India's Ad Tech Revolution- Charting the Landscape 2025

Authored by Abhishek Tiwari, Global Business Head at NetSetGo Media

With the expansions to ad tech pumping into full swing towards the year 2025, India is expected to observe a tremendous revolution in the sector. Technologies, constantly shifting consumer behavior and ever-evolving regulation are setting unprecedented conditions for all players in the chain: marketer, advertiser, publisher.

The Boom in Digital Advertising

Digital advertising in India has been growing exponentially. Digital advertising is expected to have a more significant slice of the total ad spent in India by 2025, registering nearly 40%.

This push is primarily propelled by greater internet penetration, likely to cross the 900 million mark of internet users in India by 2025. While the massive user base, coupled with cheap data plans and wider adoption of smartphones, offers fertile ground for innovative ad-tech solutions.

AI and Machine Learning—Game Changers AI and ML would dominate the ad tech revolution by 2025 in India: they will help hyper-personalize ads with more accuracy while targeting audiences and help in the optimization of ad campaigns in real time. AI-driven programmatic advertising would come to the fore in offering far greater efficiency in terms of ad buying and placement, reducing waste and improving ROI for better yields to advertisers.

The Rise of Connected TV and OTT Platforms

The Indian OTT market is growing fast, with users slated to reach a huge number by the year 2025. This opens up a vast opportunity for adtech companies to come up with brighter solutions for honed advertising on these platforms. CTV advertising is going to be the biggest growth area.

Given the exchange mechanism of digital targeting with a channel as influential as television, CTV is projected to capture higher shares of ad budgets by 2025.

Mobile-First Strategies and 5G Impact

In 2025, India's mobile-first market will decisively be reshaped by ad tech strategies. This is the year when the rollout of 5G is said to go full swing, and new frontiers are opened for rich media and interactive ad formats. Some of the ultra-low latencies and ultra-high speeds 5G makes possible underpin far richer ad experiences, including the use of augmented reality and virtual reality ads in more inventive ways.

Data Privacy and Regulatory Issues

But with India steadily moving toward more stringent data protection laws—such as the Personal Data Protection Bill expected to come into force before 2025—ad tech companies will have to tinker with their strategies in the coming years. This predisposition to privacy-first policies will drive the needs of new technologies into audience targeting and its measurement—viz., without dependency on personal data.

One area that will most likely rise to take the place of behavioral targeting in compliance with privacy regulations is contextual advertising. AI-driven contextual targeting solutions are going to further mature in such a manner that compliance with privacy regulations does not breed irrelevance while reaching the targeted audience at large using their personal data.

The Cookie-less Future

Whereas third-party cookies are due to be phased out, the Indian ad tech industry shall be in need of alternative solutions by 2025. First-party data strategies, universal IDs, cohort-based targeting, and many more will gain traction.

E-commerce Advertising: A New Frontier

Among all these countries, it is forecast that India would demonstrate the maximum level of e-commerce growth by the year 2025. This will fuel the demand for increased e-commerce-based advertisement solutions. It is estimated that by 2025, retail media networks, thus allowing branding on e-commerce, shall capture large parts of the ad budgets.

Voice and Vernacular: The Next Frontiers

Vernacular advertising is bound to take off by 2025 in India, considering the diverse linguistic scenario. Ad tech solutions that could target and deliver ads proficiently in multiple Indian languages would rise tremendously in demand. Similarly, with the increase in the number of voice-enabled devices in use, voice search advertising is expected to take off, which means new ad formats with targeting capabilities.

Blockchain in Ad Tech

By 2025, it is being predicted that the role of blockchain technology will be very useful in substance falsity and opacity for the prediction of digital advertisement. The blockchain will likely have the potential to change the means by which digital advertising is purchased, sold, and measured—what ad impressions, clicks, and conversions the blockchain can most safely and transparently follow. 

Video Advertising Evolution 

There will be a huge likelihood of the evolution for video advertising in 2025. Because of the better streaming technology and speed of the internet, we will probably not fall short of any videos that are either interactive or shoppable. Users will be able to engage with products through various features as they watch videos, reducing distinctions between content, engagement, and commerce.

Looking forward to 2025, it is quite clear that for India to have an ad tech industry to measure up to the MPs, there are some paradigm shifts to be embraced. The industry firms will be subjected to complexities of changes in technology and consumers' behaviors, along with regulatory challenges. In the new era of digital transformation, success needs to come through agility, innovation, and an in-depth understanding into what makes the Indian market tick. 

We are on the path to thriving and surviving through this ad tech revolution in India—Advertisers, publishers, and ad tech companies that effectively apply AI, adapt privacy regulations, exploit new platforms like CTV and voice, and scale delivery of individual experiences. The future of advertising in India is digital and intelligent, immersive, and incredibly diverse, holding large promise for all stakeholders within the advertising ecosystem to go into an exciting and transformational journey.

DISCLAIMER: The views expressed are solely of the author and Adgully.com does not necessarily subscribe to it.