Google plugs into India’s quick commerce ad rush

With India entering its festive season—the prime period for brands and retailers—Google has launched the Commerce Media Suite, offering a timely strategic tool to link advertisers directly with high-intent shoppers across quick commerce and e-commerce marketplaces.

The company had announced the suite’s beta launch in July 2025 integrating Commerce Media across Google Ads, Search Ads 360, and Display & Video 360. This was to enable brands to reach consumers across Google’s surfaces—Search, Shopping, YouTube, Display, Discover, and Gmail—and drive them directly to marketplace listings.

Crucially, Google had partnered with Target’s retail media arm, Roundel Media Services, allowing Performance Max users in Search Ads 360 to track sales across online, in-app, and brick-and-mortar channels. Additionally, measurement tools are being extended to Search, Shopping, and Demand Gen campaigns.

The suite simplifies brand-platform collaboration by making it easier for marketplaces such as Shopee, Rakuten, and Flipkart to directly link product catalogues to advertisers. Retail media is also expanding into YouTube via Display & Video 360, with product-level measurement under pilot to assess the performance of specific SKUs and categories.

India’s quick commerce ecosystem has reshaped consumer habits, now accounting for over two-thirds of e-grocery orders and approximately 10% of total e-retail spending, according to Bain and Company. Reportedly, the sector's gross order value hit $7.4 billion in FY2024–25, achieving a CAGR of 142% over three years. Bain & Company projects continued expansion—over 40% annually until 2030. Morgan Stanley estimates India’s quick commerce TAM to reach $57 billion by 2030, driven by growth in non-metro markets.

These gains are underpinned by India’s dense urban clusters, low-cost fulfilment networks, and efficient dark-store logistics. While globally many quick commerce ventures struggle with profitability, Indian players like Blinkit, Swiggy Instamart, and Zepto have scaled while improving margins.

Anish Acharya, director for ad monetisation and pricing at Blinkit, noted, “In today's cluttered market, Google's Commerce Media Suite offers a significant opportunity for our great brands to cut through the noise and connect with the modern consumer. We believe this will be a game-changer for brands leveraging the growing demand for immediacy, especially with the festive season approaching, making the most of Blinkit's remarkably high conversion rates.”

Retail media gives merchants a monetisation tool: they can now sell ad space against their digital inventory, turning operational platforms into media-generating assets. For brands, the suite offers AI-driven reach and insights, campaign transparency, self-service controls, and access to marketplaces’ first-party data—an increasingly valuable resource.

By enabling product-level sales measurement, brands can tie ad spend directly to revenue across products and categories—an evolution beyond traditional vanity metrics.

Bhaskar Ramesh, director of omni-channel businesses at Google India, underlined the context, “Today, consumers demand immediacy and convenience, clearly demonstrated by the rise of quick commerce. To help brands capitalise on this, Commerce Media Suite opens fresh pathways for discovery across Google and YouTube, driving stronger results on quick commerce as well as e-commerce—a crucial advantage, especially during peak demand seasons.”

Quick commerce captures convenience-driven consumption, with delivery in less than 30 minutes. While initiated with groceries, it's expanding into non-grocery categories like electronics, apparel, and personal care—now representing 15–20% of GMV as per the Bain report. 

Quick commerce platforms are exploring new revenue streams—advertising included—to support their push for profitability. With rising consumer expectations, traditional forms of interruption marketing underperform. The Commerce Media Suite interjects into active shopping moments, aligning with shifting behaviour.

According to the tech company, early adopters are reporting measurable gains. ITC Aashirvaad Select achieved a 4× return on ad spend, while Renée Cosmetics saw an 11.5% increase in sales and a 48% reduction in cost per order using Google Ads on Blinkit.

Jitendra Rawal, head of e-commerce at Renée, commented, “The commerce media solution helps us reach our audience where they are, with the convenience they expect. It’s allowed us to efficiently connect with customers looking for our products and significantly drive incremental sales via Google campaigns.”

Google’s entry could well signal a turning point in retail media as the Commerce Media Suite collapses the distance between search, video, display and instant-sale platforms. This is critical in a landscape shaped by immediacy and scarcity.

Agencies and brands can leverage this during the festive season to tap high-intent moments and optimise across performance metrics. The shift toward in-basket sales attribution and SKU-level measurement repositions media strategies toward real ROI rather than surface visibility.

For marketplace-led operations, the suite provides a scalable revenue model via ad inventory management. For brands, it offers a consolidation of tools and data to drive conversion at the point of discovery.

As India’s quick commerce sector matures, systems such as Google’s Commerce Media Suite become vital infrastructure. The question isn’t whether every agency should adopt it—but how effectively they can integrate these tools into consumer-centric, measurable campaigns in markets where speed and choice define the customer journey.