Sidharth Shakdher

🚀 OmniTalks with AdYogi — an industry-first and Meta-first initiative by AdYogi. The future of Omnichannel Marketing is unfolding globally — and India’s top brands are setting the pace. In this series, I sat down with leaders from Meta and some of India’s fastest-growing Omnichannel brands to decode one big idea: 👉 How can online channels drive offline footfall and sales? Whether you’re a digital-first brand opening stores or a retail brand scaling online — Meta’s Omnichannel solutions could be your growth playbook for 2025 & beyond. 🎥 Here’s a sneak peek 👇 #OmniTalks2025 #AdYogiMetaPodcast Meghna Apparao Gaurav Jeet Singh Saugato Bhowmik Ayush Kapoor Kamal Khushlani Koustubh Chattopadhyay

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The festive season has always been the biggest opportunity for brands in India. Consumer sentiment is high, wallets open up, and the battle for visibility intensifies. That’s when 𝗢𝗢𝗛 steps forward not just as media, but as a way to be present in the very spaces where celebrations unfold. As I looked closer at this season’s trends, the picture became clear. After a slow first half, brands are set to 𝗿𝗮𝗶𝘀𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗶𝗿 𝗢𝗢𝗛 𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗻𝗱𝘀 𝗯𝘆 𝟮𝟬–𝟯𝟬%. But the interesting shift is in who else is joining the mix. Fintech brands are offering festive loans, healthcare and nutraceutical players are building outdoor visibility, and even consumer services are testing the medium. Looking ahead, 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗼𝗽𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁𝘂𝗻𝗶𝘁𝘆 is clear:  • Use creativity that stands out in crowded spaces.  • Link campaigns to outcomes like uplift and footfall, not just exposure.  • Stay agile as regulations, costs, and new tier-II/III markets reshape the game. The festive season has always been about connection. In 2025, OOH isn’t just capturing that energy, it’s becoming part of it. I have shared more insights on the festive OOH boom in the article (included in comments). Thanks to the team at BestMediaInfo for spotlighting this story

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Confessions of a Media Auditor. Part 2. We are regularly asked by brand leaders to audit their streaming investments. Almost every time, we see the same pattern: platform dashboards look outstanding while brand search, site sessions, and sales remain flat. This isn’t conspiracy — it’s the byproduct of a persistent information gap in streaming buys. Fragmented supply, fuzzy definitions of “CTV,” and incentive-driven metrics combine to tell a story of success that doesn’t match business reality. Too often, this gap is reinforced by agencies—sometimes masquerading “ad tech platforms” with managed-service offerings—that fail to educate clients on the true variability of inventory. Whether through omission or oversimplification, that lack of clarity amounts to obfuscation. The outcome is predictable: smart brands, lured by the promise of cheap CPMs, eventually conclude: CTV doesn’t work. But before we accept that conclusion, we ask five questions: 1. What inventory are you actually buying? 2. Which devices are your ads truly delivered on? 3. What % of impressions reached your primary audience? 4. Did you budget enough reach to separate signal from noise in your leading indicators? 5. Did you deliver enough frequency to command attention? Today, let’s start with #1. Here’s a real client report excerpt (redacted). Look closely: - “RON” and generic labels (e.g., “OTT Sports”) → broad, exchange-based supply where exact programming is unknown. - CPMs under $6 → far more likely a mix of mobile/desktop/app video and long-tail FAST channels than true large-screen CTV. - Attractive CPAs. Useful in lower-funnel harvesting, but as a north star for CTV it’s a vanity metric. It flatters platforms because it rewards clicks from users already in-market, inflates performance with cheap placements (often mobile/app units), and says little about incremental brand impact. What to prioritize instead: ➡️ Share of impressions on large-screen CTV (not just “OTT”). ➡️ On-target % against your primary audience. ➡️ Reach & frequency sufficiency for that audience. ➡️ Incremental branded search/site-visit lift (vs. baseline). 👉 If your CTV CPMs are in the single digits, you’re not buying CTV.

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If i have to sum up building new age consumer brands in a paragraph, it will sound something like this Have a product proposition which is both relevant to the category and differentiated vis a vis other players. Use that to create a brand proposition which is again relevant to the category and differentiated vis a vis other players. Use bottom funnel performance marketing to acquire initial customers. Make the brand widely available across channels and easy to buy. Create distinctive brand assets and remain consistent with your core proposition. Continue spending on high reach and impactful top funnel media to build brand salience and reduce dependency on performance marketing. Once you reach a certain scale in a category, enter other categories keeping the brand proposition true. Keep at it for 15-20 years No rocket science. But incredibly difficult to execute

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Bangalore Roundtable was literally a 🔥 Despite of rain and traffic we had a 80% of the market leaders walked-in, shared valuable experiences around GEO & AIO. We at Marketstro planned our 1st Roundtable edition at Bengaluru, to discuss on "How GEO impacts your business" We had the discussions the following 4 corners, 1️⃣ Ranking Factors of GEO 2️⃣ One strategy implemented to see impact in GEO Traffics 3️⃣ How to Measure the visibility of GEO 4️⃣ Future of Search. Here are the glimpses of our discussion, - First, we agreed up to GEO is coupled with the searches from ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI overview. - Post AIO, the drop in Organic Click is dropping around 40-60% despite of growth in Impression, and average positions as per GSC. - More than 90% of the results found in these GEO ranking are already ranking either in Google or Bing. So, 80% of the work is on the fundamental of SEO. - Branding, Brand Mentioning, Branded Traffic Growth, and Listicle are been one of the prime strategies to improve GEO Mentions. - BoFU Contents are being the only focus in terms of content strategy, and filling the topical authority for the BoFU contents. - Link building is still a factor to look at, but, budgets are yet a concern here. - Usage of Reddit, has scaled not only in leads, but also GEO mentioning. - Write content in micro-blog sites like LinkedIn pulse, Medium, and Substack. Most commercial queries in GEO are cited from these listicles. - Only when GSC give the click details from AI Overview, we'll have deep data on the keyword and the pages. - As of now tools like Profound, Writesonic, Peec are used to check the visibility splits on GEO space. - The future of search will be for the website with brand authenticity, AI-search enabled, Omni Channel presence, and Genuine contents. I would like to thank Priyam Sodhiya specially, for all his support from the start for the community and this roundtable. Also, happy share chair with other marketing mastro's of Bengaluru Navien R. Joshua D'Costa Kislay Keshari Umar Salman Aakanksha Gupta Shyam Ravishankar Looking forward for more such insightful Marketing leaders roundtable at Bangalore.

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India is betting big on Agentic AI — and WYSER - Pioneering Agentic AI Venture fund is leading the charge. With the launch of AgentikX, Wyser Capital has rolled out India’s first initiative dedicated to startups building autonomous AI systems for enterprises. This isn’t just another investment initiative, It’s a sharply focused, fast-moving platform combining insight, market strategy, and capital for founders building real-world agentic AI products. From a 5-day Primer with Global CXOs to an in-person pitch for seed funding, AgentikX is designed to fast-track the next generation of bold Agentic AI startups—ones that don’t just automate tasks but own autonomous decisions, adapt, and scale globally. 🔗 Read the full story on Yahoo Finance: https://lnkd.in/eYyjmbWR #AgentikX #WyserVC #EnterpriseAI #AgenticAI #AIStartups #AutonomousAI #B2BAI #IndiaStartup #FutureOfWork #VCIndia #BuildInIndia

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