Can retail data make hot retail media hotter? The Trade Desk thinks

With over ₹31,000 crore and ₹22,000 crore in annual advertisement revenue, respectively, Google and Meta cumulatively represent more than ₹50,000 crore of direct digital ad revenues; industry estimates place their dominance in this business at 70-90% of the total market share.

But slowly, the duopoly is breaking. Retail media–advertisements on e-commerce, quick commerce and other online retail platforms–are surging in India.

As e-commerce and quick commerce grew rapidly in India, particularly post pandemic, retail media has become an established arm of digital advertising outside of Meta and Google’s near-total dominance in India’s digital advertising business. Amazon’s ads and allied services’ revenue already crossed ₹8,000 crore in FY25, while that of rival Flipkart jumped to over ₹6,000 crore in the same year. And then, there are the quick-commerce and food delivery companies, including Zomato, Swiggy and Zepto, although they do not disclose their income from advertising separately.

Estimates suggest that retail media business in India is already worth $1.5-2.0 billion this year, as brands find value in showing ads that directly lead to purchases within a platform, so that they can track the impact of every ad dollar spent credibly. In its annual report on India’s media & entertainment industry, consulting firm EY and industry body Ficci (Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry) estimated retail media had grown to 18% of India’s total digital advertising business worth ₹70,000 crore in 2024, overtaking ad revenues in entertainment and sports.

However, showing ads in online retail platforms—from sponsored search results to plain old banner ads—is now a matter of routine, arguably getting as routine as managing Meta and Google campaigns.

So where does retail media go from here?

Data ‘Goldmine’

One of the key firms leading this new data-driven shift is The Trade Desk, which is quietly building a cross-platform ad layer above India’s retail giants.

“Retail data is the new kid on the block for me,” says Rahul Kapoor, vice-president of partnerships at The Trade Desk in India. “We are very early in this in India. But in the US, we started the retail data business 4-5 years ago with the largest retailers, including Walmart, Walgreens and Macy’s.”

The Trade Desk, an American ad-technology company listed on the NASDAQ, runs a self-service platform that allows brands and publishers to buy and sell ad space from each other. Kapoor, an old-timer at Google India, is building The Trade Desk’s retail data product in India.

But what exactly is retail data? Retail media—comprising ads and sponsored listings on a retail platform—is the first, most obvious line of ad revenue for retailers. Kapoor argues, India’s online retail platforms are sitting on a “goldmine” of quality, first-party data–how their customer base shops, what they like to buy, when, from where, and why. “This data can help advertisers look at their media planning in a new way,” Kapoor explains. “With our tech, we can bring together retail data from across platforms in one way, so that we can break the walls [between retailers] and give advertisers a cross-platform look.”

Consider this: a brand that sells children’s health food may already be running ads and sponsored listings on the biggest quick commerce and e-commerce platforms in India. Each campaign will be tailored to those platforms, informed by the customer data each provides. However, to design a larger brand campaign that appeals to all potential customers buying healthier food for their children, a brand would ideally like to know how these customers behave across rival quick-commerce platforms, vertical and horizontal e-commerce platforms, and perhaps even offline supermarket chains where the brand (or its rival) are available.

“Unlike with retail media, which sits on an individual platform, retail data allows brands to target their user across devices and platforms on their online journey,” Kapoor added. “Today, a brand can use retail data to target me when I’m watching Wimbledon on JioHotstar for example, then when I’m reading a newspaper, and then again when I’m at the gym, via the music I may be streaming.”

Advertisers who use The Trade Desk’s retail data product can build campaigns directly on top of the data it provides, creating their own datasets based on customer attributes and the kind of retail platform it is sourced from, building lookalikes from these audiences, and using them to refine targeting.

Partnering Up

Since the launch of the retail data business, The Trade Desk has partnered with grocery delivery firm BigBasket a year-and-a-half ago, quick commerce platform Zepto earlier this year, and more recently its rival Swiggy. Now, it is pursuing clients from other industries that deal with valuable retail data—including vertical commerce companies and payment aggregators.

“Businesses have realized they are sitting on a goldmine of data and they are trying to build more lines of business,” Kapoor said. “Data providers are keen to explore this, especially because it is a highly profitable business.” A retailer or payment aggregator need not invest any money in monetizing their data.

This data is going to keep getting richer, as online retail percolates to smaller cities and towns, and more middle- and working-class consumers. For instance, consulting firm Kearney estimated in a report this June that quick commerce grocery business alone will triple between 2024 to 2027 to reach ₹1.5-1.7 trillion; during this time, it will also likely extend to all towns with over 5 lakh population and become a fixture in all Indian households with an annual income of ₹6 lakh or more.

“At Zepto, we see data as a powerful enabler for brands when used responsibly and intelligently,” Devendra Meel, chief business officer at Zepto, told Mint in an email. “Our partnership with The Trade Desk extends the value of Zepto’s retail data ecosystem, helping advertisers plan, target, and measure campaigns more effectively using commerce-driven insights.”

Zepto also runs its own analytics tool for advertisers on its own platform, called Zepto Atoms. Atoms and the The Trade Desk complement each other in the partnership, allowing brands to make better decisions, while putting ads on Zepto and outside of it.

“Zepto Atom sits at the core of this approach offering brands visibility into sales, impressions, and trends, along with advanced behavioural insights detailed down to pincode level insights and Zepto GPT-powered recommendations,” Meel said.

But for customers, there’s reason to be cautious. Retail data claims to be anonymized and companies like The Trade Desk say their aim is to make ads more relevant and less intrusive for consumers. But in the absence of clearly defined rules for India’s Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, intermediaries, including retailers who provide such data and ad tech companies who build tech tools monetizing it, are not yet clear on how they can protect privacy while giving advertisers a bang for their buck.

However, as advertising and customer acquisition costs on Google and Meta continue to rise rapidly, marketers will keep taking a closer look at their budgets and the return on their ad dollars. First party data will get more valuable, and so will conversion-focused retail media. Retail data may just be the next step in making it a credible third of India’s massive digital advertising pie.