Reach India’s Shoppers Beyond Search and Social
₹24,000 crore in two days. That’s what Indians spent when the big e-commerce marketplaces opened their festive season 2026 sales in early October this year (Redseer).
With demand at that scale, brands are putting serious money behind the season. Total festive ad spend in 2026 is expected to hit ₹60,000 crore; which is 15–20% above 2025 (dentsu India).
A lot of that money flows into the same limited places. Case in point: search and social took a whopping 64% share of India’s digital ad revenue in 2025 (FICCI-EY 2026).
But the consumer reality is this: Indian shoppers now discover, consider and buy across a lot more channels. Concentrated budgets, therefore, reach only part of their purchase journey.
That’s why moving beyond the walled gardens is becoming integral to winning the festive season. The brands that grow will let insight, not habit, decide where budgets go, evaluating channels based on incremental reach and user quality rather than familiarity alone.
And that insight starts with knowing the shopper: who’s buying this season, where, and how.
The 2026 festive shopper, decoded
Who’s shopping: increasingly, India beyond the metros
Last year set the pattern. Of the roughly 90 million people who shopped online during festive season 2025, 60–65% came from Tier 2 cities and smaller towns (Redseer).
This year is following suit. In the first two days of the 2026 sales, about two in three shoppers came from Tier 2 and rural areas (Redseer).
Where they’re shopping: on the phone, and in-app
Shopper demand lives on the phone. With ~958 million Indians now active online, shopper demand lives on the phone. (IAMAI-Kantar).
Plus, shopping on Android is growing far faster in India than globally. India’s Android shopping app installs grew 85% over the past two years, against 2% worldwide (AppsFlyer).
Payments have moved to the phone too: UPI hit a record ₹27.28 lakh crore across 20.7 billion transactions in October 2025 (NPCI)
Same shoppers, higher prices: the cost of staying inside the walled gardens
E-commerce and point-of-sale advertising jumped 50% in 2025 (FICCI-EY 2026). Add search and social’s share, and most of India’s digital ad money now sits inside a few walled gardens.
The problem is that every brand is chasing the same high-intent shopper in the same places. Agencies estimate CPCs climb ~4x during the festive season, while CPMs rise 20–40% across channels (Storyboard18).
Where to go beyond: the smartphone’s native layer
Before a shopper opens a marketplace or types into search bar, they move through the phone’s own layer: the lock screen, browser start pages, the keyboard, the app store, preloaded apps and notifications. This is the native layer that OEM advertising reaches.
The challenge: This layer is split across many phone brands, each with their own surfaces and potential ad inventory. India shipped millions of smartphones in 2025, and no one brand dominates; in Q4 2025, market leader vivo held only 23% of the total share (Omdia).
Buying that inventory one manufacturer at a time is slow and hard to scale, especially in a festive window that lasts only a few weeks. VEVE brings that layer together, giving advertisers one route to native placements across OEM partners.
How to use the smartphone-native layer to drive reach this festive season
A shopper glancing at their phone and a shopper typing a product name into their keyboard are in very different places. The right placement and format depends on two things: how well they know your brand, and how close they are to buying.
Brand discovery and product exploration
For shoppers who don’t know you yet, visibility comes first. Lock screens and minus-1 screens catch users the moment they unlock their phones or swipe right on the home screen. App store ads appear under “For You” in native app stores, and keyboard ads surface an app when users type relevant or competitor keywords.
Ready-to-buy
Staying top-of-mind and re-engaging lapsed users is necessary to nudge them towards decision. Notifications, app drawer placements, and in-app ads bring shoppers back at the right moment. These also enable action for users who are ready to buy.
Regional targeting: one season, many festivals
India’s festive season is not one festival celebrated one way. The same weeks bring Durga Puja in the East and Navratri across the West and North, so a message that lands in one state can miss in the next.
Redseer links festive growth to regional assortments, vernacular advertising and local influencer activations. VEVE’s regional targeting lets brands adapt creative and timing to each market across the festive window.
Planning for the new Indian shopper
Indian shoppers have evolved. More of them are shopping online for the first time, more come from Tier 2 and rural India, and they can be reached across far more of the phone than the walled gardens cover. The brands that meet them there and evaluate every channel on the new users and quality it brings, will keep growing long after Diwali.
Ready to reach India’s festive shoppers beyond the walled gardens?
Talk to VEVE about planning your Diwali campaign across the smartphone’s native layer.
