How Digital Advertising Is Helping Retailers To Increase Sales Volumes

Anirudha Khopade, the author of their article is Business & Technology Head, Taglr.

Even just a couple of years back when anyone mentioned the word “advertisement”, the first image that used to pop up in our minds was a 30-45 seconds audio-visual clip where a narrator intricately explained various USPs of a product.  However, the concept of advertising has changed radically after data disruption in 2016 in India. Cost-effective high-speed internet services, availability of affordable handsets coupled with other various technological innovations have lead the shift of the audience's focus from traditional platforms to digital. To cash in on this growing preference of the consumers the advertisers and marketers are flocking around various digital mediums to attract the consumer's attention. I will give one example for you to understand the avalanche called digital advertising which is altering the advertising trends in India: in 2019 the mobile ad spend saw 42.2% growth, making India the fastest-growing mobile ad market. Also, the first time this year digital surpassed the traditional ad spend. Remarkable isn't it?

Now, you must be thinking to what extent this revolution is impacting the advertisers and consumers? For that first, you have to understand how this digital advertising works. Unlike the advertisements on traditional platforms like TV, Newspaper or OOH platforms where the reach of the message is untraceable, the digital ads are scalable, trackable and highly cost-effective at the same time. Also, the targeted reach of digital advertising allows the advertisers to curate the ad according to the preference of the consumers and tap the ideal consumer group by using the right keywords to attract the qualified leads and push up the sales volume. Over the last few years, the sharp growth in technology has given the marketer the most powerful weapon i.e to collect and leverage the massive amount of data which is accumulated by following and dissecting their buying behaviour. Empowered by the knowledge the marketers can devise their media strategies aligned with the customer requirements. For example, e-commerce search engines like Google Shopping, Taglr, and Amazon have designed their platforms to nudge the buyers from consideration conversion stage fairly quickly by enabling them to compare similar products available on multiple e-commerce platforms in a single interface.

The Indian e-commerce industry is getting more and more AI and ML-driven as we speak. According to reports in 2020, the Indian e-commerce industry is expected to be valued at USD 1 trillion. The dramatic rise in e-commerce ad will also fuel to this growing trend of digital advertising. The brands or retailers utilizing advanced AI algorithms are more likely to reach their TG with minimum effort and have maximum impact. Retailers with a clear digital advertising strategy will lead this growth story and the insights below talk about how they can harness this growth potential and trigger higher sales. It has also been reported that more than 85% of consumers prefer researching the product on digital platforms including various social media platforms. It is only logical to take a digital advertising route to tap this huge number of consumers. Interestingly, we have noticed that the market witnessed an average 66% increase in the number of visitors who come through online advertisements during the Diwali 2019. In other words, digital advertising helped the e-tailers to take home profit in spite of slowing Indian economy.

However, though digital advertising is growing at an exponential rate in the Indian advertisement segment, it still consists of only 17% of the total ad spend. Some of the brands and retailers still not quite open about the concept yet and it will need some more awareness for digital advertising to completely take over the traditional methods. But the mind-set of the marketers is changing fast and the segment is expected to be taken over by digital in a couple of years.

Also Read:

Digital Marketing: Betting big on Voice and Visual Search

Influencer Marketing Firm BuzzOne Expands To Malaysia