Programmatic in India: What's Emerging and Why Growth Marketers Must Act Now

Talk to any growth marketer in India right now, and the conversation quickly turns to fragmented attention, tighter performance expectations, and the pressure to make every rupee work harder. As India moves into 2026, this reality is reshaping how digital growth is planned and delivered.

Programmatic sits at the centre of this transformation. What began as an efficiency-driven buying method , programmatic is now shaping how modern growth strategies are built and executed in India.

Let’s break down some of the key trends expected to emerge as we look into another year of transformational advertising in India’s ecosystem:

1. Programmatic is Becoming the Operational Backbone

Over the past few years, programmatic advertising has shifted from experimental to essential, being applied across the funnel, influencing discovery, consideration, and conversion at scale. According to the Dentsu-e4m Digital Report 2025, programmatic accounted for 42% of India’s digital ad spend at the end of 2024, representing a 21% year-on-year increase. Projections indicate that this share will rise to 44% by 2026, with spending expected to reach approximately ₹30,405 crore.

Growth teams are increasingly using programmatic to unlock audiences that sit outside traditional performance silos. On mobile, this means reaching users in intent-rich moments across apps and content environments. On CTV, it enables access to large-screen inventory with the flexibility to layer performance signals and drive measurable downstream action. 

2. Connected TV is Rising Fast as a Performance Channel

One of the most visible shifts in India’s media environment is the rapid adoption of Connected TV (CTV). A recent report indicates that India’s active CTV user base has grown more than 85% year-on-year, with smaller towns also contributing to this growth, taking CTV beyond being a metro-only trend.

Today, CTV is no longer evaluated only on impressions or brand lift. CTV spending has risen also on its potential impact to turn exposure into a performance opportunity. Viewers are increasingly ready to act in the moment, making CTV a powerful trigger for downstream mobile outcomes.

Creative formats like QR codes, interactive overlays, and dynamic call-to-action prompts are allowing advertisers to connect large-screen attention with immediate, measurable actions (such as app installs, registrations, or transactions) without breaking the viewing experience. For growth marketers in 2026, the advantage lies in treating CTV not as a standalone branding channel, but as a performance-capable screen within a unified programmatic strategy.

3. Multi-Screen Journeys are Becoming Default Consumer Behaviour

 Research shows that 93% of Indians watch video on mobile, even as 71% use TV screens, creating a naturally multi-screen environment. This behavioural reality means that programmatic strategies must think in terms of journeys, not devices. Marketers are increasingly confronting the need to coordinate messaging and optimisation across touchpoints, where exposure on one screen influences outcomes on another. This necessitates platforms and measurement systems that are inherently multi-screen and able to orchestrate campaigns holistically rather than channel by channel.

To capture impact across this converged behaviour, marketers must work with DSPs for a full-funnel cross-screen ability to execute campaigns and see the impact of each channel.

4. Attribution Mechanisms Continue to Evolve

Closely linked to the multi-screen journeys is the attribution mechanisms. While last click attribution continues to be a common model, there’s a greater evolving understanding to shift focus towards how multi-touch attribution frameworks can capture the “true” impact of each touchpoint, not just a single click. This is further enhanced in a CTV environment where a "click" is absent in the traditional sense of logging an action. Rather than asking which ad was clicked, the more relevant question is how exposure on one screen contributes to conversion on another. This shift is pushing attribution frameworks toward cross-screen measurement that connects impressions, exposure sequences, and eventual outcomes.

Here, incrementality as a measure is also important to look into. Rather than relying on surface metrics like impressions and last-touch conversions, incrementality quantifies the causal lift that media investment drives versus what would happen absent that exposure.

5. Contextual Signals Rise as Privacy Shifts

Finally, as the digital advertising ecosystem evolves amidst changing data frameworks and privacy expectations globally and in India (via the DPDP Act), the relevance of contextual signals has resurged. Contextual targeting involves aligning advertising with relevant content environments and audience contexts, creating naturally aligned messaging without heavy reliance on persistent individual identifiers. 

 In a market like India, defined by linguistic diversity, regional content consumption, and high mobile usage, contextual intelligence enables advertisers to tailor messages to environments that naturally support intent. For growth marketers, it offers a scalable, future-ready way to maintain performance and relevance.

Programmatic's Road Ahead in India

In 2026, the question isn’t whether programmatic works in India — that debate is settled. The real differentiator will be how deliberately brands use it to orchestrate journeys across screens, rather than simply running more campaigns.

mDSP is built with this cross-screen reality in mind. It allows marketers to activate programmatic across mobile apps and CTV through a single workflow, combining reach, real-time optimisation, and full-funnel planning in one place. This makes it easier to connect large-screen exposure with measurable mobile outcomes, rather than treating each channel in isolation.

With its AI-driven optimisation layer, mDSP supports both user acquisition and retargeting at scale, helping teams adapt bids and budgets as performance signals evolve. Today, brands across FinTech, eCommerce, OTT, gaming, and entertainment use mDSP to make CTV and mobile a repeatable part of their performance strategy, not a one-off experiment.

Get started with your programmatic growth story in 2026: info@mdsp.co