Digital Marketing Growth in India: “Name one of the booming industries of India” – ask this randomly and Internet marketing will surely be one of the most popular answers. Yes! The Internet era in India has opened up amazing possibilities.
As per Statista and Insider Intelligence 2022 report, INR 537 Bn is the expected value of the digital media markets across India by 2024. The global digital advertising and marketing market is projected to reach $786.2 billion by 2026. With over 900 million internet users, India is the second largest online market in the world, behind China.
As per Business Insider report, India is the fastest-growing Internet Advertising market in the world at a CAGR of 18.8% during 2020-2025. In 2020 revenue from mobile internet advertising in India was INR 7331 Cr and will rise to INR 22350 Cr in 2025 – increasing at a 25.4% CAGR.
The digital marketing sector is booming tremendously and expecting to grow at 27% in 2020 to cross the 17,000 crores mark. In 2020, India has around 697 million internet users, and the numbers are expected to grow to over 970 million users by 2025.
As per GroupM TYNY report, Digital to overtake TV to become the largest medium in 2022 and Ad spends estimated to cross Rs 1 lakh crore in 2022. India is the 9th largest market in ad spends and 5th highest contributor to incremental ad spends. Digital to reach 45% media share in 2022. Digital is estimated to grow by 33% in 2022
Growth of Digital Marketing in India 2020-2027
The Indian digital marketing market is majorly impacted by the global digital marketing industry, which reached a value of nearly USD 353 billion in 2020. The global industry is rising at a CAGR of 17.6% to reach a value of more than USD 930 billion by 2026. The market’s primary driver is the growing global population’s increasing affinity towards the digital channels of media.
Source: expertmarketresearch.com
INR 537 Bn is the expected value of the digital media markets across India by 2024.
STATISTA, 2022
$786.2 Bn – The global digital advertising and marketing market is projected to reach $786.2 billion by 2026.
INSIDER INTELLIGENCE, 2022
900 million – With over 900 million internet users, India is the second largest online market in the world, behind China.
STATISTA, 2022
Internet advertising: India is the fastest-growing Internet Advertising market in the world at a CAGR of 18.8% during 2020-2025. … In 2020 revenue from mobile internet advertising in India was INR 7331 Cr and will rise to INR 22350 Cr in 2025 – increasing at a 25.4% CAGR
Source: Businessinsider.in
Growth of Digital Marketing in India 2018-2021
Various popular digital marketing channels [2020-2027]
- Email Marketing
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
- Interactive Consumer Website
- Online/Display Advertising
- Blogging and Podcasting (Including Microblogging)
- Video Marketing
- Social Network Marketing
- Mobile Marketing
- Viral Marketing
- Digital OOH Media
- Online Video Marketing
- Others
Related reading: digital marketing statistics in India in 2019 & digital marketing career growth in India & digital marketing career opportunities in India 2020 and beyond
Read more about why digital marketing is the future of marketing
Digital Marketing Growth in India before 2018
According to a latest study of InternetWorldStats.Com there are around 120 million Internet users in India in 2012 (By 2015 it would be approx 400 million), which is an increase of 700% in the last six years.
This also means that there is an 8.5% penetration. However, with our given population, the 400 million Internet users of India comprise of only 3.6% of the total population. Thus, the scopes are indeed huge in the country. And this becomes clearer with companies like “Ogilvy One making fresh investments in their India operations”. You can get more statistics about the Indian web and mobile markets by numbers from GigaOm
Again, the number of SEO companies has more than doubled in India in the past few years. This too reflects the scope and the new possibilities. With the given number of Internet users and each user making an average of 30 searches per month, the potential to reach the new targeted customers is great.
And almost all the brands (as well as small companies) are leveraging upon this now-popular trend. Companies either have their own SEO team or they are outsourcing their online marketing requirements as a part of their marketing strategies. Businesses have realized that traditional form of marketing alone cannot help them to be the industry player anymore.
Another growing culture that has considerable influence in the growth of Internet marketing in India is the trend of buying things online. From groceries to technology stuff, everything is sold on the Internet. This has made shopping easy for the consumers and SEO tough for the marketers.
Every marketer is competing for the popular keywords to achieve the top positions in the search results. The popularity of the online purchasing is clearly visible from the increasing number of e-commerce sites. And to add-on to the already popular trend of online purchasing, we now have the deal sites.
Related reading: Top digital marketing trends of all time
The E-Commerce Market in India [Infographic]
Source: ReferralCandy
If all these are not enough to define the scope of Internet marketing in India, we now have the millions of Facebook and Twitter users in the country who are more than eager to give away their opinions on every aspects of life online. Thus, businesses are leveraging upon the social media and networking sites to seek their bottom line.
Where SEO and SEM (search engine marketing) form an important part of online marketing to secure a higher rank in the search engines for the targeted keywords, social networking sites play a great role in improving brand visibility. And together, these channels help businesses to improve their ROI on the investment.
Debajyoti Banerjee is the Founder, Director & CEO of 
Nice data, inspiring to see the growth potential in India on the e-commerce industry and proud to be here in India :)
Thanks Ven. Yes Indeed. If you see the latest Indian blogosphere, more and more student bloggers are coming up with new ideas and with their own websites / blogs. And also people are now feeling more comfortable spending online through credit cards. This is a positive indication that the old skeptic scenario is changing. With the huge growth of social media and personalized recommendations, Internet trust and awareness have increased, people are feeling more confident doing online transactions and also taking blogging as a career. So, it’s a good sign for India
According to current report of IMAI India is now third largest internet user population, tradition of quantity is maintained, but quality wise we are very poor. At the same time quality is increasing exponentially, so there is huge scope & opportunities of internet marketing in the nation.
Thank you Asif. Yes true. Side by side competition is also increasing . After pandemic in 2020, we are seeing manifold growth in digital marketing in India