MUMBAI: 34 per cent of the digital marketing spend by smartphones in 2019 will be done to improve search results including keyword bidding and SEO. This is according to the findings of TechARC's first edition of ‘Smartphone Digital Marketing in India’ that gave an overview of how the smartphone brands are spending over various platforms.

Social media marketing would consume 26 per cent of the digital marketing budgets for smartphones in 2019. Similarly, 24 per cent, 10 per cent and 6 per cent would be spent on performance marketing, programmatic marketing and influencer marketing respectively during the period.

Smartphone brands will cumulatively spend over Rs 330 crore on digital marketing in India. 72 per cent of this spending will be consumed by digital marketing over mobile platforms with the remaining being spent on web platform marketing.

TechARC founder and chief analyst Faisal Kawoosa said, “Digital is increasingly becoming the preferred mode in marketing of smartphones as it helps brands to establish an engaging connect with the millennials, who are either the buyers or influencers for smartphones.”

The report enumerates the advantages as well as challenges of digital marketing for smartphones. Among the key advantages digital marketing offers include call-to-action and rich media messaging to compliment a product like smartphone, where a brand wants to communicate a lot many details.  At the same time, the main challenges remain of creativity and innovation besides ad-fraud which results in the inefficiencies of digital marketing, reducing the RoI as well as hurting the brand image.