After Tamil, Bengali and Telugu, Google ad products will soon support Marathi and some other Indian languages across Search, Display Network and YouTube. Google made the announcement on Tuesday at the annual Google for India event in New Delhi.

“Our research shows that 88 per cent of users are more likely to respond to a digital advertisement in their local language as compared to English,” said Kim Spalding, Lead – Product Management for the SMB and Emerging Market Advertising, Google.

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Google has said its Search feed will now display news from both English and Hindi sources, “using AI that learns which types of stories you like best”. Google Assistant is adding Marathi, to be followed by seven more Indian languages.

In addition, Google is also also introducing an India first ‘Form Ads’ on Search, which “allows advertisers to generate leads seamlessly from their mobile search ads”.

In an India first launch, Google introduced a planning tool inside Google Ads for advertisers to plan reach-based video campaigns.

“Voice, video and vernacular are three big themes that capture the behaviours of India’s growing Internet users. Keeping up with the pace of change in India’s user behaviour, we’re doubling down on our efforts to innovate our ads products for India,” said Rajan Anandan, Vice President, South East Asia and India, Google.

In a blog posted on Tuesday, Anandan said Google was working with Indian language publishers to bring more relevant content online. Announcing its Navlekhā project, he said, “Right now, the amount of online content in Indian languages is only 1 percent of what’s available in English. So we’ve started a project called Navlekhā, a word derived from Sanskrit meaning “a new way to write”. This project comprises a tool that uses AI to render any PDF containing Indian language content into editable text, making it easy for print publishers to create mobile-friendly web content.”

Navlekhā will also provide Indian language publishers with free web hosting with AdSense support, allowing them to immediately start monetising content. Publishers will also receive training and support, and a branded .page domain for the first three years. Navlekhā has already started onboarding publishers from Delhi, and we aim to welcome many more from other regions in September.