Branch Discovery Ads’ Kunik Patel on value of impressions, moving beyond last click & more

For years, the click has been one of digital advertising’s most convenient measures of effectiveness. But as consumers move between apps, mobile web, CTV and physical retail, the journey to a purchase is becoming harder to explain through a single interaction. The question for marketers is increasingly shifting from whether an ad generated a click to what that exposure contributed before and after the click.

“The biggest question is usually not ‘Can you deliver impressions?’ Everyone can deliver impressions. The question is "What did those impressions add?” For Kunik Patel, Director & Head of Advertising Sales, APAC, Branch Discovery Ads, this reflects a broader change in how advertising is planned, measured and targeted.

The last click tells only part of the story

Indian advertisers have traditionally been heavily performance-led, with the last click often serving as a powerful proof point. But Patel argues that the last click can obscure the earlier stages of the journey.

“Brands are also realizing that if you only optimize for the last click, you are potentially missing a very large part of the consumer journey. Brands want to now influence the consumers much earlier than just towards the final click or purchase & that’s where discovery becomes interesting because we can engage consumers even before they enter an app. The last click tells you who converted. Discovery helps you influence who is going to convert,” said Patel.

That also changes what marketers want from measurement. “We are trying to move the conversation from ‘How many impressions did I buy?’ or ‘How many clicks did I get?’ to ‘What did that investment achieve? We are now looking at consumer journeys beyond the traditional metrics like reach, engagement and conversions to full funnel measurement, real world footfall attribution models etc. We want to move the conversation from media metrics to business outcomes.”

Patel sees three layers to that measurement. “First is reach: Did we reach the right audience at a meaningful scale? Second is attention and engagement: Did we create a meaningful brand interaction rather than simply deliver an impression? And third is action: Did that exposure ultimately contribute to the business objective, whether that's an app action, a purchase or a store visit?”

The difficulty is that these stages may happen across different environments. “And the important part is that these don't necessarily happen on the same screen. A consumer could first encounter the brand on an OEM surface, engage with it later inside an app, see it again on CTV and eventually transact somewhere else. So, success isn't necessarily one click from one ad.”

“Success is being able to connect those meaningful touchpoints into a consumer journey and understand the outcome.”

The media plan is no longer just about channels

That fragmented journey also challenges the way media is divided into individual channels. “We're not looking at the consumer as belonging to a particular channel. A consumer doesn't think, ‘I'm now on CTV, now I'm on mobile web and now I'm on an app.’ They simply move through their day. The opportunity for us is to connect those moments.”

“So instead of planning four independent media buys, the brand can start thinking about one consumer journey across multiple touchpoints. We’re not adding more channels to the media plan. We're connecting the channels around the consumer,” Patel added.

But the bigger shift may be happening even before the consumer enters those environments. “I think there is still a gap between where consumer intent begins and where advertising typically starts. A lot of digital advertising is designed around consumers once they are already inside a particular platform or actively searching for something. But the consumer journey starts much earlier. They unlock their phone, see a notification, browse their app drawer, use global search, engage with an app, all of these are signals and moments of attention.”

What happens before Google, Meta and CTV?

Google, Meta and CTV continue to occupy a central place in marketers’ media plans, particularly when it comes to scale, performance and brand building. The question for marketers, however, is whether there are meaningful moments of consumer attention and intent outside these established environments that traditional media planning does not fully capture.

“We're not asking marketers to move away from Google, Meta or CTV. We're asking them to ask what happens before those environments.”

From audience planning to intent planning

If the click is no longer sufficient as the endpoint for understanding advertising effectiveness, the next change may happen even earlier, at the audience-planning stage. Patel sees a move away from simply defining consumers demographically towards understanding their behaviour and signals of intent.

“The challenge with audience targeting has always been the trade-off between precision and scale. If I make the audience extremely narrow, I may get great precision but not enough scale. If I make it extremely broad, I get scale but lose relevance. So instead of simply saying, ‘Give me everyone between 25 and 35 in Mumbai,’ we can start thinking about audiences based on a combination of demographic, app behavior, location and device signals.”

Audience planning, Patel said, is consequently becoming more sophisticated. “Earlier, audience planning often started with broad demographic definitions i.e. age, gender, geography and perhaps a few interests. Today, we're increasingly having conversations around intent, category behavior and life stage. The more interesting opportunity is how those segments can be combined with the specific objective of a campaign. For example, a festive campaign doesn't necessarily need one generic festive audience. A brand may want to reach early category explorers, high-intent shoppers, premium audiences, competitor audiences or specific life-stage cohorts.”

The larger change, he said, is straightforward, “The biggest shift will be from audience planning to intent planning. We've traditionally asked: Who is my consumer? I think increasingly we'll ask: Who is showing the strongest signal that they are becoming my consumer and when?”

Bharat changes where discovery happens

The question becomes more relevant as digital consumption expands beyond India's metros. Branch's data shows that 62% of its audiences come from Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities, while Gen Z and Millennials account for 79%.

Patel sees this as part of a broader shift in where digital discovery is taking place. “And when you combine that with 79% being Gen Z and Millennials, you have a very interesting consumer cohort i.e. younger consumers who are highly digital, mobile-first and increasingly comfortable discovering brands and products through digital experiences,” said Patel.

“The challenge for marketers is no longer simply finding consumers. It's connecting the different moments in which consumers are making decisions,” he underscored.

Festive advertising is moving earlier

Festive advertising offers one lens into the shift towards early intent. “Festive advertising is no longer being planned as just a burst around the point of purchase. The festive window is getting longer, and the consumer journey is becoming much more fragmented. Earlier, the focus was very much on reaching consumers when they were ready to buy. Today, brands are increasingly looking at how they can influence the consumer much earlier i.e. when the first spark of interest or intent starts building,” Patel asserted.

“Festive advertising is moving from buying moments to understanding moments.”

That changes the value assigned to consumers who have not yet reached the purchase stage. “For example, if someone is beginning to engage with fashion, electronics, travel or jewellery-related content and apps, there is an opportunity to influence that consumer before they actively start searching for a product or visiting a marketplace. The brands that win festivals may not be the ones that reach consumers closest to purchase, but the ones that recognize intent earliest.”

The implication for media planning is broader than festive advertising. If consumer intent starts before the search, click or purchase, measuring advertising only at the final action risks leaving much of the journey unaccounted for. The click, then, remains a useful signal, but is increasingly being considered as one part of a longer consumer journey rather than the sole measure of advertising effectiveness.