Quick-Commerce Ad Rates Jump 35%, Forcing D2C Brands to Rethink Festive Discounts

D2C brands are reassessing festive advertising and discounting strategies as the cost of securing visibility on quick-commerce platforms rises sharply. With advertising rates reportedly climbing as much as 35% year-on-year, some smaller brands are cutting promotions, reducing sponsored placements or shifting budgets to their own online channels to protect margins.

The pressure comes as quick commerce becomes an increasingly important route to consumers during the festive season. But for brands with limited marketing budgets, paying more to appear prominently on digital shelves does not automatically translate into enough incremental sales to justify the expense.

According to Datum Intelligence’s 2026 Festive AdEx report, quick-commerce advertising rates have risen 30-40% this year. Brand spending on Q-commerce advertising is estimated to increase 50% year-on-year to around Rs 2,200 crore. These are report estimates, not audited figures for the full year.

Sagar Awatade, founder of oral healthcare device brand Oracura, told Moneycontrol that advertising rates had risen beyond the typical festive-season increase of 15-20%. He said the higher costs were affecting profitability and limiting smaller brands’ ability to compete with larger players.

• D2C Brands Put Margins Ahead of Festive Volume

The rising cost of visibility is changing how some brands approach promotions. Instead of increasing discounts to chase sales, a D2C brand founder told The Unicorn Magazine the company planned to reduce festive offers and maintain a target margin of 5-10%.

The decision reflects a shift in priorities: selling fewer units can be preferable to generating higher revenue at an unprofitable price, particularly when brands must also cover advertising, platform commissions and input costs.

For other businesses, the issue is not just the price of advertising but the ability to measure its value. A snacking brand founder told Moneycontrol that inventory replenishment challenges on Blinkit and frequent changes in Swiggy Instamart’s category and POC teams had complicated its marketing decisions.

The brand said it had been asked to commit around Rs 2 lakh-Rs 2.5 lakh per month for a dedicated point of contact at Instamart, but lacked clarity on the benefits beyond sponsored advertising. It subsequently shifted that budget to its direct-to-consumer channel.

Blinkit, Instamart and Zepto had not responded to queries at the time of the reported coverage.

• Larger Brands Continue to Invest in Digital Visibility

The spending pullback among some smaller brands contrasts with the approach of established consumer companies. Parle Products has increased its advertising and promotion budget by 8–10%, with digital spending expected to rise 10-12%, according to chief marketing officer Mayank Shah. He said quick-commerce visibility is increasingly linked to sales growth and market-share protection.

Research from Worldpanel by Numerator also points to the value of combining channels: its study found that exposure to both television and digital advertising was associated with higher brand penetration for nearly 75% of the brands evaluated. The finding supports a broader media-mix approach, rather than treating any single channel as a guaranteed source of returns.

For smaller D2C companies, the key decision is increasingly about incremental sales, not impressions alone. Higher ad rates may be justified when sponsored placements generate profitable repeat purchases. But where inventory availability, attribution or platform support is uncertain, diverting budgets to owned channels can offer brands more control over customer relationships and spending.

As festive competition intensifies, brands will need to measure advertising against contribution margins after discounts, platform fees and fulfilment costs. Visibility can drive demand, but it becomes expensive growth when the economics do not add up.