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The 2025 festive season has turned out to be a record-setter across almost every consumer-facing sector. And as the season hits its peak, media planners and marketers around the country have reached a common conclusion, this festive window has become a turning point for retail media.
According to retail experts, early industry estimates for the 2025 festive window (September–October) indicate a decisive surge in retail-media ad spending. E-commerce and quick-commerce platforms together are said to have generated more than Rs 2,000 crore in advertising revenue during the festive season, a figure that represents roughly a 25% increase over last year.
Retail media was once seen as a narrow performance tool — the kind of ad brands ran at the bottom of the funnel to push conversions on Amazon or Flipkart. But this festive season has changed that narrative completely. Retail media is no longer a side category or an experimental line item; it has become the engine room of digital advertising.
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Across Amazon, Flipkart, Meesho, Myntra, Blinkit, Zepto, Swiggy Instamart and every other commerce-led platform, advertising demand hit an all-time high. Brands leaned aggressively into shoppable placements, first-party data, and high-intent audiences, shifting away from broad-reach digital or traditional media buys. In many ways, festive 2025 didn’t just boost retail media — it validated it as the most critical digital channel for the season.
“Across categories, our clients are ramping up their ecommerce media investments throughout the year, with a noticeable surge during Diwali. The question has shifted from ‘Why retail media?’ to ‘What more can we achieve with retail media?’,” said Sairam Ranganathan, Head of Commerce, WPP Media India.
Adding to that, Rohan Chincholi, Chief Digital Officer, Havas Media India, noted that marketplaces such as Amazon, Flipkart and Meesho likely pulled in several thousand crores in festive-window advertising, reflecting a sharp year-on-year rise. “As per industry estimates, overall festive AdEx this season is expected to be around Rs 50,000 crore,” he added.
To put the festive bump in annual perspective, Amazon, Flipkart and Myntra reported combined ad revenues of about Rs 15,573 crore in FY25 (26% YoY growth), while quick-commerce platforms (Blinkit, Zepto, Instamart) now account for an estimated Rs 3,000–3,500 crore of ad revenue annually. Taken together, India’s marketplace-plus-quick-commerce retail-media ecosystem is now approaching Rs 18,500–19,000 crore annually, with the festive quarter contributing the sharpest single-period jump, experts told e4m.
Market momentum, too, was unusually strong. Online festive GMV touched Rs 1.24 lakh crore (up 31% YoY), and Diwali week order volumes climbed 24%, expanding shoppable surfaces and pushing up ad rates across formats.
Industry leaders have stressed that this isn’t simply an increase in spending, it’s a reallocation of budgets driven by measurable outcomes. Retail media, they estimate, grew 25–30% year-on-year in the festive quarter, eating into both traditional digital and mass media.
Retail media’s festive growth
Retail media, according to many agencies tracking festive spending, is estimated to have grown 25–30% year-on-year during the September–October window, one of the strongest jumps across digital this season.
“Retail media achieved around 25–30% YoY growth, taking a larger share of digital which accounts for almost half of festive AdEx,” said Shrikant Shenoy, AVP at Lodestar UM. His assessment reflects that retail media didn’t just grow, it actively pulled budgets away from social, display, and even parts of traditional digital, becoming the dominant performance-plus-branding engine of the season.
Data shared by Chetan Asher, Founder, Tonic Worldwide, also reinforces this shift. He mentioned that about one-third of festive digital budgets now go to D2C-led activity, 35–40% to retail or marketplace media, and the rest across social, search and CTV. He added that retail media continued to expand strongly this season, growing roughly 20–22% YoY as e-commerce and quick-commerce platforms broadened ad inventory and onboarded more brands.
Mandar Lande, Co-founder and CEO of the zero-commission food delivery app WAAYU, echoed this trend, noting that retail media “grew roughly 25–30% within digital budgets this festive quarter, outpacing the 12–20% growth seen across overall festive-season advertising.” He pointed out that the momentum is consistent with platform performance, with top e-commerce players reporting 26% YoY ad-revenue growth in FY25, showing how deeply retail media has embedded itself into brand spending cycles.
This shift is also visible at the market level. As per Asher, festive AdEx for 2025 is expected to close between Rs 45,000 and Rs 50,000 crore, with digital contributing close to half. However, Asher gives a much higher AdEx estimate for retail and commerce media combined, pegging it at Rs 9,000–11,000 crore, for the entire festive season.
Notably, this jump was powered by high-intent shopper traffic, brands doubling down on outcome-led KPIs, and the growing comfort with SKU-level, data-backed targeting that marketplaces and quick-commerce platforms now offer.
Ranganathan explained, “Every exposure is now a potential shopping moment with retail media. Omnichannel and digital-first brands are increasingly relying on commerce-led strategies to market and sell specific variants and SKUs.” This mindset has pushed brands to build retail media into the centre of their festive planning rather than treating it as purely tactical.
What further fuelled the surge was the premium that platforms commanded on peak festive days. As ad rates climbed and inventory tightened, brands, especially across FMCG, beauty, electronics and D2C, leaned heavily into retail media to secure visibility at the exact moment consumer intent peaked. Several new-age and mass brands also entered the ecosystem for the first time, drawn by the promise of measurable conversions and transparent ROI.
Which Categories Fuelled the Retail Media Boom?
The surge in festive advertising this year was driven by a handful of categories that saw both exceptional consumer demand and fierce competition for visibility across marketplaces and quick commerce. Electronics and smartphones once again dominated the charts, becoming the single-biggest contributor to retail media revenue. With Diwali driving the highest annual sales for this segment, brands locked in prime positions on Amazon and Flipkart weeks in advance. Media buyers told e4m that electronics advertisers were among the earliest to secure home-page takeovers and top search placements, simply because the stakes (and margins) are highest.
FMCG was another heavy spender and arguably the most consistent across platforms, thanks to its high purchase frequency and extensive festive portfolio. As Renu Bisht, Founder, Commercify360, an ecommerce solution partner, noted, “FMCG always tops festive spend, and this year we saw a 25% increase over last season, with a big chunk flowing into e-commerce and quick commerce.” She added that the category’s visibility on Blinkit, Zepto and Instamart was stronger than ever, especially in the final days before Diwali.
Beauty and personal care, particularly digital-first and D2C brands, saw the sharpest YoY surge. Anurag Kedia, cofounder of BPC brand Pilgrim, said the brand increased its festive marketing budget by about 50% YoY, with 70% of that spend going to marketplaces. “Festive is where marketplaces give us the highest conversion potential, so we align deeply with their promotional calendars,” he explained, highlighting why beauty advertisers became some of the most aggressive bidders across Amazon and quick-commerce platforms.
Beyond these, fashion and lifestyle categories performed strongly across Myntra, Meesho and Amazon Fashion, with both mass and premium brands increasing their placements. Home appliances, kitchen essentials and décor added further momentum to marketplace ad demand, riding the wave of Diwali-led home upgrades.
Several new categories also meaningfully entered retail media this year. Shenoy observed that “emerging segments like fintech, travel and even auto used retail media this season, signalling how far beyond core shopping categories this space has evolved.” Meanwhile, Lande reinforced the growing role of quick commerce: “Quick commerce has become essential as an advertising platform, with premium rates for instant-conversion audiences.”
How Much Did E-commerce Platforms Earn This Festive Season?
The scale of festive consumption in 2025 set the stage for an unprecedented surge in retail media spending. Datum Intelligence projected that India’s festive e-commerce sales would cross Rs 1.2 lakh shenoyQuick-commerce players also reported their best-ever October–November performance this year, with ad-driven conversion rates touching nearly 3X those of traditional digital platforms, according to exchange4media’s coverage.
On marketplaces, the momentum was equally strong. Amazon and Flipkart saw deep traction in Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities, with smartphones, electronics, appliances, fashion and beauty leading both visibility and sales.
When combined with the Rs 2,000 crore-plus festive ad revenue that e-commerce and quick-commerce platforms are estimated to have generated, it becomes evident that the same categories driving consumption are also the ones pushing retail media to new highs.
Demand for Festive Inventory Hit Record Highs
With retail media witnessing its strongest surge yet, the pressure on platform inventory was intense. Experts say premium festive placements were almost entirely booked out well before Diwali, driven by surging buyer intent, tighter competition among brands and a sharp rise in shoppable surfaces across marketplaces and quick-commerce apps.
“Online order volumes were up almost 24% this Diwali, and GMV grew around 23%. That automatically increases the number of shoppable surfaces for advertisers,” said Lande, cofounder of Waayu. With festive-week searches, wishlists and add-to-carts also spiking, premium placements on Amazon, Flipkart, Blinkit and Zepto sold out weeks in advance — driving ad rates higher and helping push festive retail-media revenue past the Rs 2,000 crore mark.
Bisht, who works closely with several large consumer brands, added, “Spend in the Oct–Nov–Dec quarter is typically 1.5X higher than the previous quarter, and this year quick commerce absorbed a major share of that growth.” Quick commerce’s ability to convert impulse demand and last-minute festive purchases made it one of the most contested ad surfaces of the season.
For many brands, festive 2025 was the first time they realised that if retail media has become the biggest driver of festive reach, then platform inventory is now the most valuable real estate in the advertising market.
What This Means for 2026
If festive 2025 proved anything, it’s that retail media has become the centre of gravity for digital advertising in India. With platforms clocking record ad revenues, quick commerce maturing into a full-scale discovery engine, and categories from electronics to FMCG pushing unprecedented budgets, the shift in advertiser behaviour is unmistakable.
With e-commerce platforms reporting strong annual ad-revenue growth (~26% YoY), and retail media contributing the sharpest spikes in digital spends, brands are expected to double down on commerce-led advertising through 2026. For many marketers, this festive season was the “reset moment” where retail media moved from being a conversion tool to becoming the primary building block of media planning.
More importantly, retail media is reshaping how brands think about the funnel itself. Platforms are offering formats that blend visibility with measurable outcomes and advertisers are shifting budgets away from broad-reach media and into high-intent digital surfaces.
As retail media’s share of digital crosses new thresholds and platforms continue expanding their ad surfaces, 2026 may be the first year where commerce-led advertising overtakes traditional digital in both influence and investment.