Inside Tata 1mg’s Data-Led User Acquisition & Retention Engines

In June 2021, Tata Digital, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Tata group, acquired a majority stake in the online pharmacy 1mg (now Tata 1mg). The deal, worth $220-240 Mn for an estimated 51-60% stake, was a mix of primary infusion and secondary buyouts. It pegged the healthtech platform’s valuation at about $450 Mn, nearly double its pre-acquisition worth.

The deal was a strategic anchor for the Tata group’s digital health ambitions. In fact, 1mg’s e-pharmacy, diagnostics and telehealth services were positioned as a significant value addition to strengthen the Tata Neu superapp. The transaction happened when Reliance Industries had already snapped up the e-pharma portal Netmeds to cement its health tech presence.

For 1mg, the acquisition enabled capital, scale and brand equity without altering its core, which was built on sound business values long before the Tatas came in. Given the shared value system, the integration felt more like a natural evolution than a reinvention.

“We have always leaned heavily on trust and authenticity. So, the synergy with the Tatas felt quite natural. We were already pursuing the very principles the group is known for,” Prateek Verma, senior vice president at Tata 1mg, told Inc42 in a recent interaction for the ongoing CMO Code series.

Verma has been part of the journey since 1mg’s early days, first at HealthKart, where the platform started as HealthKart Plus, and later through its spin-off as an independent brand in 2015. Over the years, the IIT Kanpur alumnus — he did his B.Tech in material science and metallurgical engineering — led diagnostics, product and the e-pharmacy business. His cross-functional experience across critical domains played a major role as Tata 1mg strategically blended consumer trust, design and communication to stand out in India’s crowded healthtech space.

The acquisition also marked a subtle but significant shift in the brand narrative. “We were no longer a transactional platform. We wanted to bring ‘care’ back into healthcare. That’s when our tagline evolved to Bringing Care to Health. Although the Tata group’s entry did not fundamentally change our direction, it validated our approach and gave us the confidence to go deeper into our mission,” said Verma.

As of August 2025, Tata 1mg held a 30% market share of India’s e-pharmacy space (as claimed by the company). With Tata’s backing, the company isn’t just defending its position. It aims to lead the next phase of India’s digital healthcare race. But before we dive deep into its marketing strategies to spearhead growth, here is a close look at its evolution and pivots.

How Tata 1mg Is Betting On Hybrid Expansion And AI Advantage

Keen to capture India’s booming healthcare market, Tata 1mg has scaled beyond online operations into offline retail and adjacent healthcare services. The omnichannel platform with integrated outpatient services now spans e-pharmacy, diagnostics, consultations and institutional health solutions, aiming to make healthcare “understandable, accessible and affordable”, according to Verma.

“Our mission is to be India’s trusted and integrated omnichannel health ecosystem, delivering health and wellness services outside the hospital in a personalised, predictive and corrective way,” he added.

The platform lists more than 800K SKUs, delivers to 20K+ pin codes and has launched 50-minute delivery in select cities. It also operates 100+ brick-and-mortar medical stores that combine pharmacy and diagnostics and aims to set up 3K outlets by FY30.

The company plans to roll out a 30-minute delivery service across 26 cities this financial year by leveraging a network of company-owned stores and partner outlets. The delivery model is already operational in eight cities, and it has been expanded further through collaborations such as a shop-in-shop tie-up with BigBasket in Bengaluru. The push reflects a broader strategy to deepen integration between online and offline channels, with network expansion positioned as a central growth driver in the months ahead.

On the diagnostics front, Tata 1mg runs 14-15 NABL-certified labs, holds Certificate of Suitability (officially, CEP or Certification of suitability to the monographs of the European Pharmacopoeia) and covers about 55 cities. It also provides institutional health solutions for corporate houses, insurers, pharmaceutical companies and other partners.

Additionally, it has integrated its offerings for condition-specific care programmes (obesity, cancer and more). “We are now bundling consultations, diagnostics, medication and structured health plans into one seamless package to create integrated condition management,” said Verma.

To deepen personalisation, the company is also developing the Health Insights Hub. This digital dashboard consolidates users’ health records, including prescriptions, diagnostic data and inputs from wearable devices, into a single interface. The system will generate a personal health score and AI-driven recommendations to improve outcomes.

A Close Look At Tata 1mg’s Marketing Flywheel

For Tata 1mg, marketing is not about informing, persuading and reminding people of its products and services, followed by a passive wait for sales. Instead, it is an active and integrated growth engine embedded within each business vertical, pulling in new users, keeping them engaged and ensuring they return. At its core are two interlinked loop-based frameworks — the growth loop and the retention loop — connecting user acquisition, experience and retention to create a self-sustaining growth engine.

According to Verma, the growth loop starts with three essentials: A strong value proposition (what we are selling), a well-defined target audience (who we are catering to) and the most relevant marketing channels (where we can best engage and communicate). Marketing draws users in, clarifying the 3Ws and making an actionable promise. That promise may surface in a Google ad, a YouTube campaign, a brand story or media coverage.

For instance, if a company promises to deliver medicines at a 50% discount on the same day, on a platform rated 4.7 stars, it is not just an advertising gimmick. It is a direct, measurable commitment and an opening move in a carefully designed growth cycle. If the company delivers on that promise, a transaction happens, and the growth loop gets activated. If the company fails in that department, the cycle stops cold.

“If your loop is rotating, it means you have a healthy, ongoing growth cycle,” said Verma. “Marketing leaders try to understand how the three domains in the growth loop — brand, product and growth marketing — work cohesively to contribute to the overall strategy. In my view, this is what efficient marketing looks like. It is something we have tried to leverage consistently over the years.”

When the company delivers as promised, the retention loop takes over. Consistent performance in price, speed, assortment (range of products), and trust prompts customers to return, especially in recurring categories like medicine and healthcare. Repeat transactions deepen satisfaction, increase referrals and reduce acquisition costs due to network effects. However, in the long run, inadequate performance causes users to exit this loop, leading to churn.

Understandably, retention is not solely a marketing function. “Marketing can do its job of making the promise and bringing in the customer. But to retain that customer, the entire business must deliver what has been promised,” said Verma.

Beyond fulfilment, CRM strategies, loyalty programmes, product personalisation and cross-selling help increase customer lifetime value (CLTV/LTV). Over time, satisfied users become brand advocates and actively participate in referral programmes, fuelling organic growth.

Tata 1mg’s Eight-Point Marketing Prescription For Growth

Tata 1mg’s growth story is not one of deep discounting. Over the past decade, the healthcare platform has built momentum through a sequence of layered strategies, each designed to solve user pain points at different stages of its evolution. The focus has been building long-term user trust, reducing reliance on paid acquisitions and creating a brand with lasting competitive advantage.

Here are the eight key strategies the company has adopted.

Tackling the most obvious problem first: When 1mg was launched in 2015, it did not begin as a transactional platform. Instead, it addressed a core gap in Indian healthcare, namely, the absence of easily accessible and reliable information about prescription and over-the-counter drugs. The team developed a public knowledge base, explaining how medicines worked, their substitutes, side effects and dosage guidelines.

Within weeks, the content went viral through search and WhatsApp shares, as users actively searched for such information online. This approach helped build early credibility and organic growth even before the platform started medicine sales and delivery, aligning with the startup’s vision of making healthcare understandable, accessible and affordable.

“When you find a real problem worth solving, that’s where value is created. It paved the path for future service expansions,” said Verma.

Building Commerce Based On Consumer Trust: Once it earned consumer trust through reliable health content, 1mg partnered with local outlets to transform into a full-fledged medicine marketplace offering home delivery. This pivot propelled e-pharmacy into the mainstream across India, when 10-minute delivery was unheard of. Doorstep access to medicines wasn’t just convenient. It was an operational breakthrough that cemented 1mg’s role as a key player in India’s evolving healthcare ecosystem.

Developing full-service connected care: With e-pharmacy operations firmly in place, the company expanded into adjacent services such as diagnostics and e-consultations to deepen user engagement and build a connected care ecosystem. These services, from discovery to diagnosis and delivery, are now plugged seamlessly into the user journey to support a full-stack care experience under the company’s ‘Mixed Care’ vision.

Putting brand marketing in the Spotlight: By 2019, scale demanded better brand marketing to build long-term consumer trust. So, the company launched its first major campaign featuring actor Pankaj Tripathi. His appeal and relatable persona resonated with the platform’s focus on care and credibility.

As users developed a deeper emotional connection, the platform shifted focus from performance-led growth to perception-led recall — marking that the brand voice was as important as its service offerings.

Reinforcing trust with the authenticity hook: In a recent campaign, Tata 1mg tackled a pressing but mostly overlooked issue: Counterfeit and substandard drugs. Highlighting that 5-35% of the medicines sold in India may be substandard, the campaign encouraged consumers to ask critical questions about storage, shelf life and supply chain integrity rather than focussing solely on price.

Supply chain as a differentiator: Tata 1mg has rolled out a tightly controlled procurement model to enhance supply chain reliability, sourcing medicines only from manufacturers or authorised distributors. Besides, a live order tracker displays location, temperature, expiration dates and cold-chain compliance details for sensitive drugs. Currently operational in Bengaluru, this system has drawn positive user feedback, proving that transparency and authenticity have long-term competitive advantages in a discount-driven market.

Data-backed marketing: Marketing decisions are anchored in data for best outcomes. The company uses a proprietary impression score per user per city to measure exposure to online and offline branding. This allows targeted budgeting while maintaining consistent brand visibility. The decision-making process follows a 75:25 split between data and intuition. As Verma noted, “If you live with data long enough, you develop intuition from it.”

Focus on subject matter expertise: Senior hires are assessed for strategic thinking and leadership vision, while junior team members are evaluated for core skills. An annual operating plan (AOP), broken into quarterly OKRs (objectives and key results), ensures alignment with business outcomes and helps maintain motivation. Marketing teams closely co-ordinate with business units, fostering best-in-class execution, shared ownership and sustained engagement.

Rethinking Marketing With AI For A Cookieless Future

As healthtech balances the push for innovation with the pull of adaptation, Tata 1mg is leaning into the latest martech trends, embedding artificial intelligence deep into its marketing stack and preparing for a privacy-first, cookieless era.

“The first step is understanding [AI] — what it means for your team, customers, tech stack and the business. If you have a clear comprehension, you can leverage it to your advantage,” said Verme. “So that’s where our focus will be. It will be all about efficiency, scalability and smart work. That’s the next direction.”

Within the company, AI serves two roles — automation and augmentation. High-volume tasks like user segmentation and campaign deployment are automated, while AI acts like a co-pilot for deep research, cohort analysis, predictive insights and personalisation.

For example, CRM (customer relationship management) workflows now tap into historical data to trigger faster, more precise campaigns. In-house tools, external platforms and ongoing AI upskilling programmes also support them. To scale this approach, the company is building a unified martech architecture that includes:

• A single platform for planning, ingestion and campaign activation
• Predictive intelligence for churn modelling and next-best actions
• User-level personalisation with GenAI-led creatives
• Seamless CRM and CDP (customer data platform) integration
• Real-time measurements with multi-touch attribution

But there’s more to it. With third-party cookies in decline, the marketing team has pivoted to a privacy-compliant, first-party data strategy. Contextual targeting is central, using tools like Google DSA and page-level signals to deliver intent-aligned ads.

High-intent first-party cohorts such as recent buyers and logged-in users are now activated across search, social media and video, backed by direct server integrations with Google and Meta for secure conversion tracking. Measurement spans geo test-control setups, platform lift studies (including Google Brand Lift) and MMM/ADH models for full-funnel attribution.

To put it simply, brands today don’t just run campaigns; they run controlled experiments to prove impact. Geo test-control setups compare regions exposed to a campaign with similar regions that aren’t, helping marketers isolate true incremental sales or awareness.

Platform lift studies, such as Google’s Brand Lift, measure changes in perception or intent among users who saw ads versus those who didn’t. Marketing Mix Modelling (MMM) looks at longer-term trends across all channels to understand which levers actually drive sales, while Ads Data Hub (ADH) lets brands securely analyse campaign data from Google platforms to link ad exposure with real business outcomes.

Together, these tools give brands a clearer picture of what’s working across the funnel — from brand awareness to conversions.

Meanwhile, retention is driven by an always-on lifecycle, including onboarding, replenishment, win-backs and more, guided by first-party insights and A/B-tested creatives. Publisher data partnerships (collaborations among brands, publishers and other companies to enable better targeting and ad performance) and strong governance frameworks (privacy by design, regular audits and more) further ensure continued relevance, efficiency and compliance.

“This playbook keeps acquisition efficient, improves ROI and nurtures lifetime value, with no third-party cookies required,” said Verma.

Learning From Failures

Few companies are willing to dissect their missteps publicly, let alone narrate what they have learnt from past failures. But mistakes are inevitable, and Tata 1mg’s growth playbook has been shaped as much by its failures as by its wins and how quickly the team learnt from both. From subscription models to premature bundling of services, the company has consistently leveraged market response for course corrections.

The operating mantra is simple: Hypothesise, test, validate and decide. Failures are archived here as essential case studies, often revisited when market conditions shift.

For instance, in 2022, the company piloted retail stores to enable faster medicine delivery. But the traditional warehouse-first model in metro hubs led to fluctuating delivery windows. Some customers received orders within a few hours, while others had to wait a day or more.

The new model looked at more consistent speed, targeting delivery within 30-90 minutes, predating the current wave of quick commerce. After two years of pilots, cities running this model witnessed significantly higher growth than others, prompting wider rollout.

However, experiments with ultra-fast formats did not move the needle on user engagement. “Whether orders arrived in eight minutes or 20, user response remained the same. That finding made us stick to reliability over speed extremes,” said Verma.

Again, subscription-based medicine sales for chronic patients, based on the idea that frequent users would prefer hassle-free regular refills, failed to gain traction despite multiple relaunches. The model was eventually discontinued. Similarly, pre-paid bundled solutions combining diagnostics, consultations and support for early condition management underperformed in their first iteration. But a revamped model has succeeded since.

“Structurally, we keep around 20% of our annual marketing budget for innovation, let’s say pure experimentation,” said Verma. “This gives teams the freedom to try without fearing budget blowback.”

That culture of structured experimentation is now embedded in the company’s annual planning, backed by dedicated budgets and clear evaluation metrics.

What Marketing Strategy Works Best In A Regulated Category

Tata 1mg operates in a tightly regulated segment where advertising prescription drugs is strictly prohibited. The restriction makes customer acquisition inherently challenging, pushing the company to focus on alternative levers such as consumer trust, authoritative content and reliable services.

At a broader level, the industry today is witnessing a significant shift. Its earlier emphasis on rapid scaling has given way to sustainable growth and profitability. Every investment is expected to deliver business impact, in the short term or over time. The priority is to grow in a way that justifies high customer acquisition costs (CAC), ensures healthy ROI and builds long-term brand equity without compromising fiscal discipline.

As a result, the role of marketing leaders is evolving. They are no longer just brand custodians but growth leaders and, increasingly, business owners. “I have seen this path where someone starts in marketing, becomes a growth leader and then gradually transitions into business ownership. The journey has led from CMO to CEO roles in a few cases. That evolution is real and happening,” added Verma.

Within the organisation, team members transition from domain expertise (think of content or performance marketing) into roles with full ownership of business outcomes. It requires cross-functional orchestration and the ability to navigate beyond traditional channels.

But the toughest part is syncing planning and execution. Forecasts and models are built on assumptions that may not hold over time. So, the ability to anticipate shifts and prepare for contingencies is essential.

Besides, attribution, or identifying which marketing activity has led to a specific action, remains a stubborn challenge. Knowing which touchpoint has driven a purchase or conversion is difficult, as consumers move fluidly across platforms and devices.

Data rarely captures consumer behaviour, and the traditional signals used to interpret it can be deceptive. “It’s still one of the toughest puzzles to solve,” concluded Verma.

Edited by Sanghamitra Mandal