

How Does Digital Out-of-Home Advertising Work in India?

Digital out-of-home advertising — DOOH advertising India — occupies a fascinating middle ground between traditional outdoor media and digital advertising. The screens are physical, located in malls, airports, metro stations, highways, and high-street locations; but the content is digital, which means it can be updated in real time, targeted by time of day or audience context, and in some cases, made interactive. DOOH advertising India has been growing as outdoor media owners upgrade their physical infrastructure, and the programmatic DOOH opportunity — where digital out-of-home advertising inventory is bought through the same platforms used for online digital advertising — is beginning to emerge in major Indian metros.

The CPM for DOOH advertising India in premium locations — airports, metro stations in Mumbai, Delhi, and Bengaluru — works out to somewhere between ₹15 and ₹50 per thousand impressions, which is a number that surprises most first-time advertisers when they compare it to what they are paying for Instagram reach, because the effective audience quality at an airport or metro station is often significantly higher than a social media impression in terms of income profile and purchase intent. In non-metro markets, DOOH advertising India CPMs are lower still, which makes it an attractive option for brands targeting Tier II Tier III cities India with a visual brand-building message that complements their digital advertising India campaign. One retail client in Pune that we worked with used DOOH advertising in high-footfall commercial areas alongside a programmatic native advertising campaign, and the combination drove a 34 percent higher store visit rate compared to their previous digital-only campaign — a result that demonstrated the omnichannel advertising India effect that DOOH can catalyse.

What a lot of people miss about digital out-of-home advertising is the contextual targeting India opportunity it creates. A DOOH screen near a gym can run a protein supplement ad at 6 AM and 7 PM; a screen near a school can run an edtech ad at 3 PM; a screen in a mall food court can run a QSR ad at lunchtime. This time-of-day and location-based contextual targeting India capability, which is increasingly available through programmatic DOOH platforms, makes digital out-of-home advertising far more precise than traditional static outdoor, and it positions DOOH advertising India as a genuine bridge between the physical and digital advertising worlds.

Which Industries in India Are Spending Most on Other Digital Ad Formats?

E-commerce advertising India is, unsurprisingly, one of the heaviest spenders on others digital advertising formats, particularly affiliate marketing India and programmatic advertising. Platforms like Flipkart Internet and Amazon advertising India have built sophisticated affiliate marketing India ecosystems that drive a significant proportion of their traffic and sales; and the retail media advertising India category — where brands pay to advertise within e-commerce platforms' own environments — is growing rapidly as Zomato Media, Paytm Ads, and Flipkart Internet develop their advertising products. The retail media advertising India opportunity is particularly interesting because it combines purchase-intent targeting with first-party data India from actual transaction histories, which is a combination that no other digital advertising format can replicate.

FMCG digital advertising India brands have been among the most aggressive adopters of native advertising and digital audio advertising, partly because their products are purchased by a broad demographic that includes both urban and rural audiences, and partly because FMCG brands understand the value of reaching consumers at moments of genuine consideration rather than interrupting them mid-scroll. BFSI digital advertising — banking, financial services, and insurance — has been a significant investor in programmatic advertising and contextual targeting India, because the regulatory environment around financial product advertising requires careful audience selection and the ability to demonstrate that ads were served to appropriate audiences; programmatic advertising with robust targeting controls is well-suited to these requirements.

The education sector, particularly edtech brands, has been an enthusiastic adopter of in-game advertising and in-app advertising India, targeting the student demographic through mobile gaming environments where they spend significant time. Automotive brands, as mentioned in our earlier CTV advertising India example, have found connected TV advertising particularly effective for reaching household decision-makers in a lean-back environment. Frankly speaking, the most sophisticated advertisers across all these categories share one characteristic: they are not treating others digital advertising as an afterthought or a budget remnant, but as a deliberate strategic allocation that complements their search engine marketing India and social media advertising India commitments.

How Are Tier-II and Tier-III Cities Shaping Others Digital Advertising in India?

The conventional wisdom that digital advertising India is primarily a metro phenomenon is, at this point, simply wrong. Tier II Tier III cities India now account for a majority of new internet users, driven by affordable smartphones, cheap data, and the Digital India initiative; and these users are consuming content on platforms and in formats that are quite different from their metro counterparts. Vernacular digital advertising India — ads in Hindi, Bhojpuri, Tamil, Marathi, and dozens of other regional languages — is the primary mechanism through which brands can reach these audiences effectively, and the others digital advertising segment is where much of this vernacular opportunity sits.

Regional language advertising India through native advertising formats on platforms like ShareChat, which serves a predominantly non-metro, vernacular-language audience, delivers engagement rates that English-language digital advertising simply cannot match in these markets. Digital audio advertising in regional languages through JioSaavn's Hindi and regional music inventory reaches audiences who may not read English-language news but who spend several hours a day with audio content. Mobile-first advertising India strategies that are designed for the specific smartphone usage patterns of Tier II Tier III cities India — shorter sessions, more voice-based navigation, lower data speeds — are essential for making others digital advertising work in these markets, and they require a level of local market intelligence that most national media plans do not currently incorporate.

At SmartAds, we have been building Tier II Tier III cities India strategies for clients across categories, and what our experience shows is that the cost efficiency of others digital advertising in non-metro markets is genuinely remarkable. A vernacular native advertising campaign targeting Tier II cities in Maharashtra, for example, can deliver CPMs that are 40 to 60 percent lower than equivalent reach in Mumbai or Pune, while reaching audiences with strong purchase intent and relatively low competitive advertising pressure. The smartphone advertising India opportunity in these markets is real, it is growing, and it is being captured by brands that are willing to invest in regional language advertising India and mobile-first advertising India formats that go beyond the standard social media advertising India playbook.

What Are the Biggest Challenges Facing Non-Mainstream Digital Ad Channels in India?

Ad fraud India is a genuine and persistent problem in the others digital advertising segment, and we would be doing our clients a disservice if we did not address it directly. Non-mainstream digital ad channels — particularly programmatic advertising inventory in the long tail of the web, certain in-app advertising India environments, and affiliate marketing India networks — are more susceptible to ad fraud than walled-garden platforms like Google India or Meta Facebook India advertising, because the inventory is more fragmented and the verification infrastructure is less mature. Ad impressions India that are generated by bots rather than human viewers are a real cost to advertisers, and the ad fraud India problem is estimated by various industry bodies to affect somewhere between 10 and 25 percent of programmatic advertising spend globally, with India-specific numbers that are difficult to pin down precisely but are believed to be within that range.

Brand safety digital India is a related challenge; the same fragmentation that makes others digital advertising interesting from a reach and cost perspective also makes it harder to control where your ads appear. A native advertising campaign that is not carefully managed can end up appearing alongside low-quality or brand-inappropriate content on publisher sites that are part of a network but not individually vetted. The Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) and the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) have both published guidelines on brand safety digital India, and the practical implication for advertisers is that programmatic advertising campaigns in the others digital advertising segment need to include robust brand safety controls — whitelists, content category exclusions, and third-party verification — that add operational complexity but are non-negotiable for protecting brand equity.

The Digital Personal Data Protection Act (DPDPA) 2023 is perhaps the most significant structural challenge facing non-traditional digital advertising in India over the next several years. The DPDPA's requirements around consent for data collection and use will affect in-app advertising India, email marketing advertising, affiliate marketing India, and any other format that relies on behavioural targeting based on personal data. The shift toward contextual targeting India and first-party data India strategies — where advertisers use their own customer data rather than third-party behavioural data — is partly a response to the DPDPA, and it is a shift that will require significant investment in data infrastructure and consent management from brands that have historically relied on third-party data for their programmatic advertising targeting.

Future Trends in Others Digital Advertising India: What Comes Next?

AI-driven advertising is the most significant near-term trend reshaping the others digital advertising segment, and it is operating at multiple levels simultaneously. At the creative level, AI-driven advertising tools are enabling hyper-personalization digital ads — ad content that is dynamically generated based on the viewer's context, location, time of day, and behavioural signals, which produces a more relevant ad experience without requiring the manual creation of hundreds of individual creative variants. At the buying level, AI-driven advertising optimisation is improving the efficiency of programmatic advertising campaigns by making real-time bidding decisions that human media planners simply cannot make at the speed and scale required. The combination of AI-driven advertising at both the creative and buying levels is, in our view, what will drive the next wave of growth in the digital advertising CAGR India projections.

Connected TV advertising and OTT advertising India will continue to grow as smart TV penetration deepens and as more premium content migrates to streaming platforms with ad-supported tiers. The overlap between CTV advertising India and linear television advertising will become increasingly blurred, and the measurement currency for connected TV advertising — which is currently fragmented across platform-specific metrics — will likely converge toward a unified reach and frequency standard, possibly drawing on BARC viewership data methodologies adapted for streaming environments. Short-form video ads on platforms like Instagram Reels India and YouTube Shorts will continue to grow, though whether these are classified within "others" or within social/video categories will depend on how industry taxonomies evolve.

Retail media advertising India is, frankly speaking, one of the most exciting emerging digital ad channels in the entire digital advertising market India. As Amazon advertising India, Flipkart Internet, Zomato Media, and other commerce platforms build out their advertising products, the ability to target consumers at the moment of active purchase consideration — with first-party data India from actual transaction histories — will make retail media advertising India one of the highest-ROI formats available. The digital advertising segment that we currently call "others" will, in five years, likely include retail media advertising India as one of its most significant and best-measured components; and brands that build expertise in this format now will have a meaningful head start over those that wait for the market to mature before engaging.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What does the 'Others' category in digital advertising include in India?

The "others" category in digital advertising India, as used in industry reports like the Dentsu E4M Digital Advertising Report and the Pitch Madison Advertising Report, encompasses all digital advertising formats that fall outside the three dominant categories of search engine marketing India, social media advertising India, and online video advertising India. In practice, this includes native advertising on content platforms, digital audio advertising and podcast advertising India, connected TV advertising and OTT advertising India, digital out-of-home advertising, email marketing advertising, affiliate marketing India, in-game advertising, in-app advertising India, and the programmatic advertising infrastructure that underpins many of these formats. Display advertising India is sometimes included in this category and sometimes broken out separately, depending on the specific report's methodology. The common thread across all these formats is that they represent non-traditional digital advertising channels — emerging digital ad channels that are growing in importance even as they remain less familiar than the mainstream platforms.

Q: How large is the 'Others' digital advertising segment in India's total ad spend?

Precise segmentation data for the others digital advertising category is difficult to pin down because different research houses — including Grand View Research, Ken Research, Expert Market Research, and CRISIL — use slightly different taxonomies. What the available data suggests is that the others digital advertising segment accounts for somewhere between 18 and 25 percent of total digital ad spend India, which, against a total digital advertising market India that the Dentsu E4M report estimated at roughly ₹57,000 crore in 2024, works out to a segment worth somewhere in the ballpark of ₹10,000 to ₹14,000 crore. The digital advertising CAGR India for this segment is estimated to be running ahead of the overall market growth rate, driven by the rapid expansion of CTV advertising India, digital audio advertising, and retail media advertising India.

Q: What are the fastest-growing non-mainstream digital ad formats in India in 2025?

Based on the data available from industry reports and our own campaign experience at SmartAds, the fastest-growing other digital ad formats in India in 2025 are connected TV advertising and OTT advertising India, programmatic digital out-of-home advertising, digital audio advertising including podcast advertising India, and retail media advertising India. In-game advertising is also growing rapidly, driven by India's mobile gaming boom, which has created an in-app advertising India ecosystem of considerable scale. The common thread across all these formats is that they are reaching audiences in contexts — lean-back streaming, commuting, gaming — where traditional digital advertising India formats have limited access, which means they are adding genuinely incremental reach rather than simply duplicating the audiences that brands are already reaching through social media advertising India and search engine marketing India.

Q: How does native advertising work in India and which platforms support it?

Native advertising works by formatting ad content to match the editorial environment in which it appears — the same visual style, the same reading experience, the same content format as the surrounding editorial material. In India, native advertising is supported by a range of platforms including Taboola and Outbrain, which distribute native advertising across a network of publisher websites; Inshorts, which offers native advertising within its news digest format; Times Internet, which provides native advertising across its portfolio of news and lifestyle properties; and various regional language publishers who offer native advertising in vernacular formats. The targeting for native advertising in India can be done on a contextual targeting India basis — matching ads to relevant content categories — or on an audience basis using first-party data India or programmatic audience segments. The CPM for native advertising in India works out to roughly ₹80 to ₹150 on premium properties, which is competitive relative to social media advertising India CPMs for equivalent audience quality.

Q: What is digital audio advertising and which platforms offer it in India?

Digital audio advertising encompasses ads served within music streaming, podcast, and audio content environments — as pre-roll, mid-roll, or post-roll audio spots, or as host-read integrations in the case of podcast advertising India. In India, the primary platforms for digital audio advertising are JioSaavn, which offers both programmatic audio advertising and branded content integrations across its music and podcast inventory, and Spotify India, which offers audio advertising across its free-tier music and podcast listeners. Both platforms offer targeting by demographics, geography, listening context, and in some cases, mood or genre, which makes digital audio advertising a surprisingly precise format for reaching specific audience segments. The digital audio advertising market in India is still relatively early-stage compared to markets like the US or UK, which means that pricing is competitive and inventory is available at CPMs that represent good value relative to the audience quality being delivered.

Q: How is CTV and OTT advertising classified under 'others' in Indian digital advertising?

The classification of CTV advertising India and OTT advertising India within the digital advertising taxonomy is genuinely contested among industry analysts. Some reports classify OTT advertising India within the "online video" category alongside YouTube advertising India; others classify it within "others" because the buying mechanism, the screen environment, and the audience experience are sufficiently different from desktop or mobile video advertising to warrant separate treatment. Connected TV advertising specifically — ads served on smart TV screens through streaming apps — is most commonly classified within the "others" digital advertising segment because it most closely resembles television advertising in its format and viewing context, even though it is delivered through digital infrastructure. For practical media planning purposes, we treat CTV advertising India and OTT advertising India as distinct from social video and YouTube advertising India, because they require different creative specifications, different buying approaches, and different measurement frameworks.

Q: What is the difference between programmatic advertising and traditional digital ad buying in India?

Traditional digital ad buying in India involves direct negotiation between an advertiser or agency and a publisher — agreeing on a fixed CPM or cost per click India CPC, a defined number of ad impressions India, a specific placement or section of a website or app, and a defined campaign period. Programmatic advertising replaces this manual process with automated, real-time auction-based buying, where individual ad impressions India are bought and sold in milliseconds based on audience data and bidding algorithms. The practical advantages of programmatic advertising include better audience targeting precision, the ability to buy across multiple publishers and formats through a single platform, real-time optimisation based on performance data, and in many cases, lower effective CPMs because you are only paying for the impressions that meet your targeting criteria. The trade-offs include greater complexity in setup and management, the need for robust brand safety digital India controls to prevent ads appearing in inappropriate environments, and exposure to ad fraud India risks that are lower in direct-buy arrangements with trusted publishers.

Q: How does Digital Out-of-Home (DOOH) advertising work in India?

Digital out-of-home advertising in India works through a network of digital screens — LED billboards, mall screens, airport displays, metro station panels, and petrol pump screens — that display advertising content in rotation with other advertisers' content. Unlike traditional static outdoor advertising, DOOH advertising India allows content to be updated remotely and in real time, which enables time-of-day targeting, event-triggered content changes, and in some cases, dynamic creative that responds to external data like weather or traffic conditions. Programmatic DOOH — where digital out-of-home advertising inventory is bought through the same demand-side platforms used for online digital advertising — is an emerging capability in India, currently available in major metros like Mumbai, Delhi, and Bengaluru, and expanding into Tier II markets. The audience measurement for DOOH advertising India is based on footfall and traffic data from the screen locations, which is converted into estimated impressions and CPMs that can be compared to online digital advertising metrics.

Q: Which industries in India spend the most on 'other' digital advertising formats?

E-commerce advertising India — including platforms like Amazon advertising India and Flipkart Internet — is among the heaviest spenders on others digital advertising, particularly affiliate marketing India and retail media advertising India. FMCG digital advertising India brands are significant investors in native advertising and digital audio advertising, because these formats reach consumers at moments of genuine consideration rather than interrupting active tasks. BFSI digital advertising is a major programmatic advertising spender, using contextual targeting India and audience-based buying to reach consumers at financially relevant moments. The education sector, particularly edtech brands, has been an enthusiastic adopter of in-game advertising and in-app advertising India. Automotive brands have been among the early adopters of CTV advertising India, using the connected TV environment to reach household decision-makers with high-production video content in a lean-back, high-attention context.

Q: How does the Digital Personal Data Protection Act (DPDPA) affect non-mainstream digital ad formats in India?

The Digital Personal Data Protection Act (DPDPA) 2023 has significant implications for others digital advertising formats that rely on personal data for targeting. Email marketing advertising is directly affected, because the DPDPA requires explicit consent for the collection and use of personal data, which means that email marketing lists must be built on a consent-first basis and that the use of purchased or third-party email lists for advertising purposes is likely to become legally problematic. In-app advertising India that relies on device identifiers and behavioural data for targeting will need to comply with the DPDPA's consent requirements, which will require app developers and advertisers to implement