Digital share in marketing in India increased threefold in five years: Study

A joint study by the Boston Consulting group and Meta has revealed that digital expenditure in marketing has increased three-folds over the past five years in India.   

The report pointed out that digital marketing budgets have seen an uptick from 12% five years ago to 34% currently.  

“While spends on digital marketing have sky rocketed, the true efficiency of the spend is not measured in most Indian companies. Thus, potentially leaving a lot of money on the table,” said Shaveen Garg, Managing Director and Partner, BCG.   

The report titled “Measure To Grow: Drive double-digit growth by measuring marketing right”,  took inputs from multiple companies such as Adobe, Analytic edge, AppsFlyer, Cartesian Consulting, Nielsen, and RainMan Consulting, along with an additional 18 digital organisations from across five key industries in the country. These five industries include financial services, e-commerce, edtech, travel, and media/OTT platforms.  

Also read: Web3, digital assets could add $1.1 trillion to India’s GDP in next 11 years: Report

However, despite the threefold growth, BCG said that the measurement practices on the value it offers have not kept pace. 

“The industry consensus is that there is no single measurement method or metric that will address all measurement requirements. The core recommendation for advertisers is to have an incrementality based approach at the centre,” said Pratham Hegde, Director and Head of Measurement at Facebook India.  

The report points out a method towards strategic management, which BCG claimed can help to realise 60% sales upliftment, 10 times return on ad spends, and a 25% increase in gross margins.   

However, inadequate measurements will lead to 65% higher costs of acquisition, with the report saying that 70% of companies are still underinvesting in measurement capabilities.   

“Our studies show that while leading global companies are significantly ahead on the measurement journeys (deploying Marketing mix models and statistical Multi-touch-attribution), most Indian organisations have just started their journeys towards measurement maturity,” said Pallavi Malani, Managing Director and Partner, BCG.