Let’s be honest—when was the last time you clicked an ad because you truly wanted to buy something? Not because it flashed too brightly or because your thumb slipped while doom-scrolling? Yet, somewhere in a dashboard, that click gets celebrated as “intent.”

But a click isn’t intent. It’s a digital flinch.

For two decades, marketers have treated the click-through rate (CTR) as sacred. But it’s 2025, and India’s average CTR hovers around 0.18%—that’s less than one in 500 people. And of those clicks, maybe one in a hundred turns into a purchase. That’s a rounding error, not a strategy.

We live in an attention economy drowning in noise—up to 10,000 ads per person, per day. Yet, the metric we’ve chosen to measure “success” is the digital equivalent of someone accidentally walking into your store.

It’s time to stop pretending clicks mean anything.

Every transaction—buying coffee, paying a bill, booking a flight—leaves a purchase signal. These signals represent real behavior, not just curiosity or distraction.

Paying your electricity bill shows financial responsibility. Buying through Zepto or Blinkit demonstrates frequency and convenience-driven purchase behavior. Ordering premium coffee every morning? That’s not just caffeine—it’s identity.

These are the breadcrumbs of intent.

Unlike clicks, purchase signals tell stories. They combine demographics, behavioral data, and transactional footprints to map out who a person truly is—not just what they happen to tap on.

As digital payments explode (UPI alone now handles over a billion transactions monthly), every payment becomes a data point that advertisers can use to understand consumers on a deeper level—ethically, contextually, and with relevance.

At Paytm, this isn’t theory—it’s infrastructure.

With 350 million users, Paytm has become one of India’s largest generators of purchase signals. Each user’s activity—from bill payments to retail swipes, cab bookings to OTT subscriptions—creates a 360° profile of real-world behavior.

A jewelry brand recently used Paytm Ads to identify premium cardholders and high-value shoppers. Instead of chasing meaningless impressions, they reached verified high-intent audiences. The result: 4% higher CTR and 22% more incremental clicks, all from consumers who were actually likely to buy.

A quick commerce brand saw 38% higher conversion rates by targeting users already active in both offline and online grocery categories. Another campaign saw 87% video completion rates—because when you show the right message to the right person, you don’t need to beg for attention.

Think of purchase signals as GPS for marketers. They don’t just show you where people have been—they tell you where they’re going.

Clicks give you noise. Purchase signals give you navigation.

When combined with AI, first-party data, and privacy-safe frameworks, purchase signals transform marketing from a guessing game into precision orchestration. They make ad relevance not just possible—but scalable.

Consumers don’t hate ads. They hate irrelevant noise. The solution isn’t fewer ads—it’s smarter signals.

Clicks were fine when the internet was young and curiosity was currency. But today, the brands that win will be those that trade impressions for intention, and replace vanity metrics with verified value.

Purchase signals are the future of attention. They’re not just the proof of past behavior—they’re the promise of future action.

Because the next era of adtech won’t be powered by who clicked.
It’ll be powered by who bought.