600 Million Indian Consumers Adopt Open Internet: Trade Desk

Trade Desk has published a report entitled Elevating your Digital Marketing Strategy with AI. According to the report, media fragmentation can drive the growth of audience-centric advertising. There are many advertisers looking for greater agility and cross-channel measurement capabilities.

The report also highlighted that open internet scale was prioritized over the comfort of walled gardens.

Since the beginning of the 2010s, a transformation is taking place. Programmatic advertising emerged and flipped the script on conventional methods by combining data and automation.

Digital advertising has moved from relying on guesswork to making data-driven decisions that drive the delivery of more relevant ad impressions. According to the report, programmatic has set the tone for advertising deals, where direct deals are made between advertisers and media owners, including social platforms.

Many advertising leaders are convinced that the audience-driven programmatic approach is a major advance in data-driven advertising. They are asking brands to pivot. Only 15 percent of India’s ad spend is channeled to the open internet, indicating a significant untapped opportunity for brands looking to connect with the audience where they spend their time, the report said.

According to Anil Pandit, EVP, head of programmatic, data and technology at Publicis Media, if you want to bundle multiple attributes, the best strategy is private markets and the open market. Unlike PG, they provide the control needed for precise targeting. Open Market also helps you maximize results when you need to achieve multiple KPIs.

According to Om Jha, head of media strategies and partnerships at PepsiCo, given the highly fragmented nature of India’s media ecosystem, programmatic advertising is essential to reach audiences effectively.

The programmatic landscape is adapting to advertiser demands for greater agility and the ability to measure ads across channels. These demands reflect the need for a more open and responsible advertising ecosystem.

Modern programmatic, an advance from the conventional PG approach, allows brands to measure and compare ad performance across different channels on the open internet, including news/websites, music streaming, OTT/CTV and gaming on line. This way, advertisers can allocate budgets more effectively for optimal results.

Arvind B Sainath, Head of Marketing Effectiveness and Media Planning/Digital, Diageo, stated: When it comes to PG, assessing how ads are performing is akin to students assessing their own homework. I would much prefer the objectivity of the open internet. The independence and transparency that comes from external verification lends credibility to our success.

Shashidhar Sharma, head of programmatic at GroupM, said programmatic advertising has changed the way brands orchestrate their presence across screen, video, mobile and social media. This multi-channel approach ensures a cohesive brand experience that reflects the diverse preferences of the Indian consumer.

An astounding 600 million consumers in India spend their time surfing the vast expanse of the open Internet. The open internet is not controlled by any individual, company or government body. It refers to online media properties (websites, platforms and apps) across games, news, blogs, music and OTT/CTV.

Walled gardens are closed ecosystems that are controlled by a few technological giants. They own the content and media and have full control over the technology used to target, place and measure ads. These include Google, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, etc.

Prabhvir Sahmey, Senior Director of Samsung Ads, stated that programmatic advertising has transformed the way we launch campaigns at scale. It allows us to quickly connect with a large audience, avoiding the slower, traditional publisher-by-publisher approach.

Brands advertising on OTT/CTV are 33% more likely to be perceived as premium compared to walled garden video ads.

Consumers are also 17 percent more likely to buy products advertised in the news or on websites compared to ads on social media.

Projections indicate that global programmatic advertising spending will likely reach $919 billion by 2027, and 84% of that spending will be programmatic. Notably, India’s share of programmatic ad spending grew 72 percent over the past five years (2019 to 2023) and is expected to comprise 44 percent of all digital ad spending in the country by the end of of 2024.