<ul><li>Global advertising technology major, The Trade Desk on Wednesday announced the launch of operations in India and said it has appointed Tejinder Gill as the Country General Manager.</li><li>The platform aims to help digital marketers unleash the full potential of the open internet.</li><li>We catch up with Tejinder Gill, General Manager, The Trade Desk, India to find out more about his role at his new job, difference between walled gardens and open internet, finding the right platform in a fragmented market and goals for this year</li></ul>Due to the global pandemic, many businesses have altered their marketing strategies and started focusing more on digital advertising. Content consumption, especially, has grown multifold in India as corporate employees continue to work from home. Marketers are constantly on the lookout for new avenues and Global AdTech platform The Trade Desk has entered this ripe market while the iron is hot. According to Statista, the digital advertising industry across India spent 38% on programmatic purchases in 2020. Overall, the projections indicate that the industry would increasingly change to programmatic media buying over the next few years, with a market share of almost 42% by 2022. With cloud-based, data-driven platform The Trade Desk, marketers will now have the option of exploring the open internet outside of the known social media and search platforms that most people are familiar with. Open internet includes targeted display, video, Connected TV (CTV), OTT, online news platforms, audio, native, and social ads across every device. Global Web Index’s latest report revealed that Indians, on average, are spending as many as eight hours a day online, 70% of which is spent on the open internet, which is a huge opportunity for marketers. Open internet has even surpassed social media’s growth trajectory in the last year. We caught up with Tejinder Gill, General Manager, The Trade Desk, India who recently joined the company from Truecaller, to find out why open internet is an important marketplace, trends we can expect in digital advertising, how to find the perfect media mix in a highly fragmented market and goals for this year. Excerpts: <cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="Q. Why is it important for brands to explore the open internet in today's market?" text="Q. Why is it important for brands to explore the open internet in today's market?">Q. Why is it important for brands to explore the open internet in today's market?</cmsannotation> Even though Indian consumers are spending 70 percent of their time on the open internet, almost 80 percent of India’s digital ad revenue still goes to the big tech platforms, which sit outside the open internet. In these economically stressed times, brands and marketers are under pressure from their CFOs to prove the ROI of every advertising dollar. It is thus essential for them to leverage the fast-growing opportunities offered by the thriving open internet and reap the benefits of greater agility and flexibility needed in navigating today’s volatile environment. <cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="Q. Almost 80% of India’s digital ad revenue still goes to the big tech platforms which sit outside the open internet. What is stopping marketers from exploring these platforms?" text="Q. Almost 80% of India’s digital ad revenue still goes to the big tech platforms which sit outside the open internet. What is stopping marketers from exploring these platforms?">Q. Almost 80% of India’s digital ad revenue still goes to the big tech platforms which sit outside the open internet. What is stopping marketers from exploring these platforms?</cmsannotation> Brands and marketers are drawn to big tech platforms because of their dominant position and early mover advantage. We call them Walled Gardens because they keep their technology, information, and user data to itself, with no intention of sharing it. Brands and marketers don’t get much say in what content they support, and very little feedback on how their ads performed. But they go there because they have to. However, Indian marketers are now looking for credible alternatives – those that offer them greater transparency and control. As a result, they are embracing data-driven advertising on platforms such as The Trade Desk more than ever. Ironically, this economic crisis has helped focus advertiser attention on the power of what we do as every dollar they spend needs to work harder. We are here to bring the much-needed data-driven decisioning and transparency to India’s digital advertising ecosystem, offering marketers a credible choice where they can tap into the immense opportunities of the open internet. <cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="Q. What are some of the formats of advertising that The Trade Desk would offer? How big is your CTV inventory in India currently?" text="Q. What are some of the formats of advertising that The Trade Desk would offer? How big is your CTV inventory in India currently?">Q. What are some of the formats of advertising that The Trade Desk would offer? How big is your CTV inventory in India currently?</cmsannotation> With The Trade Desk’s data-driven capabilities, marketers can access a marketplace of premium advertising inventory across a wide range of websites, apps, podcasts and streaming OTT platforms. Last year, CTV/OTT was the strongest growth channel for the global ad market and it was also the fastest growing on our platform globally. As a global leader in CTV/OTT, The Trade Desk is the only platform uniquely positioned to offer advertisers the ability to buy from all OTT platforms. We can help brands and marketers get holistic visibility across the user journey by unifying their buys across multiple OTT providers, leverage advanced targeting capabilities and help retarget users across devices/channels along with a universal frequency control across platforms. <cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="Q. What is fuelling the open internet growth in India? How would you help expand its growth further in the country?" text="Q. What is fuelling the open internet growth in India? How would you help expand its growth further in the country?">Q. What is fuelling the open internet growth in India? How would you help expand its growth further in the country?</cmsannotation> Over the last few years, rapid digitization of the media industry has provided a paradigm shift in the way Indians consume content online. In particular, with more people spending more time at home in the last 18 months, content consumption on the open internet has exploded. Today, India’s marketers are operating in times of uncertainty and volatility. They are seeking agility and flexibility, and the ability to understand what’s working, in different markets, in real time, and this can be made possible only with data-driven strategies. The Trade Desk is here to help India’s marketers capture these fast-growing opportunities on the open internet. Through its industry-leading cloud-based platform, marketers can access a marketplace of premium ad inventory on the open internet and reach relevant audiences across different devices (including computers, mobile devices, tablets and connected TV), and engage with them meaningfully along their entire digital journey. <cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="Q. What kind of response have you seen from brands and agencies in India so far?" text="Q. What kind of response have you seen from brands and agencies in India so far?">Q. What kind of response have you seen from brands and agencies in India so far?</cmsannotation> Brands and agencies are welcoming us with open arms as they are looking for a strategic partner who is agile, can operate across platforms and offers them valuable options beyond the walled gardens. We also have relationships with the world’s largest media agencies and all five of them have signed up with us here in India. We have extensive partnerships with India’s leading publishers, data providers and industry players. Aside from leading publishers, we have also paved extensive inroads when it comes to OTT offerings with partners including Hotstar, Zee5, MX Player and Sony Liv. Some of our data partners include Zapr and Lifesight amongst others. <cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="Q. The internet is so fragmented today. There are many platforms that buyers are looking to invest in, how do you suggest that they get the best bang for their buck?" text="Q. The internet is so fragmented today. There are many platforms that buyers are looking to invest in, how do you suggest that they get the best bang for their buck?">Q. The internet is so fragmented today. There are many platforms that buyers are looking to invest in, how do you suggest that they get the best bang for their buck?</cmsannotation> Because media is so fragmented, programmatic advertising offers the best alternative to reach relevant audiences across different devices (including computers, mobile devices, tablets and connected TV), and engage with them meaningfully along their entire digital journey. Over the last year, we’ve seen brands in India and around the world embracing programmatic advertising on platforms such as ours more aggressively than before. The rise of e-commerce has also led to the evolution of brands adopting programmatic, asking for a mix of brand and performance led digital marketing – radically different from the pre-Covid-19 era. As more marketers experience the power of data, they want to embrace it more fully across advertising channels. Through The Trade Desk, they can measure and compare the performance of ad spots across the digital advertising spectrum, whether it’s streaming TV, audio, web, podcasts, etc., and report ROI in granular terms back to the CFO. <cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="Q. The future of digital advertising is cookie-less. How are you helping your clients prepare for that?" text="Q. The future of digital advertising is cookie-less. How are you helping your clients prepare for that?">Q. The future of digital advertising is cookie-less. How are you helping your clients prepare for that?</cmsannotation> The end of cookies is great news for the open internet. This is the time for the industry to create a new and better alternative to cookies - one that centers on consumer privacy and control. The Trade Desk has designed a solution from the consumer’s perspective that replaces cookies, upgrades privacy and control for consumers, while preserving the value of relevant advertising for advertisers and publishers. Unified ID 2.0 is a new industry-wide approach to internet identity that is an upgraded alternative to third-party cookies. Importantly, Unified ID 2.0 operates across advertising channels including mobile, audio, browsers, OTT/TV apps and devices with a single ID. This is critical as marketers and publishers look to understand their audience across platforms, while creating a better standard that gives consumers greater transparency and control. <cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="Q. Tejinder, now that The Trade Desk is officially launching in India, what would be some of your focus areas?" text="Q. Tejinder, now that The Trade Desk is officially launching in India, what would be some of your focus areas?">Q. Tejinder, now that The Trade Desk is officially launching in India, what would be some of your focus areas?</cmsannotation> As General Manager of The Trade Desk, India, I will be responsible for leading the India Operations with a focus on building monetization strategies, monitoring country growth and implementing new initiatives. In addition to executing The Trade Desk’s vision, I will be working to foster teams and building the culture from the ground up in India. In addition to this, I will also be responsible for strengthening The Trade Desk’s global client and partner relations, shaping India’s product strategy and driving effective engagement across the industry. <cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="Q. You've expanded a platform's presence in another country during a global pandemic. What kind of challenges did you face in this process? What is your vision for The Trade Desk in India? Where do you want to see it by the end of this year?" text="Q. You've expanded a platform's presence in another country during a global pandemic. What kind of challenges did you face in this process? What is your vision for The Trade Desk in India? Where do you want to see it by the end of this year?">Q. You've expanded a platform's presence in another country during a global pandemic. What kind of challenges did you face in this process? What is your vision for The Trade Desk in India? Where do you want to see it by the end of this year?</cmsannotation> We have always built our business based on the core principles of objectivity and transparency, and it’s that trust we have with advertisers – to always do what’s right for the industry, even if not always in our direct immediate interest – that has seen us continue to grow. With our launch in India, we are fully committed to the business, and while the on-ground situation is fluid, we are focusing on building awareness and early adoption. Our long-term vision is to create a scalable open platform of choice for digital marketers. The focus is to educate the market about the fast-growing opportunities on the open internet which includes channels like OTT/CTV, audio streaming and online press. The success for us by the end of year is to build a solid team on the ground to serve our customers, build a transparent ecosystem across agencies, partners and advertisers, and help marketers take data-driven decisions to better business outcomes. <cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="Q. What are some of the trends that you are expecting to see in programmatic advertising this year? What is the future of programmatic advertising?" text="Q. What are some of the trends that you are expecting to see in programmatic advertising this year? What is the future of programmatic advertising?">Q. What are some of the trends that you are expecting to see in programmatic advertising this year? What is the future of programmatic advertising?</cmsannotation> Now more than ever, marketers are being more deliberate and data-driven with every advertising dollar, and as a result, they are gravitating to the advertising opportunities on the open internet. Programmatic, therefore, becomes all the more important in streamlining the ad buying process, serving more relevant ads, and delivering greater return on spends. Programmatic spending has witnessed a rise from 26% in 2018 to 39% in 2020. While overall programmatic spending stood at Rs 3,014 crore in 2018, it quickly rose to Rs 6,610 crore in 2020. Studies also indicate that the industry would increasingly change to programmatic media buying over the next few years, with a market share of almost 74% by 2022. Programmatic media buying gives advertisers increased flexibility and more control over their creatives and optimization capacities. The ultimate result is a more scalable way of serving ads that people are more likely to click. The next wave of programmatic advertising will be towards decisioning rather than fixed price buying.

The Trade Desk has designed a solution that replaces cookies, upgrades privacy while preserving the value of relevant advertising for advertisers and publishers: Tejinder Gill of The Trade Desk

<ul><li><keyword id="1106616" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="TrueCaller">Truecaller</keyword> claims that its <keyword id="9819636" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="programmatic-platform">programmatic platform</keyword> helps reach 170 Million active smartphone users. </li><li>As mobile advertising expenditure in India is projected to reach 1.73 Billion U.S. dollars in 2021, up from 460 million in 2017, Truecaller is confident of reaching its goals this year. </li></ul>Truecaller’s Brand Solutions platform has witnessed over 1 Billion impressions in a single day in India. With the festive season round the corner, customer-obsessed brands are continuously looking for active user platforms to engage with their target audience and deliver the right set of messages. Truecaller claims that its programmatic platform offers <keyword id="9819634" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="innovative-advertising-vehicles">innovative advertising vehicles</keyword> that are carefully chosen to deliver contextually relevant messages to its over 170 Million active smartphone users in India. It also gives mileage to the advertisers by hitting peaks at different times of the day and has the capability to deliver 2 Million + Impressions per minute. Mobile continues to be the backbone of online advertising and mobile apps are where the bulk of the traction takes place today. In fact <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/275919/mobile-ad-spending-forecast-for-india/">according to recent reports</a>, mobile advertising expenditure in India is projected to reach 1.73 Billion U.S. dollars in 2021, up from 460 million in 2017. Speaking on the occasion, <keyword id="3824042" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="tejinder-gill">Tejinder Gill</keyword>, Vice President Global Sales at Truecaller said “Truecaller’s programmatic advertising platform has accomplished significant achievements since its inception. With marketers and CMO’s shifting their strategies from mobile-first to mobile-only, advertising platforms such as ours are best placed to help achieve these objectives. Around the festive season, when audiences have their eyes wider open than usual, we look towards working together with our partners to achieve our objectives together. Needless to say, our advertisers are looking forward to a much deserved high this coming festive season.” Commenting on his experience, Harish Iyer, Executive Vice President, IPG said, “We have recommended Truecaller to our advertisers and have consistently seen the platform over-deliver its commitments. With the help of Truecaller, our client’s messages have been delivered to their users through a brand roadblock with absolute simplicity and undivided attention. We believe Truecaller will play an integral part in our media approach for the upcoming festive season of 2020, with more of our clients looking to showcase their own unique stories.”

Truecaller's Brand Solutions Platform witnesses over 1 billion impressions in a single day

<ul><li>Spotify capitalised on Truecaller’s brand solutions to maximize the brand visibility and saw 30% more clicks in a single day for its launch campaign. </li><li>Zoomcar managed to achieve over 400 million impressions for its brand campaign after using Truecaller</li><li>India is the largest revenue contributor for Truecaller globally</li></ul>When Swedish mobile app Truecaller started buying and selling ad inventories programmatically in 2017, a lot of people were not aware of its potential. Fast forward to now, Truecaller’s programmatic platform has helped brands like Spotify and Zoomcar to capitalize on the platform’s 100 million daily active premium smartphone users in India, to send out their communications and see close to 500 million impressions in one day for their campaigns. Spotify launched in India in February this year and during the launch phase, the music streaming app capitalised on Truecaller’s brand solutions to maximize the brand visibility and saw 30% more clicks in a single day. By using Truecaller’s contextual capabilities, Spotify’s launch campaign, ‘There’s A Playlist For That’ ended up delivering over 500 million impressions in a single day. Similarly, Zoomcar again used Truecaller to reach out to its users across major cities, to promote its three-day offer of 100% off on bookings made towards the end of May, earlier this year. The numbers from both the campaigns are impressive. Both Spotify and Zoomcar saw 500 million and 400 million impressions respectively for their campaigns. We recently spoke to Tejinder Gill, Vice President Global Sales, Truecaller to understand how the programmatic ecosystem has evolved in the country in the past few years. Sharing his views on some of the biggest advantages of using programmatic advertising, Gill said, “When you look at it from a publisher’s lens, programmatic has helped us get better yield. We get more money for our inventory and everything can be optimized automatically at the back-end. We’ve now also started offering guaranteed deals called ‘Programmatic Guaranteed’ through which we can sell all our premium inventories like Roadblocks programmatically.” Gill further shares that moving to programmatic has also helped in bringing about a lot of operational efficiencies. “We no longer need a big team. Currently, three people are managing ad operations and programmatic for Truecaller globally, which includes large markets like India, Middle East and Africa. On an average, these people manage over 100 campaigns a month, which means three campaigns per day, which is a pretty high volume,” adds Gill. It has also helped in regularizing payment cycles, he shares. Gill believes programmatic is very helpful for marketers too, who now know exactly where their campaigns are running, which has given them a lot of confidence and control over their campaigns. “They are also getting better insights and are able to optimize their campaigns. They know how frequently we are reaching out to consumers and what geographies they are from,” he explains. The fact that the pricing is transparent has also helped win over a lot of clients, shares Gill. Speaking about how Truecaller helped them reach their target audience and drive effectiveness, Varun Jha, Chief Marketing Officer, Zoomcar, said, “Through Truecaller, we managed to achieve over 400 million impressions for our brand campaign. By tapping such a large quality audience through Truecaller, we were able to generate user interest that led to direct conversions during our campaign. Having witnessed such exceptional metrics, we would surely partner with Truecaller in the future for our brand promotion.” Sharing her experience, Neha Ahuja, Head of Marketing - India, Spotify said, “Being recent entrants to the Indian music streaming landscape, collaborating with fellow Swedish app Truecaller truly accelerated our launch campaign in India. It helped us gain scale and connect with potential 1.3M users who clicked on our ads through Truecaller.” Gill also feels that programmatic has evolved a lot in the last few years. He shares that close to 70% of marketers are today choosing to transact programmatically. Moreover, during the first phase, only display ads were available programmatically. However, today, YouTube mastheads, and inventory on Facebook and Google can be bought programmatically, which is leading to the entire ecosystem moving towards programmatic. So how important is India for Truecaller in the global scheme of things? ‘Very’, says Gill who shares that India is the largest market for Truecaller globally. “India is far ahead of the curve in terms of programmatic when compared to a lot of other markets like MENA and Africa. We are also the largest revenue contributors and will continue to grow as we scale up,” he adds.

How Truecaller Helped Spotify and Zoomcar Reach 500 Million Impressions in a Day

In what comes as a shocking piece of news, Communication app <keyword id="1106616" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="TrueCaller">Truecaller</keyword> has surpassed the number of <keyword id="6354576" type="CITY" weightage="100" keywordseo="Facebook">Facebook</keyword> downloads only to become the fourth most downloaded application in India on <keyword id="6355629" type="CITY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Google">Google</keyword> <keyword id="1470391" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="Play-Store">Play Store</keyword>. Truecaller is delivering an unbelievable 100,000 clicks in a day to in-app advertisers. "Our biggest strength is the engagement and undivided attention we can provide to advertisers," Tejinder Gill, Vice President, Sales and Head of India Operations at Truecaller, said in a statement. "We can deliver a brand's message and enable them to stay on top of the consumer's mind simply by the fact that we are not an 'appointment viewing' app. This is proven by the fact that over 70 per cent of our advertisers are repeat customers, which assures us of the efficacy of our platform," Gill added. According to the "<keyword id="1006750" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Mary-Meeker">Mary Meeker</keyword> Internet trends 2017" report, Whatsapp leads the list of the most downloaded app, followed by Messenger and ShareIt. Homegrown entertainment app JioTV jumped maximum points -- from 301 last to ninth this year -- and surpassed Facebook Lite (lighter version of Facebook for low connection speeds). The report said India's internet users now stands at 355 million putting the country number two in the market just behind China.

You Searched For "tejinder gill truecaller" and got 4 results

The Trade Desk has designed a solution that replaces cookies, upgrades privacy while preserving the value of relevant advertising for advertisers and publishers: Tejinder Gill of The Trade Desk

Karuna Sharma

Truecaller's Brand Solutions Platform witnesses over 1 billion impressions in a single day

BI India Partner

How Truecaller Helped Spotify and Zoomcar Reach 500 Million Impressions in a Day

Samarpita Banerjee

Did you know? Truecaller is more famous than Facebook in India

Anushree Singh