Zerodha’s ad spends would’ve gone to Google, Meta: CEO Kamath

Online stock brokerage platform Zerodha is known for not spending a dime on advertising. “… if we had advertised, we would have given up a lot of our profits to Google, Facebook/Meta, etc,” wrote its co-founder and CEO Nithin Kamath on LinkedIn.

He reveals that 1.6 crore Indians have traded and invested with the platform, and “almost 30% of these investors came to us through referrals by other Zerodha customers”.

Its customers today hold Rs 600,000 crore in assets. Kamath claims it may be the only B2C company to have reached this scale without ever advertising. “In hindsight, not advertising has helped us stay true to our philosophy of not pushing people to trade, no spam, etc.”

It’s noteworthy that Kamath spoke about Google and Meta when it came to advertising. Ad agencies are increasingly losing money to big tech companies when it comes to brands’ ad spending.

Pureplay digital advertising (excluding CTV and digital OOH) is projected to grow by 10% and account for 72.9% of total advertising in 2025 and 76.8% in 2029, says GroupM’s end-of-year global advertising forecast in its annual This Year Next Year report.

In 2024, he answered why Zeodha does not advertise: "It is a good place to be when you don't have to look at customers in terms of acquisition costs (CAC) and lifetime value (LTV). This way, we don't have to push customers to take a trade; we can stay spam-free, not have to sell life insurance as an investment, and more."

The ability to personalise ads and track their performance quickly is a couple of reasons why brands are increasingly moving towards digital advertising. Zerodha’s main rival is Groww which has spent money on traditional and digital advertising.