Whats Up Guides Magazine Advertising: Rates, Formats, and Why India's Affluent Urban Audience Is Worth Every Rupee

Most brands that come to us asking about lifestyle magazine advertising in India have already spent months pouring budgets into digital channels, only to discover that their target audience — the genuinely affluent, decision-making urban professional — has developed a remarkable immunity to banner ads and pre-roll videos. Whats Up Guides magazine, which has quietly built one of the most loyal upscale readerships across Bangalore, Delhi, Mumbai, and Hyderabad, represents something that performance marketers often underestimate: a captive audience that actually chooses to engage with the content in front of them.

What Is Whats Up Guides Magazine and Who Reads It?

Frankly speaking, Whats Up Guides is one of those publications that media planners in the lifestyle segment have known about for years, while brand managers outside the metro markets are only now beginning to take seriously. Published as a monthly magazine with city-specific editions, Whats Up Guides positions itself as a premium lifestyle and entertainment guide — covering dining, travel, fashion, wellness, and urban culture — which means its readership is self-selected in a way that most mass publications simply cannot replicate. The reader who picks up Whats Up Guides is not doing so by accident; they are actively seeking curated recommendations for how to spend their discretionary income, which makes them extraordinarily valuable to the right advertiser.

The demographic profile of Whats Up Guides readers skews heavily toward urban professionals between 25 and 45 years of age, with household incomes that typically place them in the SEC A and SEC A+ categories; the Bangalore edition, in particular, draws heavily from the technology and startup ecosystem, while the Delhi edition tends to attract readers from finance, media, and government-adjacent industries. Mumbai readers, as one might expect, lean toward entertainment, fashion, and financial services professionals, whereas the Hyderabad edition has seen significant growth among the pharmaceutical, IT, and real estate communities. What a lot of people miss is that this city-specific segmentation is not just a distribution quirk — it is a genuine editorial differentiation that allows advertisers to tailor their messaging to the specific aspirations and spending patterns of each market.

At SmartAds, we always tell our clients that the value of a publication like Whats Up Guides lies not just in the numbers but in the context of consumption. A reader who has paid for or actively collected a glossy magazine at a premium hotel lobby, a high-end salon, or a curated bookstore is in a fundamentally different mindset than someone scrolling through a social media feed at midnight; they are relaxed, receptive, and — critically — not simultaneously comparing your ad to seventeen other brands. Our experience shows that this quality of attention is something that print media, and specifically lifestyle magazine advertising, delivers in a way that is genuinely difficult to replicate through digital channels alone.

How Much Does It Cost to Advertise in Whats Up Guides Magazine?

This is the question we get asked most often, and the honest answer is that Whats Up Guides advertising rates are positioned at a premium compared to regional city magazines but remain significantly more accessible than national glossies like Vogue India or Femina — which is precisely what makes it such an interesting proposition for mid-to-large brands that want quality reach without the eye-watering rates of a national print campaign. A full page ad in Whats Up Guides works out to somewhere in the ballpark of ₹80,000 to ₹1,20,000 depending on the edition and the placement within the magazine, which, when you calculate the CPM against their verified readership figures, is a number that surprises most first-time advertisers when they compare it to what they are paying for equivalent reach among affluent audiences on Instagram or LinkedIn.

The back cover ad, which is the most premium and most visible placement in any print publication, is priced higher — roughly in the range of ₹1,50,000 to ₹2,00,000 for a single insertion — and it commands that premium for good reason; in our experience, back cover placements in lifestyle magazines generate recall rates that are measurably higher than inside placements, simply because the cover is the first and last thing a reader sees every time they set the magazine down. The inside front cover, which is the second most premium position, typically falls somewhere between the full page rate and the back cover rate, in the neighbourhood of ₹1,20,000 to ₹1,60,000 per insertion. A half page ad, which suits brands that want presence without committing to a full page budget, is priced at roughly ₹45,000 to ₹65,000 depending on orientation and edition.

For brands with the creative ambition and the budget to match, the double spread ad — which spans two facing pages and creates an immersive visual experience that no digital format can truly replicate — is priced in the range of ₹1,80,000 to ₹2,50,000 per insertion, and the gatefold advertisement, which unfolds to reveal a three-page or four-page creative canvas, is typically negotiated on a case-by-case basis at rates that can reach ₹3,00,000 or beyond for premium editions. The advertorial format, which blends editorial content with brand messaging and is particularly effective for luxury, wellness, and hospitality brands, is generally priced at a premium over the equivalent display ad format — and in our view, it is consistently underutilised by brands that would benefit enormously from the editorial credibility it provides. Festive editions — the Diwali issue, the New Year issue, and the summer travel special — command a rate premium of roughly 15 to 25 percent over standard issue rates, which reflects the significantly higher circulation and reader engagement those issues attract.

What Ad Formats Can You Book in Whats Up Guides?

The range of ad formats available in Whats Up Guides magazine is broader than most advertisers initially assume, and choosing the wrong format is one of the most common mistakes we see brands make when they first enter print magazine advertising. The full page ad is the workhorse of the format lineup — it gives a brand the full canvas of a magazine page, which in a glossy lifestyle publication translates into a genuinely premium visual experience; a well-designed full page color advertisement in Whats Up Guides carries a weight and presence that digital display simply cannot match. The half page ad, available in both horizontal and vertical orientations, suits brands that are testing the medium or working within tighter budgets, and it works particularly well when placed opposite strong editorial content that the reader is already engaged with.

The double spread ad, which occupies two facing pages, is the format we recommend most enthusiastically to brands in the luxury, automotive, real estate, and hospitality categories, because the visual impact of a well-executed double spread in a high-quality lifestyle magazine is something that stops readers mid-flip; one automotive brand we worked with ran a double spread campaign across the Bangalore and Mumbai editions of Whats Up Guides, and the feedback from their dealership network was that the quality of enquiries — not just the volume — improved noticeably during the campaign period. The gatefold advertisement is reserved for brands that want to make an event of their ad placement, and while it is the most expensive format, it is also the most talked-about; we have seen gatefolds used brilliantly by luxury hotel groups launching new properties and by jewellery brands during the festive season.

The advertorial format deserves special mention because it is, in our honest opinion, the most underrated format in the entire Whats Up Guides ad portfolio. An advertorial is written and designed to blend with the editorial voice of the magazine, which means readers engage with it as content rather than dismissing it as advertising; for brands in wellness, skincare, fine dining, travel, and professional services, an advertorial in Whats Up Guides can deliver the kind of considered, detailed brand story that a display ad — however beautifully designed — simply cannot tell. On top of that, the inside front cover and back cover placements, which are technically display formats, carry a positional premium that makes them function almost like a category-exclusive sponsorship of the reader's first and last impression of the entire issue.

Whats Up Guides Readership and Circulation Across Key Markets

Circulation figures for city lifestyle magazines in India are a subject that deserves more transparency than the industry typically offers, and we say that as a media buying agency that has spent years cross-referencing publisher claims against Indian Readership Survey data and independent audit figures. Whats Up Guides maintains IRS-verified circulation across its primary editions, with the Bangalore edition being the strongest performer — the publication is distributed through a network of premium hotels, restaurants, spas, gyms, bookstores, and residential complexes that collectively represent the highest-density concentration of affluent urban consumers in the city. The total readership, which accounts for pass-along reading (the number of people who read each copy beyond the primary subscriber or recipient), is typically estimated at a multiplier of three to five times the print run, which is consistent with what the Indian Readership Survey data has historically shown for premium city lifestyle magazines.

The Bangalore edition's circulation is estimated in the range of 25,000 to 35,000 copies per month, which translates to a readership of somewhere between 75,000 and 1,50,000 unique readers when pass-along consumption is factored in; the Delhi and Mumbai editions have comparable figures, while the Hyderabad edition, which is the newest of the major markets, is building toward similar numbers as the city's lifestyle economy continues to expand. What a lot of media planners miss when they look at these numbers is that the relevant comparison is not with a mass newspaper or a national magazine — it is with the specific slice of the urban affluent population that a brand actually needs to reach, and by that measure, the CPM for Whats Up Guides advertising works out to be genuinely competitive. To put it in perspective: reaching 1,000 affluent, engaged readers through a full page ad in Whats Up Guides costs roughly ₹800 to ₹1,200 in CPM terms, which compares favourably to the cost of reaching a similarly qualified audience through programmatic display or even targeted social media advertising.

At SmartAds, we cross-reference publication circulation data against IRS-verified figures and our own campaign performance data before recommending any print media buy to a client; this is a discipline that many brands and smaller advertising agencies skip, which leads to inflated expectations and disappointing results. The Whats Up Guides readership profile — urban professionals, decision makers, high income audience members who are actively engaged with lifestyle content — is one that we have consistently found to deliver strong brand recall and purchase consideration metrics when the creative and the placement are well-matched to the publication's editorial environment.

How Do You Book an Ad in Whats Up Guides Magazine?

The booking process for Whats Up Guides magazine advertising is more straightforward than many first-time print advertisers expect, but there are a few timing and process nuances that can make the difference between a smooth campaign and a last-minute scramble. The first step is to confirm the edition or editions you want to advertise in — Bangalore, Delhi, Mumbai, or Hyderabad — and to identify the issue month, because Whats Up Guides operates on a monthly publication cycle, which means the booking and creative submission deadlines are fixed and non-negotiable once the print production schedule is locked. Most editions require space booking to be confirmed at least 30 to 45 days before the publication date, with final creative artwork due approximately 15 to 20 days before publication; missing these deadlines is the single most common reason that brands lose their preferred placement to a competitor.

The ad booking process can be initiated directly through the Whats Up Guides sales team, or — and this is what we recommend for brands managing multi-city or multi-insertion campaigns — through a magazine advertising agency like SmartAds, which can negotiate rates, manage creative submissions, and coordinate across multiple editions simultaneously. Working through an agency also gives brands access to bulk booking discounts and the ability to plan campaigns around festive issues and special editions, which are often booked out months in advance by regular advertisers who know the value of those high-circulation issues. Magazine ad booking online through platforms has become more accessible in recent years, and while direct digital booking tools exist, the nuances of placement negotiation, position preference, and creative approval are still best handled through a media buying partner who has an established relationship with the publication.

For brands that are new to Whats Up Guides advertising, we typically recommend starting with a three-issue test campaign across a single edition, which gives enough data to evaluate brand recall and response before committing to a larger multi-city or full-year campaign. One retail client in Pune, who was expanding into Bangalore, ran a three-month campaign in the Whats Up Guides Bangalore edition ahead of their store launch; the campaign, which combined a full page ad in the first month with advertorials in the second and third months, generated a level of pre-launch awareness among the target demographic that their digital campaign alone had not achieved, and the store opening footfall exceeded their projections by a margin that the client directly attributed — at least in part — to the print media visibility.

Cities Covered: Bangalore, Delhi, Hyderabad, and Mumbai Editions Compared

The city-specific nature of Whats Up Guides is one of its most strategically valuable characteristics, and it is something that distinguishes the publication from national lifestyle magazines in a way that matters enormously for brands with a city-specific marketing objective. The Bangalore edition is the flagship, which reflects both the city's status as India's most dynamic urban lifestyle market and the publication's origins; Whats Up Guides Bangalore advertising reaches a readership that is disproportionately composed of technology professionals, startup founders, and the service industry professionals who cater to them — a demographic that is younger, more digitally savvy, and more brand-conscious than almost any other urban cohort in India. Brands in fintech, consumer electronics, premium F&B, co-working spaces, and luxury residential real estate have found the Bangalore edition particularly effective for reaching decision makers who are actively spending on lifestyle upgrades.

The Delhi edition attracts a different character of reader — older on average, more established in their careers, and with spending patterns that lean toward luxury goods, premium hospitality, and high-value services like private education and wealth management; the Delhi readership also includes a significant proportion of opinion leaders in politics, media, and the arts, which makes it valuable for brands that are building credibility and social proof among influential communities. The Mumbai edition, predictably, skews toward the entertainment, fashion, and financial services industries, with a readership that is among the most brand-literate in the country — these are readers who notice production quality, who respond to sophisticated creative, and who are genuinely influenced by what they see in a well-positioned lifestyle magazine. The Hyderabad edition is the most interesting growth story; the city's rapid expansion as a technology and pharmaceutical hub has created a new class of affluent urban professionals who are hungry for the kind of curated lifestyle content that Whats Up Guides provides, and advertising rates in the Hyderabad edition are currently more competitive than in the other three markets, which represents a genuine opportunity for brands that are building presence in that city.

Why Is Whats Up Guides Ideal for Targeting Affluent Urban Audiences?

There is a reason that luxury brands, premium hospitality groups, and high-end retail chains have been advertising in Whats Up Guides consistently for years, and it is not simply habit or inertia — it is because the publication delivers something that is genuinely scarce in the current media environment: a captive audience of high income consumers who are in an active discovery mindset. The distribution model of Whats Up Guides — placed in five-star hotel lobbies, premium salons, fine dining restaurants, luxury gyms, and high-end residential complexes — means that the reader is almost always in a context of leisure and aspiration when they encounter the magazine, which is precisely the psychological state in which brand messages are most effectively absorbed. This is a point that the FICCI-EY Media Report has consistently made about premium print media: the context of consumption matters as much as the reach numbers, and lifestyle magazine advertising scores exceptionally well on contextual relevance.

The affluent readers of Whats Up Guides are, almost by definition, decision makers — people who control significant household and business spending, who influence the purchasing decisions of their peers, and who are actively looking for recommendations in the categories that the magazine covers. Our experience at SmartAds shows that brands in categories like luxury automobiles, premium real estate, fine jewellery, international travel, private banking, and premium skincare consistently achieve higher brand awareness and purchase consideration scores from their Whats Up Guides advertising than from equivalent digital spends targeting the same demographic; the reason, we believe, is that the physical act of reading a glossy magazine creates a depth of engagement that a digital impression — measured in milliseconds — simply cannot replicate. On top of that, the pass-along readership of a lifestyle magazine means that each copy of Whats Up Guides is read by multiple people, which extends the effective reach of every ad placement beyond the primary reader.

How Does Whats Up Guides Compare to Other Lifestyle Magazines in India?

This is a comparison that media planners are frequently asked to make, and the honest answer is more nuanced than a simple ranking. Vogue India and Femina are national publications with circulations that dwarf Whats Up Guides in raw numbers — Vogue India's circulation runs into several lakh copies per month, and its advertising rates reflect that scale, with a full page ad costing several times what the equivalent placement in Whats Up Guides would cost. But the relevant question for most advertisers is not which publication is bigger; it is which publication delivers the most efficient access to the specific audience they need to reach, and on that metric, Whats Up Guides advertising holds its own very effectively against the national titles for brands with a city-specific objective. The CPM for Whats Up Guides, when calculated against its verified urban affluent readership, is often more efficient than the CPM for national glossies, because you are not paying for circulation in markets where your brand has no distribution or relevance.

India Today and similar news-adjacent magazines reach a broad, educated readership, but the lifestyle segment they occupy is fundamentally different from the curated, aspirational content environment of Whats Up Guides; a reader of India Today is in an information-seeking mindset, whereas a reader of Whats Up Guides is in a discovery and aspiration mindset, which is a meaningful distinction for brands in categories like luxury, hospitality, and premium consumer goods. Compared to inflight magazines — which are another popular vehicle for reaching affluent urban audiences — Whats Up Guides offers the advantage of repeated, local exposure; an inflight reader encounters the magazine once on a journey, whereas a Whats Up Guides reader in Bangalore may encounter the same issue multiple times over the course of a month, in multiple contexts, which builds the kind of brand familiarity that a single-exposure medium cannot achieve. Frankly speaking, the comparison that matters most is not Whats Up Guides versus any single competitor, but Whats Up Guides as part of a thoughtfully constructed media mix that combines its strengths with complementary digital and outdoor channels.

What Are the Creative Guidelines for Whats Up Guides Ads?

Getting the creative right for a Whats Up Guides ad is, in our experience, the step that brands most frequently underinvest in — and it is also the step that most directly determines whether the campaign delivers on its potential. The technical specifications for Whats Up Guides are consistent with industry standards for premium print publications: full page ads are typically set at a trim size of approximately 210mm x 280mm with a bleed of 3mm on all sides and a safe zone of 5mm inside the trim, which means that critical text and logos should be kept well within the safe area to avoid being cropped during the trimming process. Artwork should be submitted as high-resolution PDF or TIFF files at a minimum resolution of 300 DPI in CMYK colour mode, which is the standard for offset printing; RGB files, which are designed for screen display, will produce noticeably different — and typically disappointing — colour results when converted for print, and this is a mistake we see surprisingly often from brands that primarily work in digital media.

The creative design philosophy for a Whats Up Guides ad should reflect the premium, curated aesthetic of the publication itself; ads that look like they were designed for a newspaper or a digital banner will feel incongruous in the glossy, high-production-quality environment of the magazine, and readers will register that incongruity — consciously or not — as a signal about the brand's quality. What we tell our clients is that the creative brief for a lifestyle magazine ad should be approached differently from a digital creative brief: the goal is not to drive an immediate click or conversion, but to create a brand impression that is beautiful, memorable, and consistent with the aspirational context in which it will be seen. A color advertisement in Whats Up Guides should use the full richness of offset printing — deep blacks, vibrant colours, and high-quality photography — to create an image that the reader genuinely pauses to appreciate.

For advertorial formats, the creative guidelines extend to copywriting as well as design; the text should match the editorial voice of the publication, which is warm, knowledgeable, and recommendation-oriented, rather than adopting the promotional tone of a typical advertisement. Submission deadlines for final artwork are typically 15 to 20 days before the publication date, and we strongly recommend submitting a proof for review at least a week before the deadline to allow time for corrections; last-minute creative changes are the most common cause of production errors in print media, and in a monthly magazine, a production error cannot be corrected until the following issue. Ad creative guidelines specific to each edition and issue are available through the Whats Up Guides sales team or through a media buying agency like SmartAds, which maintains up-to-date technical specifications for all the publications in our planning portfolio.

Which Brands Should Advertise in Whats Up Guides Magazine?

Not every brand is a natural fit for Whats Up Guides, and we would rather be honest about that than oversell the medium. The publication's sweet spot is brands that are targeting urban professionals with significant discretionary spending power — luxury and premium consumer goods, hospitality and travel, fine dining and beverage, premium real estate, financial services, luxury automotive, high-end retail, wellness and skincare, and professional services that cater to high-net-worth individuals. One luxury hospitality brand we worked with ran a six-month campaign across the Bangalore and Mumbai editions of Whats Up Guides, combining back cover ads in alternate months with advertorials in the intervening months; the campaign generated a measurable uplift in direct booking enquiries from the target city markets, and the client reported that the quality of enquiries — the average booking value and the conversion rate from enquiry to booking — was higher during the campaign period than in comparable periods without print media support.

Brands that are launching in a new city, or that are building awareness among a specific urban demographic for the first time, will find Whats Up Guides advertising particularly valuable; the publication's positioning as the definitive guide to the best of urban life in each city means that being featured in it — whether through a display ad or an advertorial — carries an implicit endorsement of quality and relevance. Brands in the mass consumer, FMCG, or price-sensitive categories are generally better served by other media channels; the Whats Up Guides audience is not price-driven, but they are quality-driven and brand-conscious, which means that messaging that leads with value or discount is likely to feel out of place in the publication's editorial environment. The lifestyle segment of the Indian advertising market, which the FICCI-EY Media Report has consistently identified as one of the fastest-growing segments in print media, is precisely the territory where Whats Up Guides operates most effectively.

What Are the Discounts Available for Multiple Insertions?

The rate card for Whats Up Guides advertising, like most print publications, is a starting point for negotiation rather than a fixed price — and the most significant discounts are available to brands that commit to multiple insertions across consecutive issues. A three-insertion booking typically attracts a discount in the range of 10 to 15 percent off the standard rate card, which is meaningful when you are talking about full page or back cover placements; a six-insertion campaign, which represents a half-year commitment, can attract discounts of 20 to 25 percent, and a twelve-insertion annual campaign — which gives a brand a consistent presence in the magazine throughout the year — is typically negotiated at discounts of 30 percent or more, depending on the edition and the format. Bulk discount structures are also available for brands booking across multiple city editions simultaneously, which is particularly relevant for national brands that want to maintain consistent visibility in all four major markets.

Festive issue placements — the Diwali, Christmas, and New Year editions — are typically priced at a premium, but brands that have an annual booking in place are usually given first right of refusal on their preferred placement in these high-circulation issues, which is a significant advantage over brands that try to book festive placements on an ad hoc basis. Our advice at SmartAds is always to plan the annual calendar in advance and to lock in the festive issue placements as part of the annual booking, because these issues sell out their premium positions months in advance. The combination of a full-year commitment, multi-city coverage, and festive issue placements is the most cost-efficient structure for brands that are serious about building sustained brand visibility among the Whats Up Guides readership — and it is the structure we recommend most frequently to clients who have tested the medium and are ready to scale their investment.

How Can You Measure the ROI of Your Whats Up Guides Campaign?

ROI measurement in print magazine advertising is a subject that generates more anxiety than it should, largely because the metrics are different from the click-through rates and conversion tracking that digital marketers are accustomed to. The most direct method is brand recall research — a structured survey of readers in the target market, conducted before and after the campaign, which measures awareness, recall, and purchase consideration among the Whats Up Guides readership; this is the methodology that TAM AdEx and similar research frameworks have used to establish the effectiveness of print media advertising, and it consistently shows that premium lifestyle magazine advertising delivers recall rates that are significantly higher than digital display advertising among comparable audiences. We have found, in our own campaign tracking, that brands running consistent multi-insertion campaigns in Whats Up Guides over three to six months see measurable improvements in unaided brand awareness among the target demographic — improvements that are difficult to attribute to any single channel but which correlate strongly with the print media investment.

More practically, brands can track the impact of their Whats Up Guides advertising through mechanisms that bridge the print and digital worlds: a unique QR code in the print ad that drives readers to a dedicated landing page, a unique phone number or email address that is used exclusively in the magazine ad, or a promotional offer code that is specific to the magazine campaign. One financial services client we worked with embedded a QR code in their Whats Up Guides full page ad across the Bangalore and Hyderabad editions, which linked to a dedicated landing page for a new product they were launching; over the three-month campaign, the landing page received several hundred visits that were directly attributable to the magazine ad, and the client used those visits — combined with brand recall survey data — to build a compelling internal ROI case for continuing the print media investment. The integration of print Whats Up Guides ads with digital campaigns is, in our view, one of the most underutilised opportunities in the current media planning environment, and it is something we actively encourage all our clients to build into their creative and tracking strategy from the outset.

Frequently Asked Questions About Whats Up Guides Magazine Advertising

Q: What is Whats Up Guides magazine and who is its target audience?

Whats Up Guides is a premium monthly lifestyle and entertainment magazine published in city-specific editions for Bangalore, Delhi, Mumbai, and Hyderabad. The magazine covers dining, travel, fashion, wellness, and urban culture, which positions it squarely within the aspirational lifestyle segment of Indian print media. Its target audience is urban professionals between 25 and 45 years of age, belonging to the SEC A and SEC A+ income categories — people who are actively spending on premium experiences and products, and who look to the magazine for curated recommendations. The readership skews toward decision makers and opinion leaders in their respective cities, which makes it particularly valuable for brands in luxury, hospitality, real estate, financial services, and premium consumer goods.

Q: How much does it cost to advertise in Whats Up Guides magazine?

Advertising rates in Whats Up Guides vary by edition, format, and placement position. A full page ad works out to roughly ₹80,000 to ₹1,20,000 per insertion depending on the city edition; a half page ad falls in the range of ₹45,000 to ₹65,000; a back cover ad is priced somewhere between ₹1,50,000 and ₹2,00,000; and a double spread ad is typically in the ballpark of ₹1,80,000 to ₹2,50,000. The inside front cover falls between the full page and back cover rates, and the gatefold advertisement is negotiated individually based on the edition and the issue. Festive issues carry a rate premium of roughly 15 to 25 percent. Multi-insertion bookings attract bulk discounts that can range from 10 to 30 percent depending on the number of issues and the editions covered.

Q: What ad formats are available in Whats Up Guides magazine?

Whats Up Guides offers a range of ad formats including the full page ad, half page ad (horizontal and vertical), double spread ad, inside front cover, back cover ad, and gatefold advertisement. The advertorial format — which blends brand messaging with editorial content — is also available and is particularly effective for brands in hospitality, wellness, and professional services. Each format has specific technical specifications for artwork submission, and the choice of format should be guided by the brand's creative ambition, budget, and campaign objective.

Q: In which cities is Whats Up Guides magazine available?

Whats Up Guides is published in four city-specific editions: Bangalore, Delhi, Mumbai, and Hyderabad. Each edition has its own editorial team, distribution network, and advertiser base, which means that the readership profile and the advertising context differ meaningfully between cities. Brands can advertise in a single city edition or across multiple editions simultaneously, with multi-city bookings attracting additional bulk discount structures.

Q: What is the circulation and readership of Whats Up Guides magazine?

The Bangalore edition, which is the flagship, has a print circulation estimated in the range of 25,000 to 35,000 copies per month, with a total readership — including pass-along reading — of somewhere between 75,000 and 1,50,000 unique readers per issue. The Delhi and Mumbai editions have comparable figures, while the Hyderabad edition is growing toward similar numbers. Circulation figures are IRS-verified, and the pass-along readership multiplier of three to five times the print run is consistent with Indian Readership Survey data for premium city lifestyle magazines.

Q: How do I book an advertisement in Whats Up Guides magazine online?

Whats Up Guides magazine ad booking can be initiated through the publication's sales team directly, or through a magazine advertising agency like SmartAds, which manages the booking, negotiation, and creative submission process on behalf of the advertiser. Magazine ad booking online through media planning platforms has become more accessible, but for multi-city or multi-insertion campaigns, working through an experienced media buying agency ensures better placement negotiation, access to bulk discounts, and coordination across editions and issue calendars.

Q: How far in advance should I book my Whats Up Guides magazine ad?

Space booking for Whats Up Guides should be confirmed at least 30 to 45 days before the target publication date, with final creative artwork due approximately 15 to 20 days before publication. For festive issues — Diwali, Christmas, and New Year — we recommend booking at least two to three months in advance, as premium positions are often reserved by regular advertisers well ahead of the issue date. Last-minute bookings are occasionally possible for non-premium positions, but they carry the risk of suboptimal placement and do not allow adequate time for creative review and approval.

Q: Are there discounts for booking multiple insertions in Whats Up Guides?

Multiple insertion bookings attract meaningful discounts from the standard rate card. A three-insertion booking typically attracts a discount of 10 to 15 percent; a six-insertion campaign can attract 20 to 25 percent; and a twelve-insertion annual campaign is typically negotiated at 30 percent or more off the standard rates. Multi-city bookings across two or more editions attract additional discounts, and brands that include festive issue placements in their annual booking are generally given preferential access to premium positions in those high-circulation issues.

Q: What file formats and creative specifications are required for Whats Up Guides ads?

Artwork for Whats Up Guides ads should be submitted as high-resolution PDF or TIFF files at a minimum resolution of 300 DPI in CMYK colour mode. Full page ads are set at a trim size of approximately 210mm x 280mm with a 3mm bleed on all sides and a 5mm safe zone inside the trim. RGB files should be converted to CMYK before submission to ensure accurate colour reproduction in print. The submission deadline is typically 15 to 20 days before the publication date, and we recommend submitting a proof for review at least a week before the deadline to allow time for corrections.

Q: How does Whats Up Guides magazine compare to other lifestyle magazines in India for advertising?

Whats Up Guides occupies a distinct position in the Indian lifestyle magazine advertising landscape — it is more targeted and city-specific than national publications like Vogue India or Femina, which makes it more efficient for brands with a city-specific marketing objective. The CPM for Whats Up Guides, calculated against its verified urban affluent readership, is often more competitive than national glossies for city-level campaigns. Compared to inflight magazines, Whats Up Guides offers the advantage of repeated, contextual exposure over the course of a month rather than a single-encounter format. For brands targeting the lifestyle segment in Bangalore, Delhi, Mumbai, or Hyderabad, Whats Up Guides advertising delivers a combination of audience quality, contextual relevance, and cost efficiency that is difficult to match through other print media channels.

Q: What types of brands and industries advertise in Whats Up Guides magazine?

The most consistent advertisers in Whats Up Guides are brands in luxury and premium consumer goods, hospitality and travel, fine dining and beverage, premium real estate, financial services and wealth management, luxury automotive, high-end retail, wellness and skincare, and professional services targeting high-net-