Digital
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Meta’s big India play: Boosting media agencies with AI, Reels, and Messaging
At the recent Meta Marketing Summit – Agency Edition, held in Mumbai and Gurgaon, more than 350 senior agency professionals gathered to explore the evolving digital landscape and its implications for the future of agency-client relationships.
The event emphasized Meta’s mission to empower agencies to become next-generation consultancies, capable of navigating and leading the next wave of digital disruption.
Meta is strengthening its commitment to the Indian media agency ecosystem by leveraging emerging technologies and platforms such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Reels, and Business Messaging to help agencies unlock new avenues for growth and future-proof their strategies.
At the recent Meta Marketing Summit – Agency Edition, held in Mumbai and Gurgaon, more than 350 senior agency professionals gathered to explore the evolving digital landscape and its implications for the future of agency-client relationships. The event emphasized Meta’s mission to empower agencies to become next-generation consultancies, capable of navigating and leading the next wave of digital disruption.
The adoption of AI and Generative AI tools is accelerating across agencies in India. These tools are streamlining creative development, enabling smarter audience targeting, and speeding up A/B testing—turning agencies into agile growth engines for the brands they represent.
“The agency ecosystem, which lies at the heart of India’s digital, brand, and advertising growth, is on the verge of a massive transformation. The evolving digital landscape—fueled by the rise of AI, short-form video formats like Reels, and Business Messaging—means that agencies of all sizes must adopt new skills to grow,” said Gaurav Jeet Singh, Director, Agency and VC Partnerships at Meta India.
He added, “Automation empowers agencies to scale more rapidly; the surge in short-form, engaging formats is reshaping the creative landscape; and messaging has revolutionized how people and brands interact. We’re working with agencies of all sizes to help them transform meaningfully and become future-ready to capture new business opportunities.”
According to Meta, one such success story is Sokrati India, which leveraged Meta’s Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns (A+SC) to drive performance across multiple accounts. Thanks to AI-powered automation and optimization, agencies are now better equipped to deliver measurable results in an increasingly competitive market.
India has emerged as the global leader in Reels creation, producing the highest volume of short-form video content each week. With the world’s largest community of Instagram creators, the market presents a unique opportunity for agencies to merge creativity with commerce.
“Reels is now a widely adopted product and a key component of the marketing strategies for nearly every brand we work with. We partnered with India Gate Basmati Rice to execute a mixed-creators strategy, working with 20+ regional creators and major celebrities to highlight its new packaging and reach a broader audience through Partnership Ads. The brand saw a 4.5-point increase in top-of-mind awareness versus the 0.9 APAC benchmark,” said Aakriti Sharma, Client Lead at Wavemaker.
This creator-driven ecosystem is prompting agencies to evolve from siloed media or creative roles into holistic brand consultants—capable of ideating, executing, and optimizing full-funnel strategies.
Messaging is quickly becoming a cornerstone of digital transformation in India. From generating leads with “Click to Message” ads to using the Conversions API for performance tracking, agencies are embracing business messaging to boost customer engagement and ROI.
“Performance media is now central to how businesses operate, with outputs increasingly tied to business outcomes. In today’s competitive environment, it’s essential for lower-funnel KPI campaigns to test, adopt, and scale emerging technologies and formats to maximize ROI,” said Iti Kaul, Head of Digital at OMD India.
Kaul continued, “Business Messaging on Meta has proven effective in delivering KPIs, such as high-quality leads at efficient costs, and has become a reliable part of our strategy for driving business results. Given WhatsApp’s widespread use across India, including in Tier-2 and Tier-3 markets, it offers a seamless platform to explore. Click-to-WhatsApp and Messenger Ads help bring engaged users from Facebook and Instagram onto WhatsApp, driving sales and other key business outcomes.”
Meta’s WhatsApp Cloud API now powers over 70,000 Indian businesses monthly—a number that continues to rise as more brands adopt conversational commerce. In response to this trend, Meta is co-developing custom solutions for agencies. A notable example is its collaboration with AdYogi to build a product performance management platform aimed at accelerating e-commerce growth through profitable catalog ads.
SPOTLIGHT
At the Storyboard18 DNPA Conclave 2025, Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw spotlighted the critical role of traditional media in an evolving digital landscape. He emphasized that such gatherings can aid the govt in formulating more effective policies for a balanced and sustainable media ecosystem.
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