Programmatic in India

India has one of the most steadily-growing advertising markets in the world. It has shown a substantial expansion in terms of programmatic buying over the years, and its potentials are huge.

Digital Ad Market

In India, by the end of 2019 the digital advertising market stood at a value of $1.93 bn. Advertising spending on digital ads are estimated to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 27.42%, and reach $8.25 bn by the end of 2025.

The advertising industry in India started to implement programmatic buying in 2014. Nowadays, programmatic takes the lead in advertising spend in India. Over the past few years, programmatic has shown a nearly three-fold increase in the share of digital ads. Eighty percent of Indian advertisers mark efficiency increases through the use of programmatic buying.

According to:the Statista Report, in 2019 programmatic ads formed 41% of the entire digital advertising spend, and this number is expected to reach 74% in 2022.

Available Audience

Reach: 662.55 million cookies
Impressions: 70.02 billion

Ad Formats

According to InMobi analysis, video is a preferable advertising format, and in particular, in-app and vertical videos. The introduction of vertical videos in social media apps has increased investments in this ad format. Moreover, India is the fourth biggest video consumer in the world and has the largest expenses on programmatic video in 2020.

Mobile ads are also considered to be effective in programmatic advertising. By the end of 2020, advertising spend on mobile devices is estimated to grow by 41% and reach the share of 52% within the entire digital ad market.

Ad Inventory

Top Websites Ranking

google.com, youtube.com, facebook.com, instagram.com, google.co.in, amazon.in, flipkart.com, twitter.com, whatsapp.com, wikipedia.org, yahoo.com

Top SSPs used in India:

• InMobi
• OpenX
• Google Ad Manager
• AppNexus
• Brightroll
• Sulvo
• Setupad
• Rubicon Project
• Vertoz
• Xapads

Top DSPs used in India:

• The Trade Desk
• MediaMath
• Pubmatic
• Adform
• RTB House
• Amobee
• Knorex
• Xandr
• Verizon Media

Top Publishers in India:

• BBC
• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• YouTube
• Spotify
• Twitter
• CNN
• South China Morning Post
• Media Corp
• TripAdvisor

Market Peculiarities

• In India, the biggest barrier in programmatic advertising is inadecuate knowledge and understanding of its processes. 
• Only two out of three advertisers have basic education in programmatic. Thirty-eight percent of these advertisers manage their programmatic buying in-house, and 52% do it via both in-house and agencies.
• Despite the expansion of programmatic ad in India, there are some obstacles such as the lack of common digital measurement system, ad fraud, data privacy, and viewability issues.