Google Display Network averages $0.30 CPC and $1.40 CPM. TikTok Ads is bought on CPM only, averaging $3.60. 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
Short-form video advertising on TikTok
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.
TikTok Ads runs on CPM ($8–12 typical, higher for premium placements like TopView). CPC is available but the platform's optimization heavily favors CPM-bid campaigns. Auction density is lower than Meta but growing quickly; creative quality dominates.
9:16 vertical video (1080×1920), 9-60s (best performance 15-30s), native-feeling — polished ads underperform UGC-style creative here by 2-3x. Sound-on is standard. Captions optional but boost completion.
$500/day ($15K/month) is the practical floor for the Traffic and Conversion objectives to exit learning phase in a reasonable window. Smaller budgets work for Awareness and Video View goals.