As India’s e-commerce landscape expands rapidly, the significance of retail media has come into sharp focus. With projections indicating that the number of online shoppers will soar to 427 million by 2027 and the industry’s worth will exceed $300 billion by 2030, according to Statista, brands face both unprecedented opportunities and challenges. Amid this growth, balancing personalized customer engagement with stringent privacy considerations has become crucial. Medhavi Singh, Country Head – India of Criteo, in a recent interaction with Tech Achieve Media, shed light on these dynamics, drawing on Criteo’s recent work with partners like Swiggy and Kellogg’s. Her insights reveal how brands can build sustainable retail media strategies in India’s thriving digital marketplace.
TAM: How do you see the evolution of retail media in India compared to more mature markets like the US and Europe, and are there any unique opportunities that India presents in this space?
Medhavi Singh: In more mature markets, the evolution of retail media began about 8–9 years ago, with us among the early pioneers, driving progress in what is often called the “third wave” of digital advertising. In these established markets, we’ve seen considerable advancement. Many players have embraced unification; for instance, through our partnerships at Criteo, approximately 65% of the top 30 retailers in the Americas and 50% in EMEA work with us. These companies recognize the importance of unifying retail media efforts to advance their goals.
India, meanwhile, has quickly caught on in recent years, making retail media a widespread topic. Several factors are driving this trend. One is the significant growth in retail e-commerce, projected to reach over $115 billion in sales by 2024. This growth encourages Indian e-commerce companies to prioritize profitability, with retail media offering a crucial revenue stream that aligns with investor expectations. Digital media spends on retail media have already hit 22.49% and are growing rapidly at around 25% CAGR, creating exciting opportunities.
Also read: How Criteo and Swiggy’s Offsite Retail Media Helped Kellog’s
What’s unique to India is the diversity in maturity levels across different players. Some companies are far along in their retail media journey, while others are still exploring tools and strategies to leverage unification. Additionally, India has seen a massive boom in quick commerce. This shift has cultivated a demand for fast deliveries, particularly among millennials and Gen Z, with a year-on-year growth rate of 77%. Quick commerce has become integral to the strategy of many e-commerce companies in India, even for those for whom it’s not a core function. Our recent partnership with Swiggy highlights our commitment to this space. We recognize the value of quick commerce and are aligning our partnerships accordingly to support its growth and the elevated service levels it demands.
TAM: E-commerce platforms are deeply integrated into consumer habits in India. How can brands leverage this to create more targeted campaigns?
Medhavi Singh: Firstly, brands are increasingly recognizing the value of retail media as a digital point of sale. Just as physical points of sale are crucial, digital points of sale have become even more important in today’s landscape. Maintaining this digital presence is essential for building consumer awareness, enhancing visibility with target audiences, and driving conversions. Brands can now leverage first-party data from e-commerce platforms to achieve all these goals.
With unification, brands have access to both on-platform (or on-site) advertising on e-commerce sites and the ability to reach users on the open Internet. Since consumers spend significant time outside of e-commerce sites, it’s crucial to connect with the right audience wherever they are and present a value proposition that encourages them to take action, even outside of the e-commerce platform.
This ability to combine on-platform and open-Internet targeting is essential for e-commerce and invaluable for brands. By targeting the most relevant users—those who have shown clear transactional intent—brands gain sharper insights into consumer behavior. Cohorting becomes more precise, allowing brands to understand and influence the full journey. They can assess the impact of their campaigns across all relevant metrics, effectively closing the loop. This comprehensive insight is a powerful advantage for brands.
TAM: One of the challenges of retail media is balancing consumer privacy with targeted advertising. How is Criteo addressing the growing demand for privacy and data protection in India while ensuring the effectiveness of ad targeting for retail brands?
Medhavi Singh: Yes, ad targeting is indeed essential, as it enables us to deliver personalization at scale. However, maintaining user privacy is equally crucial. At Criteo, we adopt a privacy-by-design approach, meaning a privacy expert is involved from the outset of every product development. This approach ensures that privacy is deeply embedded in the DNA of our products.
When it comes to data collection, we use all gathered data solely to provide services. For instance, any email data collected is hashed to protect user identity. Additionally, we own and operate our data centers, ensuring that third-party management does not compromise data security. We adhere to GDPR compliance, upholding the highest privacy standards, and offer users a one-click opt-out option.
We recognize that the more users know about our commitment to privacy, the more secure and comfortable they feel, which fosters a greater response to personalized ads. Our goal is to create a trustworthy environment that enhances the user experience.
TAM: We saw how the partnership between you and Swiggy panned out. Are there any other partnerships or case studies that you’d like to talk about as far as your retail media strategy is concerned?
Medhavi Singh: Previously, we also partnered with Flipkart, and there is a Flipkart-Xiaomi case study, which was another successful collaboration. For the Redmi Note 12 5G launch, Xiaomi aimed to identify the ideal users to target. Given India’s large mobile phone market, their challenge was to narrow down an audience based on a specific price range. We helped Xiaomi reach users who were on OTT platforms and interested in purchasing phones in the range of Rs13,000 to 30,000. This level of precise targeting allowed them to effectively reach their ideal customers. In addition to targeting tailored audiences, Xiaomi leveraged Criteo’s advanced bidding technology to achieve high video completion rates, thereby providing interested smartphone shoppers with comprehensive brand messaging and generating interest in the new product.
To further maximize awareness, Flipkart Ads and Criteo implemented a strategy that featured video ads across premium OTT channels, capitalizing on viewer engagement. As a result of the partnerships with Criteo and Flipkart Ads, Xiaomi observed that their campaign reached an impressive 23.7 million unique users across the open internet and achieved a video completion rate of 85%.
TAM: While retail media offers vast potential, there are also concerns about rising ad costs and dependence on e-commerce giants. What are the potential pitfalls for Indian brands and advertisers, and how can they navigate these challenges to ensure a sustainable retail media strategy?
Medhavi Singh: When it comes to potential pitfalls, one key factor to consider is continually building your understanding of the user with each campaign. It’s essential to gather insights from every campaign to enhance your knowledge of your consumers over time. This approach reduces dependency on any one platform by building a unique, evolving understanding of your audience.
Another critical point is to avoid relying solely on one major channel. India’s vast population means that different segments of your audience are spread across multiple platforms. Therefore, it’s crucial to maintain a presence across these diverse platforms to reach all relevant audiences.
Lastly, unifying the fragmented landscape is vital. Given the sheer number of platforms, players, and approaches, integrating solutions can be challenging. By partnering with Criteo, which collaborates with various platforms to unify access, brands can achieve cleaner, closed-loop measurement and reach the right audiences across multiple channels. Neglecting this kind of an integration can be a potential pitfall, so prioritizing unification and clean measurement is essential to overcome fragmentation effectively.
