Programmatic in India

India’s digital advertising landscape is undergoing rapid transformation, fueled by increased internet penetration, mobile-first usage, and a growing demand for personalized ad experiences. With brands shifting more of their budgets to digital, programmatic advertising plays a crucial role in optimizing ad spend and driving performance.

Let’s dive deeper into the digital advertising market in India with our article.

Digital Advertising Market in India

Fuelled with growing internet penetration rate and fastest growing major economy, the digital advertising market grew to a market size of over $14.75 billion in 2024, growing by 11.8%. The main cause of such growth is often choosing digital by Indian advertisers. Despite the changing game of advertising through digital technologies, traditional ads are still the king in the Indian advertising market. However, the situation might change in the near future—experts forecast the growth of digital advertising market share in India to 45% by 2029.

Source: Statista

Nowadays, Indian brands are ready to spend  $6.44 billion, which is 10.5% higher compared with ad spending in 2024. Generally, spending on digital types of advertising will grow on average by 8.06% by 2029.

Source: Statista

With boosting budgets on digital, we can evaluate changing how brands distribute their budgets on different tools of advertising. With the digitalization of the ad market in India, traditional advertising, such as TV ads, OOH, print, and so on, will gradually give up the lead to digital ads.

Source: Statista

Programmatic Advertising Market in India

There are impressive things that depict India’s changing face. One of them is programmatic advertising. Programmatic has been around for over a decade now, and with the advent of artificial intelligence as well as machine learning algorithms, brands get the opportunity to not only reach the right audience with relevant messages to resonate stronger but also do it with the optimal price and high efficiency. This way, no wonder Indian marketers keep an eye on programmatic technology more often year by year. 

According to Statista, 85% of revenue in India will be generated through programmatic advertising in 2029. The top sectors of the Indian market that choose programmatic ads include FMCG, telecom, banking, and financial services. Nevertheless, we surely might say that almost every sector tries this type of advertising once at least or will try in the future. So, the programmatic advertising market size will constantly grow in the future.

Source: Statista

The programmatic advertising market in India has taken a steep curve and is not going to stop. Here are some reasons programmatic is so important and popular in the region:

• High outreach of ad campaigns. Programmatic allows brands to connect with users across a wide web net on the open internet. 
• Precise interactions with the target audience. Programmatic DSP works based on data and AI-algorithms so that programmatic platforms are learning in the process of ad campaigns to determine whether users are the target audience or not. Moreover, thanks to high learning opportunities, programmatic DSPs might find even specific and narrow audiences. 
• Real-time optimization. Machine learning algorithms determine in real time which tools, ad channels, audience segments as well as targeting options work better and relocate budgets to the most efficient one. As a result, brands get advertising campaigns with better costs and results. 
• High level of brand safety and ad fraud protection. For example, NT Technology implemented an anti-fraud system into NT DSP so that NT’s programmatic platform monitors ad fraud constantly and prevents any suspicious activity in real time. Also, NT Technology provided their clients with unlimited black-and-white lists to keep their clients’ brands on the safe side. 
• Privacy-safe advertising. In a world where users are concerned about their privacy, programmatic DSP can use first-party data, data that users allow brands to use, to find the best users for advertising campaigns. You can learn more about first-party data in our article.

Available Audience & Customer Behavior

There were 800 million internet users in India at the start of 2024 when internet penetration stood at 52.4%. And what’s interesting—most users use mobile phones to get access to the internet. According to Data Reportal, mobile internet users are counted 78%. The high mobile penetration rate is connected to device ownership: only 45.3% of users have a laptop or desktop computer, while smartphones are owned by 97.7% of users.

Source: Data Reportal

There are 462.0 million social media users in India. Users often use social networks to keep in touch with relatives and friends, reading news stories, and filling spare time.

Source: Data Reportal

As for popular social media platforms, the top of them include WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook. So, the more Indian users you can find there. What’s interesting, 79.1% of users use any type of social media for brand research.

Source: Data Reportal

For businesses, understanding where consumers discover and research brands is essential. This knowledge helps brands refine their marketing strategies to align with user behavior. In India, consumers primarily explore brands through social networks, search engines, and mobile apps. When it comes to brand discovery, top sources include TV ads, social media ads, and TV shows and films.

Source: Data Reporta

Ad Formats & Ad Channels

The largest market is TV & Video Advertising, with a market volume of $6.64 billion in 2025. No wonder we can observe such a shift to video marketing in India. This market aspect is based on users’ behavior and impressive figures of video consumption; 700 million out of 800 million internet users are already spending their time on video and audio streaming platforms. 

This way, CTV ads, showing an advertisement on internet-connected televisions (smart TVs, streaming devices), might become a good alternative for brands trying to reach TV & video watchers (more about ad format here). Moreover, the tendency to replace traditional TV devices with smart TVs is already in the market. More than 62 million users have already dropped cable television subscriptions and transitioned to free TV options, digital streaming platforms, and connected TVs.

Source: Statista

The second largest market is Search Advertising. Forecasts demonstrate that brands will spend around $2.28 billion on search advertising in 2025. However, advertisers will spend less on this ad format compared with other types of digital advertising—according to Statista, investments into search advertising are going to decrease gradually from from 16.7% in 2025 to 8.6% in 2029.

Source: Statista

One of the traditional tools in markers’ suitcases is also popular in the region. Banner advertising is included in the largest advertising market segments. Advertisers spend $1.31 billion on banners, which is higher than in the previous year by 6.7%.

Source: Statista

One more noticeable tendency in the Indian digital advertising market is spreading: DOOH advertising. It’s connected with boosting the number of digital screens in the country—from 70,000 to 200,000 within a year. FMCG, e-commerce, telecom, automotive, and others are top industries driving this tendency. Often, brands use this ad format to boost brand awareness in urban areas where potential customers are constantly on the move.

Ad Inventory

Top popular website in India: google.com, youtube.com, en.wikipedia.org, instagram.com, whatsapp.com, pinterest.com, facebook.com, amazon.in, play.google.com, cricbuzz.com, espncricinfo.com, flipkart.com.

Top SSP

• Adform
• BidSwitch
• Equativ
• Fluct
• FreeWheel SSP
• Google Ad Manager
• GumGum
• Improve Digital
• Magnite CTV
• Magnite DV+
• MicroAd
• Nexstar Digital
• Nexxen (fka Unruly)
• OpenX
• PubMatic
• PulsePoint
• SmartClip
• SpotX
• Ströer SSP
• Taboola
• TeadsTv
• Xandr – Monetize SSP (AppNexus)
• Yahoo Exchange
• YouTube & partners

How to Run Programmatic Advertising: What NT Technology Can Offer to Your Business?

India’s digital advertising landscape is undergoing a massive transformation, with programmatic advertising at the forefront. Programmatic advertising in India offers unparalleled advantages, such as interaction with high-intent users (even if your audience is narrow and complicated), data-driven targeting, high reach of the ad campaign, and the ability to optimize campaigns on the fly and even more. However, navigating this complex ecosystem requires expertise and the right technology.

This is where NT Technology comes in. We developed our own cutting-edge programmatic platform, NT DSP, and have been helping brands reach their marketing goals for more than 12 years. What stands us out from the crowds is the strong team’s expertise and deep understanding of the Indian market, combined with our mastered platform. We ensured flexibility, transparency, and scalability for our clients. Whether you’re a local brand or a global player entering the Indian market, we offer tailored solutions that drive results. Our team will manage all stages of the advertising campaign—from developing media strategy and ad creatives to running campaigns, optimizing them, and reporting their performance. 

By partnering with us, you gain access to:

• Fraud-free & brand safety advertising. We implemented the anti-fraud system into NT DSP so that we monitor suspicious activity and prevent fraud in real time. Using black-and-white lists as well as manual optimization, we take brands’ reputations on the safe side. Also, we can set up any verification system, including Weborama, AdRiver, and so on.
• The widest and highest-quality ad inventory. We partnered with more than 24 SSPs to help brands find their target audiences wherever they are through the open internet.
• Flexible & transparent reporting. We empower our clients to choose the exact metrics they want to look at reports. With our personalized reporting dashboard, you’ll have full visibility into your campaign performance at any time.
• Real-time campaign optimization. AI & ML-learning algorithms at the core of NT DSP monitor and adjust your campaigns in real time. By analyzing performance data on the fly, we automatically allocate budgets to the best-performing channels, audiences, and creatives, ensuring maximum ROI. Additionally, our team of experts provides manual optimization, fine-tuning targeting parameters, adjusting bids, and refining strategies to align with your goals.

Let us help you unlock the full potential of programmatic advertising and achieve your marketing goals with precision and efficiency. Contact us today to get started. 

• Fill out the form on our site
• Send an email to info@nt.technology

If you still have doubts, we want to share the latest our client’s case study below.

How NT Technology Helps Indian Fashion Brand Boost Brand Awareness by 234.4%

An emerging Indian fashion brand specializing in contemporary ethnic wear wanted to increase its brand awareness and establish itself as a go-to choice for modern Indian consumers. The primary objective was to increase brand awareness and engagement across digital channels, driving recognition and recall among the target audience. 

To achieve this, we launch the awareness-focused programmatic campaign leveraging banners, native advertising, and in-stream videos. In order to drive more users’ attention and engagement, we utilized not only static banners but also interactive ones—cube ads and interactive video banners. NT’s design team specially designed interactive banners for the client. Due to interesting mechanics, advertisements better stand out from crowds and gain more user’s attention. 

Our AdOps and Data Analytics specialists were closely monitoring the process and the efficiency of the ad campaign to manually and automatically optimize it on time. During the campaign, the optimization was directed toward reaching a maximum number of high-intent users with relevant ads for them and scaling up the ad campaign’s performance. 

We achieved the client’s goal. The results of the ad campaign include:

• 234.4% increase in brand awareness;
• 432.2% increase in ad recall;
• 321.9% increase in brand interest;
• 97.8% average VTR

Conclusion

India’s digital and programmatic advertising market is experiencing exponential growth, driven by increasing internet penetration, mobile-first usage, and the demand for personalized ad experiences. As traditional advertising gradually gives way to digital, the future of advertising in India lies in programmatic solutions that deliver precision, efficiency, and scalability. For brands looking to thrive in this dynamic landscape, embracing programmatic advertising is not just an option—it’s a necessity. NT Technology would be glad to become your programmatic advertising partner with best-in-class programmatic service. Contact us today.