Google Display Network averages $0.30 CPC and $1.40 CPM. Meta Ads averages $0.44 CPC and $3.12 CPM. Analysis for India in 2026.
India is the world's highest-volume, lowest-priced major digital ad market — CPMs run roughly 60% below US baselines, while audience scale exceeds half a billion connected users. Google (including YouTube) and Meta dominate, but the Indian platform mix is genuinely different: ShareChat and Moj have meaningful share in tier-2/tier-3 cities, Hotstar/JioCinema drive premium video, and Flipkart Ads competes with Amazon for retail-media spend. Language is the central strategic decision — Hindi is necessary but insufficient, and serious advertisers run campaigns across 8-12 Indian languages for full national reach. Mobile-first is absolute: nearly all consumption is on smartphones, often with limited data plans, which shapes creative duration and format choices. The DPDP Act 2023 is now reshaping consent and cross-border data flows.
Display advertising across Google's network of partner sites
Facebook and Instagram advertising - highly targetable social ads
The auction, the creative, the budget floor — the three things you actually need to know before picking a platform.
GDN buys impressions across 2M+ publisher sites via a real-time auction. You can bid CPC or CPM depending on the campaign goal. CPCs are 4–7x lower than search, but conversion rates are also lower — it's a top-of-funnel channel, not a decision-point channel.
Responsive Display Ads: 15 images (1200×628 landscape, 1200×1200 square, 1200×1500 portrait), 5 logos, 5 short headlines (30ch), 5 long headlines (90ch), 5 descriptions (90ch). Google auto-assembles.
$30–75/day gets a display campaign to statistical signal, though retargeting audiences reach signal faster and are the recommended entry point for smaller budgets.
Meta (Facebook + Instagram) runs an auction across Feed, Stories, Reels, Marketplace, and Audience Network. You optimize for a conversion event; Meta's algorithm decides bid and placement. Effective CPM is $6–12, effective CPC $0.80–1.50 depending on optimization goal and vertical.
Feed: 1:1 (1080×1080), 4:5 portrait (1080×1350). Reels/Stories: 9:16 (1080×1920). Video 15–60s. Carousel supports 10 cards. Copy ~125 chars before the truncate. Creative fatigue is the #1 cost driver — refresh every 2–3 weeks.
The algorithm needs ~50 conversion events per week per ad set to exit learning phase. For a $30 CPA that's ~$1,500/week or $6K/month per campaign. Below that, performance is a lottery.