From metros to soundboxes: how Paytunes is building India’s audio ad network

India’s audio advertising market is entering a new phase of growth. The segment is expected to reach Rs 2,610 crore in 2026, growing at 1.5%, according to WPP’s This Year Next Year (TYNY) report (December 2025). While still smaller than video and display, audio is steadily gaining ground as consumption shifts toward on-demand, choice-based listening. Digital formats, particularly podcasts, are expected to drive much of that momentum.

Betting on this structural shift is Paytunes, an audio ad aggregation platform that enables advertisers to place campaigns across streaming platforms, podcasts, metro networks and payment soundboxes.

Solving a fragmented market

Unlike video or display, India’s audio ecosystem remains highly fragmented. Streaming platforms sell only their own inventory, while global programmatic tools such as Google’s DV360 and The Trade Desk provide only digital access, often with high entry thresholds. Cross-platform buying remains complex.

Paytunes positions itself as the missing aggregation layer, offering unified buying across formats that would otherwise require multiple negotiations.

“Today, audio advertising is highly fragmented. If you advertise on one streaming platform, you only access its inventory. Even within a single medium, say metro audio, there’s no unified way to buy across cities like Delhi and Hyderabad. We aggregate across platforms and formats, something that simply doesn’t exist in the market today,” says Shashank Singla, CTO and co-founder, Paytunes.

To date, the company has worked with over 1,000 brands across categories, including e-commerce, FMCG, automotive and banking.

From college project to audio DSP

Founded in 2015, Paytunes began as a technology experiment at IIT-Delhi aimed at converting television screens into ad units for small retailers. After several pivots, the team spotted the opportunity in audio around 2018 and evolved into a full-stack audio demand-side platform (DSP), aggregating inventory across digital and transit environments.

“We started as a tech-first company but quickly realised the market wasn’t educated. There were no buyers yet. So we shifted from just building technology to actively selling and educating advertisers about audio as a serious advertising medium,” Singla says.

He identifies 2019 as an inflection point, when streaming platforms matured and advertisers began recognising digital audio as a premium channel. Since then, traditional radio listenership has gradually declined, while on-demand formats, including music streaming, podcasts and audio storytelling, have expanded.

“The big shift is from broadcast to choice. Consumers now decide what they want to listen to and when. That changes how advertising works,” he adds.

Post-COVID, podcast adoption accelerated, drawing what Singla calls a “high-intent, premium audience”. For advertisers, contextual alignment, such as placing investment ads on trading podcasts, offers sharper targeting than traditional broadcast formats.

Expanding the audio canvas

Over the past two years, Paytunes has expanded into transit audio, working with metro networks in cities such as Delhi and Hyderabad. It is also exploring inventory in travel coaches, airline environments and voice-enabled ecosystems.

“Three years ago, nobody imagined sound boxes as an advertising medium. Today, they represent a new audience surface,” Singla says.

The company’s broader ambition is to continuously unlock and aggregate new audio inventory, particularly environments characterised by high dwell time and attention.

Looking ahead, Singla believes audio will play an even larger role. “As interfaces evolve from visual screens toward agentic and AI-led interactions, conversation itself becomes audio-first. This shift will unlock even more audio inventory for advertisers,” he says.

Having established product–market fit in India, the company has begun testing adjacent South Asian markets such as Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan. A US expansion remains a longer-term ambition, though Singla acknowledges it is a far more mature and competitive landscape.

Betting on AI-led audio

In the past two years, Paytunes has integrated generative AI into its creative process. Scripts and audio variations can now be produced within hours, significantly reducing turnaround time and costs.

Singla, however, sees the bigger opportunity in conversational advertising. The company has internally tested AI-powered calling systems capable of placing tens of thousands of automated, interactive calls per day.

“Advertising has largely been static so far. The future could be dynamic and conversational. If an AI agent calls you, explains a product and answers questions, is that a call or an ad? We think it’s both,” he says.

As consumption shifts toward on-demand audio and as AI-driven, conversational interfaces become more mainstream, Singla believes audio will play an even larger role in the media mix.

At the intersection of these two trends—choice-based listening and AI-led interaction—PayTunes sees its long-term opportunity.

Captive attention and measurable impact

At the core of Paytunes’ pitch is “captive attention”. Unlike display ads that can be ignored or video ads that can be skipped, many audio environments offer fewer avoidance behaviours.

The company also invests heavily in contextual ad quality. A metro coach, for instance, has fluctuating ambient noise depending on whether it is underground or overground. A sound box operates in a completely different acoustic setting. Scripts, voiceovers and sound design are tailored accordingly, with creative production handled in-house.

“We prioritise uncluttered environments. We don’t want ads buried between 15 or 20 others. Our inventory is curated so the message stands out,” Singla says.

Instead of focusing on click-through rates, Paytunes tracks Listen-Through Rate (LTR)—whether an ad was heard in full. For larger campaigns, it conducts brand-lift studies to measure awareness and recall. The company also claims that display campaigns perform better when supported by audio, suggesting a cross-channel reinforcement effect.