Connected-TV Advertising Gains Ground Among Indian MSMEs as Smaller Brands Increase Digital Video Spending
Connected television is beginning to move beyond India's largest advertisers as small and medium businesses increasingly experiment with streaming-TV campaigns that historically required budgets and production resources available mainly to national brands.
The shift is being enabled by three developments happening simultaneously: rapid expansion of India's connected-TV audience, increasingly automated media buying and artificial-intelligence tools that dramatically reduce the cost of producing professional video advertisements.
A recent Amazon Ads study of Indian small and medium businesses found that 87% of respondents said AI-powered advertising tools had enabled them to access channels, audiences or advertising formats that previously felt out of reach, including streaming television. Three-quarters said AI-enabled advertising had directly supported business growth. (About Amazon)
The development is significant because television advertising has traditionally favoured companies capable of funding expensive creative production and large national media campaigns.
Connected TV is beginning to change that economics.
AI Is Lowering the Entry Barrier for Streaming-TV Advertising
Producing a television-quality video advertisement once required a relatively complicated production process.
A smaller business might need:
a creative agency,
a production crew,
actors,
editing,
and post-production.
That created significant upfront costs before a single advertising impression had been purchased.
Generative AI increasingly allows businesses to create usable video assets from existing product images and simpler creative material.
This reduces one of the biggest barriers preventing smaller advertisers from entering video advertising.
Amazon Study Shows Rapid AI Adoption by Indian SMBs
The Amazon Ads study found that the share of Indian advertisers using AI-powered advertising tools increased 77% year on year.
SMBs using those tools generated 62% more advertising creatives during the first quarter of 2026 than a year earlier. (About Amazon)
The increase matters because small advertisers frequently need more creative variations rather than one expensive national campaign.
AI allows them to test multiple:
messages,
products,
audiences,
and formats
without increasing production costs proportionally.
Streaming TV Was Previously Viewed as a Big-Brand Channel
Only a few years ago, many small businesses regarded streaming television as commercially inaccessible.
The obstacles included:
high minimum spends,
creative-production costs,
and complexity in planning and buying television campaigns.
Automated advertising platforms are weakening those barriers.
A smaller advertiser can increasingly define:
audience,
budget,
and campaign objective
through digital interfaces similar to those already used for online display or search advertising.
That makes connected-TV advertising easier to experiment with.
Smaller Brands Can Now Start With Smaller Budgets
Traditional television campaigns often required advertisers to buy broad inventory across large audience segments.
That structure could be inefficient for a company operating only in one city or selling a specialised product.
Connected TV can support more selective targeting.
A regional retailer, for example, can potentially focus on households within relevant markets rather than paying for national reach.
This changes the return-on-investment calculation for smaller businesses.
One Indian SMB Used AI to Enter Streaming TV
Amazon highlighted women's ethnic-wear brand Klosia as an example.
The company used AI-powered advertising technology to convert static product material into a video advertisement and then ran the campaign on streaming television.
According to the company, around 80% of customers reached were new to the brand, while combining the campaign with search advertising helped drive three times as many purchases as before. (About Amazon)
The example illustrates how digital video can increasingly function as both a brand-building and customer-acquisition channel.
Connected-TV Audience Is Growing Rapidly
Smaller businesses would have little reason to adopt CTV if the audience remained limited.
That is changing quickly.
Recent industry research estimates India now has roughly 62 million to 65 million connected-TV households, reaching around 207 million viewers. (The Economic Times)
Connected television is therefore moving toward mass-market scale.
That gives advertisers access to a much larger audience than the premium metropolitan segment historically associated with streaming television.
CTV Has Tripled Since 2022
The WPP Media, The Trade Desk and Ormax Media research indicates India's connected-TV audience has grown roughly threefold since 2022. (Adtech Today)
This growth has fundamentally changed the advertising opportunity.
A medium that once represented a relatively narrow group of affluent streaming households is now reaching a much wider section of Indian consumers.
More scale makes the channel relevant to more categories of advertisers.
Smaller Towns Are Driving Next Phase of Growth
Perhaps the most important development for MSMEs is where the new CTV audience is appearing.
Connected-TV expansion is increasingly being driven by:
small cities,
towns,
and rural markets.
Recent research indicates growth is significantly faster outside India's largest metropolitan centres. (The Economic Times)
That creates a much stronger commercial case for regional advertisers.
A business selling primarily in smaller cities can increasingly reach its actual customers on connected television.
One in Three CTV Users Lives Outside Urban India
Kantar data cited in recent reporting indicates that approximately one in three connected-TV users in India lives in rural areas. (mint)
That challenges the assumption that smart-TV advertising is purely an affluent metro phenomenon.
Affordable smart televisions and low-cost broadband are extending streaming behaviour much deeper into India.
This dramatically expands the addressable advertising market.
Smart TVs Are Becoming More Affordable
Hardware economics are one reason for the change.
Smart TVs have become cheaper.
Internet connectivity has improved.
Consumers increasingly expect streaming applications to be built directly into televisions.
A household no longer needs an expensive external streaming device or specialist setup.
As connected televisions become the default television purchase, CTV audiences can continue expanding even without dramatic changes in consumer behaviour.
Broadband Expansion Supports Large-Screen Streaming
India's first major streaming wave happened primarily on smartphones.
The next stage is increasingly happening on the television screen.
Households with reliable broadband can watch:
movies,
sports,
YouTube,
and streaming platforms
on large screens.
For advertisers, the experience combines television-style attention with digital targeting.
That combination is commercially attractive.
CTV Advertising Reached ₹9,900 Crore in 2025
The financial scale of the market is also increasing rapidly.
EY estimates show advertising revenue on connected televisions increased from approximately ₹6,900 crore in 2024 to ₹9,900 crore in 2025. (EY)
That represents growth of more than 40% in a single year.
The pace indicates that marketers are already redirecting meaningful budgets toward connected screens.
CTV Ad Revenue Grew 42% in 2025
Industry financial disclosures based on the same broader market data indicate connected-TV advertising revenue rose approximately 42% to ₹9,900 crore in 2025. (NDTV)
Traditional television advertising moved in the opposite direction.
This divergence highlights how television consumption is being reorganised rather than disappearing.
The television screen remains valuable.
The distribution technology is changing.
Linear TV Advertising Volumes Continue Falling
Traditional TV advertising volumes declined another 7% year on year during January-July 2026, according to TAM AdEx.
That followed a 9% decline during the corresponding period in 2025. (The Economic Times)
The trend indicates that advertisers are continuing to shift budgets toward digital channels where targeting and attribution can be more precise.
Connected TV sits directly between traditional television and digital advertising.
The Television Screen Is Not Losing Importance
The decline in linear advertising should not be interpreted as the death of television.
Consumers still value large-screen entertainment.
What is changing is how programming reaches the television.
Instead of receiving content only through traditional broadcast or cable networks, households increasingly watch through internet-connected applications.
Advertising money follows those viewing habits.
CTV Combines Television Impact With Digital Targeting
This is the central advantage of connected-TV advertising.
Traditional television offers:
large-screen visibility,
sound,
and household attention.
Digital advertising offers:
targeting,
measurement,
and automated buying.
CTV attempts to combine both.
A small business can therefore obtain something resembling a television commercial while using digital tools to determine which households receive it.
Household Targeting Can Reduce Wasted Spend
Consider a regional furniture retailer operating only in Karnataka.
A national television campaign might reach millions of viewers who cannot realistically become customers.
CTV advertising can potentially concentrate impressions in relevant geographic markets.
The advertiser pays for fewer irrelevant households.
That can make video advertising economically viable at a much smaller business scale.
Audience Targeting Can Go Beyond Geography
Connected-TV platforms can potentially use additional signals to identify audience segments.
Depending on the platform and privacy framework, advertisers can target based on characteristics such as:
interests,
content consumption,
or purchasing signals.
This allows smaller brands to compete through relevance rather than simply budget size.
Digital Measurement Changes Marketing Decisions
Traditional television historically made it difficult for a small business to connect an individual advertisement with a commercial result.
CTV can provide substantially more measurable campaign data.
Advertisers can examine:
reach,
frequency,
video completion,
and downstream customer behaviour.
Improved measurement makes it easier to justify future spending.
Attribution Is Particularly Important for MSMEs
Large consumer companies may have enough budget to invest in long-term brand building even when immediate sales attribution is imperfect.
Small businesses generally have less flexibility.
They need stronger evidence that marketing creates:
website visits,
enquiries,
or purchases.
Digital measurement therefore gives CTV a better chance of competing for MSME budgets.
Performance Marketing Is Influencing Brand Advertising
India's smaller businesses became accustomed to advertising through:
search,
social media,
and ecommerce platforms.
Those channels provide measurable results.
CTV platforms increasingly need to offer similar accountability.
The more connected-TV advertising resembles performance marketing in measurement, the easier it becomes for MSMEs to participate.
AI Can Help Generate Multiple Video Versions
Generative advertising technology changes the creative process further.
A business can potentially create variations according to:
product,
region,
language,
or audience.
Previously, producing ten television commercials might have been prohibitively expensive.
AI can lower the marginal cost of each additional variation.
This increases the potential value of targeted CTV campaigns.
Regional-Language Video Could Become Major Opportunity
India's linguistic diversity makes localisation particularly important.
A brand may need separate creative in:
Hindi,
Tamil,
Telugu,
Marathi,
Bengali,
or other languages.
AI-assisted production and translation can reduce the cost of creating those variations.
Connected TV can then target them geographically.
This combination could be particularly powerful for regional MSMEs.
Small Businesses Can Advertise Like National Brands
The psychological effect is also important.
Television advertising historically signalled scale.
Consumers often assumed a business appearing on television was established and credible.
CTV gives smaller businesses greater access to that same high-impact environment.
A regional company can therefore create a brand presence that historically required a much larger media budget.
CTV Could Support D2C Brands
Direct-to-consumer brands are particularly well suited to connected television.
They frequently already possess:
digital storefronts,
customer data,
and performance-marketing expertise.
CTV allows them to add upper-funnel video branding without abandoning digital measurement.
This can help D2C companies move beyond social-media advertising as they scale.
Ecommerce Sellers Are Another Natural Advertiser Group
Businesses selling primarily online can measure customer activity relatively easily.
A streaming-TV campaign can create product awareness.
Search and ecommerce advertising can then capture purchasing intent.
Using multiple channels together can improve total campaign performance.
The Klosia example illustrates this kind of interaction.
Digital Video Helps Brands Move Beyond Search
Search advertising is powerful because it captures existing intent.
But it does not necessarily create awareness among people who are not already looking for a product.
Video can introduce the brand earlier in the purchasing journey.
For a growing MSME, this can become important once search and social channels begin reaching diminishing returns.
CTV Can Expand Brand Awareness Without Full National Campaign
A small business does not need to immediately become a national advertiser.
CTV campaigns can potentially be rolled out gradually.
A company might start in one city.
Then expand to several states.
Campaign performance can be evaluated before increasing spend.
This creates a more controlled path into television advertising.
Programmatic Buying Makes This Possible
Programmatic advertising automates the buying and placement of digital advertisements.
Instead of negotiating manually for every campaign, advertisers or agencies can use software to purchase relevant audiences.
India's digital advertising market is increasingly shaped by the convergence of programmatic technology, AI and connected television. (The Economic Times)
Automation lowers administrative complexity and makes smaller campaigns commercially feasible.
Smaller Campaigns Were Historically Inefficient to Sell
Traditional television networks benefited from large advertisers because individual media deals involved significant sales and planning work.
A ₹2 lakh campaign may not have justified the same manual effort as a ₹20 crore campaign.
Programmatic technology changes this equation.
Software can process thousands of smaller buyers simultaneously.
That allows platforms to serve MSMEs profitably.
AI Is Automating Campaign Creation Too
Media buying is not the only process becoming automated.
AI can help advertisers create:
video,
copy,
and campaign variations.
The combination of automated production and automated media buying dramatically lowers the operational threshold for entering CTV.
This is why AI and CTV adoption are developing together.
Small Businesses Still Need Creative Quality
Lower production costs do not automatically produce effective advertising.
A video still needs:
a clear message,
credible branding,
and an understandable offer.
Poor AI-generated advertisements could produce little commercial impact even if they are cheap to create.
Technology reduces the barrier to production.
It does not eliminate the need for good marketing judgment.
Brand Safety Matters
CTV advertisements often appear alongside premium entertainment or sports programming.
Businesses need confidence that their ads are being shown in appropriate environments.
Platforms therefore need reliable controls around:
content classification,
fraud,
and delivery.
Smaller advertisers may lack dedicated media teams, making platform-level safeguards particularly important.
Measurement Remains a Major CTV Challenge
Despite rapid growth, connected-TV advertising still faces significant measurement problems.
Different:
streaming platforms,
television manufacturers,
and broadcasters
can operate with different measurement systems.
This makes cross-platform comparison difficult. (mint)
For smaller advertisers with limited budgets, unclear measurement could slow further adoption.
Media Planners Want Better Show-Level Data
A recent industry survey found around 86% of media planners would move more linear television budgets to connected TV if better programme-level targeting and reporting were available. (mint)
That shows advertiser appetite exists.
The constraint is increasingly infrastructure rather than audience demand.
Improved measurement could unlock significantly more spending.
Frequency Management Is Another Problem
An advertiser does not want the same household seeing one commercial excessively while another relevant household never sees it.
Managing advertising frequency across fragmented CTV services remains difficult.
Industry research identifies household-level measurement and frequency management as major unresolved issues. (The Economic Times)
Solving them will improve CTV efficiency for both large and small advertisers.
Fragmentation Can Increase Complexity for MSMEs
The connected-TV ecosystem includes:
streaming services,
OEM platforms,
ad-supported channels,
and programmatic exchanges.
A large agency may have specialists capable of navigating this environment.
A small business generally does not.
Self-service and AI-assisted planning tools will therefore be important if CTV is to become a genuine MSME medium.
Small Town Growth Changes Regional Advertising
The spread of CTV outside metropolitan markets could have particularly large consequences for local advertising.
Regional brands historically used:
local television,
print,
radio,
and outdoor advertising.
Connected TV adds another option.
A local business can potentially reach high-intent households through premium video while retaining geographic precision.
Retail Businesses Could Benefit
Potential MSME advertisers include:
furniture stores,
education companies,
jewellery retailers,
property developers,
and regional consumer brands.
Many of these businesses already spend substantially on offline media.
CTV creates a pathway for shifting part of those budgets into measurable digital video.
Real Estate Could Become Important CTV Category
Property advertising is heavily geographic.
A developer selling homes in Pune has little need to advertise nationally.
Connected TV can potentially target relevant local households while providing the visual impact required to showcase a property.
This combination could make CTV attractive to regional real-estate developers.
Education Businesses Are Another Fit
Schools, universities and coaching businesses also operate within defined geographic or demographic markets.
Video can explain programmes and establish credibility.
Targeted connected-TV campaigns can potentially deliver these messages to relevant families without requiring national television spending.
Automotive Dealers Could Use Local CTV
Car manufacturers advertise nationally.
Individual dealerships often need local customer acquisition.
CTV could allow dealers to run geographically targeted campaigns linked with local offers.
This demonstrates how connected television can complement a manufacturer's broader media strategy.
Jewellery Retailers Could Build Regional Brands
Regional jewellery businesses often have strong local recognition but limited national advertising budgets.
CTV can provide premium visual storytelling while maintaining local targeting.
The medium therefore has potential to support the formalisation of India's regional consumer brands.
CTV Is Becoming More Actionable
The WPP Media, The Trade Desk and Ormax research found that 83% of surveyed CTV viewers sought more information after seeing an advertisement, rising to 89% among premium viewers. (Adtech Today)
That indicates CTV can influence behaviour beyond passive exposure.
For smaller advertisers, this ability to trigger:
search,
website visits,
or ecommerce activity
makes the medium easier to evaluate commercially.
Mobile Phones Can Complete the Purchase Journey
A consumer may watch a CTV advertisement on the living-room screen and then use a smartphone to:
search for the product,
visit a website,
or complete a purchase.
This creates a cross-device customer journey.
CTV provides the high-impact discovery moment.
The smartphone becomes the transaction device.
QR Codes and Click-to-WhatsApp Can Shorten the Journey
CTV platforms can also support more interactive advertising formats.
Industry reports identify formats such as:
pause ads,
pre-rolls,
and click-to-WhatsApp integrations. (Ministry of Home Affairs)
These formats make television advertising more actionable.
A viewer can move directly from awareness toward enquiry.
That is particularly useful for smaller businesses reliant on WhatsApp commerce.
India’s CTV Ad Market Has Expanded Dramatically
A government-backed industry report noted that CTV advertising spending increased from approximately ₹450 crore in 2022 to ₹1,500 crore in 2024, before later industry estimates put the market much higher as growth accelerated. (Ministry of Home Affairs)
The trajectory demonstrates how quickly connected television has moved from experimental format toward a significant advertising category.
MSMEs Could Be the Next Major Growth Engine
Large brands established the initial CTV advertising market.
The next stage could involve much larger numbers of smaller advertisers.
Even if each MSME spends relatively little, the aggregate market can become substantial.
India has millions of small and medium businesses.
Only a small percentage need to adopt streaming-TV advertising for the advertiser base to expand dramatically.
Digital Platforms Need Simplified Buying Tools
The key requirement is usability.
An MSME owner should not need to become a television-media expert.
The ideal system would allow a business to:
upload assets,
define goals,
set a budget,
and allow AI to optimise the campaign.
Platforms moving toward this level of simplicity could unlock a much broader advertising market.
Agency Models May Also Change
Advertising agencies historically handled the complexity of television media buying.
AI and self-service platforms may reduce some of that role for smaller campaigns.
Agencies can instead provide higher-value services such as:
strategy,
creative direction,
and cross-channel planning.
The industry could shift from transactional media buying toward advisory work.
CTV Could Help Smaller Brands Build National Ambitions
Regional companies often reach a point where digital performance advertising alone cannot build the desired brand stature.
CTV provides a bridge between digital marketing and traditional mass media.
A business can begin with targeted campaigns and gradually broaden reach as distribution expands.
This may help more Indian MSMEs evolve into national consumer brands.
Traditional TV Will Remain Important
Connected TV is unlikely to immediately replace linear television.
Industry research suggests both formats continue to have strong prime-time viewing patterns. (The Economic Times)
Large advertisers may continue using both.
The change is that marketers can increasingly allocate different roles to each medium.
Linear TV provides very broad reach.
CTV offers greater targeting and measurement.
MSMEs May Enter Television Through CTV First
For smaller advertisers, the sequence may be reversed.
Rather than starting with traditional television and then adding CTV, many MSMEs could experience television advertising for the first time through streaming.
That could permanently change the advertiser composition of the television market.
The category may no longer be defined mainly by India's largest consumer companies.
Competition for MSME Budgets Will Intensify
CTV is competing for the same marketing rupees as:
Google,
Meta,
Amazon,
and other digital channels.
Small businesses will allocate money where results are strongest.
Streaming platforms therefore need to prove that video advertising produces incremental value rather than simply duplicating audiences already reached elsewhere.
Cross-Channel Attribution Will Be Critical
If a customer sees a television advertisement and later purchases through search, which channel deserves credit?
This is a difficult attribution problem.
Better measurement systems will need to connect:
CTV exposure,
search behaviour,
and final transactions.
Solving that problem will make the channel more attractive to performance-oriented MSMEs.
Privacy Rules Will Shape Targeting
Targeted advertising also needs to respect consumer privacy.
As India develops its data-protection framework, advertisers and platforms need compliant methods for audience targeting and measurement.
Strong privacy controls can increase trust.
Poor practices could create regulatory and reputational risks.
Smaller Advertisers Need Transparency
MSMEs generally cannot afford inefficient spending.
Platforms therefore need clear information about:
pricing,
audience reach,
and campaign results.
Transparent reporting will be essential for long-term adoption.
If advertisers cannot understand what they received for their money, enthusiasm could decline quickly.
The Economics of Video Advertising Are Being Rewritten
The broader change extends beyond connected TV.
AI is reducing creative-production costs.
Programmatic systems are reducing transaction costs.
Smart TVs are expanding addressable audiences.
Together, these forces make premium video advertising possible at far smaller budget levels than traditional television allowed.
This is why CTV adoption among MSMEs could accelerate rapidly.
Conclusion
Connected television is emerging as a meaningful new advertising channel for Indian MSMEs as technology lowers barriers that historically kept smaller businesses out of television marketing.
India's CTV audience has expanded to approximately 207 million viewers across 62–65 million households, with some of the fastest growth now coming from smaller towns and non-metro markets. (The Economic Times)
At the same time, AI-powered creative tools are reducing the cost and complexity of producing video advertisements. Amazon Ads research found that 87% of surveyed Indian SMBs said AI enabled them to access advertising channels or formats previously beyond their reach, including streaming television, while 75% said AI-supported advertising had contributed to business growth. (About Amazon)
The market itself is expanding rapidly. Connected-TV advertising revenue rose to approximately ₹9,900 crore in 2025, even as traditional television advertising volumes continued declining. (EY)
The next phase will depend on whether platforms can solve persistent challenges around measurement, frequency control and cross-platform attribution.
If those systems improve, connected television could become something Indian advertising has historically lacked: a television-scale branding medium accessible not only to national corporations, but also to thousands of smaller regional and digital-first businesses operating with much more modest budgets.