Indian Digital Marketing Budget to Surpass Print in 2019

A recent report published by the research firm techARC revealed that the overall budget for smartphone digital marketing in India in 2019 is about to surpass those of print and radio. According to the report, smartphone brands are set to spend Rs. 300 crores on digital marketing this year, a 20 percent increase in spending from last year.

In a statement, techARC Chief Analyst Faisal Kawoosa said:

“Digital is increasingly becoming the preferred mode for marketing of smartphones as it helps brands establish an engaging connect with millennials, who are either buyers or influencers for smartphones.”

According to Kawoosa, 34 percent of this year’s digital marketing spend will be allocated to the improvement of search results like keyword bidding and search engine optimization. 26 percent of the budget will also go to social media marketing.

The remaining 24, 10, and 6 percent will be for performance marketing, programmatic marketing, and influencer marketing respectively. TechARC added:

“There is a call to action option in digital marketing channels that helps brands initiate a customer transaction. This increases the return on investments (RoIs) on marketing activities.”

Smartphone Digital Marketing

TechARC noted that digital marketing is the primary choice of smartphone brands in India because it compliments online channel sales. The strategy also allows marketers and publishers to use rich media content to boost engagement, target audience, and give people a better view of the products they promote.

The report also tackled some of the critical issues brands encountered in digital marketing like ad-fraud and revealed that simple banner engagement would no longer work for smartphones. A part of the report read:

“Ad-fraud is on the rise, and adversely impacting brand initiatives. There is still limited understanding of ad-fraud issues in the smartphone industry. Offline will play a significant role in smartphone growth in 2019 and digital marketing initiatives will have to be re-engineered to compliment this offline market growth.”