Driving Demand in the
Smartphone Race
— itel × Google + Meta
Build reach and capture intent across Tier 2–3 India in 30 days.
itel operates in one of the most brutally competitive spaces in Indian consumer electronics — the sub-₹10,000 smartphone segment in Tier 2 and Tier 3 markets. Dozens of brands fight for the same first-smartphone buyer, the same upgrade buyer, the same offline retail footfall. The margin for inefficiency is zero.
The brief was a full-funnel sprint: build awareness and consideration at the top, capture active purchase intent in the middle, and convert that intent into store locator visits and WhatsApp conversations at the bottom — all within 30 days, across a multi-channel Google + Meta stack.
“Reach alone doesn’t sell smartphones in Tier 2 India. You need to reach the right person, then be right there when they search.”
Three stages of the funnel. Thirty days. One budget.
Running a genuinely full-funnel campaign — not just awareness with a token conversion layer — in 30 days requires precise allocation across very different media environments. Each stage of the funnel has different inventory, different creative requirements, and different success metrics.
Reaching the right Tier 2–3 audience at scale
Tier 2–3 India is linguistically diverse, digitally active but media-fragmented, and increasingly unreachable through English-language creative. Vernacular video and local market targeting were non-negotiable — not optional add-ons.
Converting awareness to intent without a direct e-commerce path
itel’s primary sales channel in Tier 2–3 markets is offline retail. There was no Amazon cart to push users to. Intent had to be converted into store locator visits and Click-to-WhatsApp — a harder conversion to engineer than a standard add-to-cart.
Maintaining cost efficiency across a three-platform stack
Running Google Demand Gen, Google Search, and Meta simultaneously creates budget allocation risk. Over-indexing on reach (Demand Gen) at the expense of intent capture (Search) produces impressive impression numbers but weak conversion outcomes.
Three channels. Three jobs. One integrated strategy.
We structured the campaign so each channel owned a distinct job in the funnel — with no overlap and no budget cannibalisation. Google Demand Gen built the audience. Google Search harvested the intent that Demand Gen created. Meta deepened consideration at a cost per engagement that TV could never match.
The funnel architecture also served an efficiency purpose: Demand Gen’s 85M impressions and 32M reach built a warm audience that made Search remarkably efficient. Users who had already seen itel creative via Demand Gen were significantly more likely to click a Search ad and convert — compressing the cost-per-conversion on the intent layer.
Visual-first reach, intent capture, vernacular affinity.
Creative strategy was as important as media strategy. Tier 2–3 India does not respond to English-language aspirational advertising. Vernacular video on Meta — reels in regional languages optimised for ThruPlays — delivered the affinity layer at a cost per completed view that made the investment straightforward to justify.
Visual-first video & image across YouTube, Discover & Gmail
Google’s Demand Gen format allowed us to run visual-first creative across YouTube’s feed and in-stream, Discover cards, and Gmail — reaching Tier 2–3 users across Google’s inventory with a single campaign structure. 85M impressions, 32M unique reach in 30 days.
Category, competitor & model keywords → offline conversion
Search campaigns targeted three keyword tiers: category terms (“best smartphone under 8000”), competitor terms (rival brand names), and model-specific terms (itel model numbers and features). All ads routed to store locator or Click-to-WhatsApp — not a website landing page. This drove a 7.4% CTR at ₹3.2 CPC, and 38K total conversions across both actions.
Vernacular reels & static — optimised for ThruPlays and engagement
Meta ran vernacular reels and static creative optimised for ThruPlays (video completions) and interactions. The result was a 4.4% engagement rate — well above category benchmarks — and 8.5M ThruPlays at ₹0.22 each. At that cost, video completion was effectively free at scale.
85M impressions. 38K conversions. ₹0.22 per ThruPlay.
In 30 days, the campaign delivered full-funnel results across all three objectives: reach and awareness at scale, intent capture at efficient cost, and meaningful offline conversion activity through store locator and WhatsApp. The ₹0.22 ThruPlay cost on Meta represented exceptional value for completed video views in a high-intent smartphone buyer audience.