By Minnie Harris, General Manager for Verticals & Markets – Group Digital Services

In a global landscape, Africa contributes a modest 0.9% to global advertising spend. Despite this, advertising feels omnipresent on the continent. Whether it’s on TV, radio, or digital platforms, adverts are everywhere. But a critical question remains: who is this advertising reaching? Are we truly connecting with our intended audiences, or are we simply casting a wide net and hoping for results?

The Data Challenge

For decades, traditional media has relied on audience analysis tools, such as diaries and surveys, to determine reach. Yet these methods often fall short. As Lambek (2016) highlights, human memory is more of a reconstruction of the past than an exact replay. This inherent limitation is exacerbated by Schacter & Coyle’s (1995) assertion that our memories are not replicas of reality. On digital platforms, the challenge continues. In a world filled with bots and automated traffic, we question whether our ads are truly reaching people or simply being served to non-human impressions. We rely on cookies and trust the data, but uncertainty remains.

Telcos, however, offer a distinct advantage. At the end of every SMS, please call me message, or display banner, there is a verified individual—an actual person engaging with a network. Unlike digital platforms, where impressions may lack clarity, telco data provides certainty.

The Telco Advantage

Mobile operators, by their nature, must comply with regulations like South Africa’s POPI Act and GDPR in various markets. This means every SIM card is tied to a real person, offering unparalleled accuracy in data collection. Each interaction, whether it’s a phone call, a recharge, or app usage, is recorded in real time. Telcos, therefore, have an edge in audience targeting and analysis because they gather first-party data directly from users. With over 248 million active users across Sub-Saharan Africa and 38 million in South Africa alone, MTN is uniquely positioned to harness this data for advertising purposes.

MTN Ads: Redefining Targeted Advertising

As the advertising arm of MTN, MTN Ads leverages this data to offer precise targeting, ensuring that brands speak directly to their intended audience. MTN Ads enables brands to target audiences based on demographics, technographics, and geolocation through telco inventories such as SMS and Please Call Me messages, which boast open rates of over 95%.

MTN Ads also integrates platform channels like Ayoba to extend reach, even offering data-free advertising. This allows for advertising that is device-agnostic and accessible to all users, whether they have data or not, and regardless of whether they use smartphones or feature phones. The power of MTN Ads lies in its ability to deliver unmissable advertising through precision, reach, and engagement. In a world where targeted advertising is key, MTN Ads provides the solution, enabling brands to connect with the right people, at the right time, with the right message.

To date MTN Ads has delivered hundreds of campaigns for brands and agencies, to note some have achieved exceptional results above industry standards. Coca Cola lead generation campaign looking to increase Coca Cola’s remarketing database campaign used Viu Premium and Disney+ vouchers to encourage users to engage with the content and register to Coca Cola’s database. It achieved an average CTR of 0.65% for targeted SMS with link and 7.07% for One Pin. Overall, the conversion rate was 14.5% over a 4-week period.

The future of African advertising is here, and it’s powered by telco data.

By Jason Probert, GM, Digital Services MTN South Africa

As third-party tracking cookies and mobile advertising IDs become obsolete or opt-in, the pressure is mounting for publishers in South Africa to pivot towards more reliable and privacy-compliant methods of collecting user information to power their advertising business streams. 

The Holy Grail is to unlock a 360-degree view of user preferences, behaviours, and needs gathered through a holistic view of their interactions across multiple devices and websites. Such information would enable publishers to deliver more personalised content and advertising, enhancing user engagement, and ultimately, maximising ad revenue. 

In a world where traditional advertising signals are weakening, this goal can only be achieved with the effective use and enrichment of first-party data, which offers a treasure trove of insights directly gathered from user interactions. 

Fragmentation and privacy: The challenges of first-party data

However, leveraging first-party data in this way comes with some significant challenges, primarily due to the fragmented nature of the digital environment. Users typically access content across a variety of devices and platforms, from smartphones and tablets to desktops and connected TVs, each contributing to disjointed pools of data. This fragmentation makes it challenging for publishers to consolidate disparate data sources into a single, coherent profile that accurately reflects the user’s interactions and preferences.

What’s more, the disparate nature of first-party data sources presents a challenge for publisher customers: the brands and agencies looking to advertise on their sites. Publishers collect and format their data differently, resulting in a lack of standardisation that complicates the process of buying ads at scale. Agencies and brands must, therefore, often invest additional resources to reconcile these inconsistencies, which can hinder the additional resources to reconcile these inconsistencies, which can hinder efficiency of advertising and limit the scope of their campaigns.

Adding to these complexities are the stringent privacy laws that govern the collection and use of personal data. In South Africa, regulations such as the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPI) sets strict guidelines on how data must be handled, prioritising user consent and transparency. These regulations require publishers to walk a tightrope of legal obligations, making it essential to ensure that any data collection and processing methods not only comply with the law but also maintain user trust. It is largely for this reason that technologies previously used by publishers to build user profiles, such as tracking cookies and mobile advertising IDs, are falling out of favour.

Leveraging telco-grade intelligence to enrich publisher data

Fortunately, new innovations in adtech and approaches that leverage telco network capabilities are set to solve this data dilemma for publishers. In South Africa, MTN Ads is leading the charge, with a new publisher user recognition service that it is launching in partnership with Novatiq.

The MTN Ads verified ID draws on our network intelligence to enable publishers to recognise visitors to their website or application and identify return visits irrespective of the devices they use to connect. Using the MTN Ads verified ID, publishers can verify both authenticated and unauthenticated users on the open web or in app. Importantly, each identifier is unique to the publisher, which means that they can safely create their own consented first-party audience data. The approach also removes the risk of automatically losing the consent of users that opt out when asked by other publishers.

The benefits of the MTN Ads user recognition service

The MTN Ads verified ID enables publishers to resolve identities on the open web and in-app and build rich and scalable audiences for advertisers. Importantly, the user recognition service ensures privacy compliance for publishers by leveraging anonymised network intelligence that never leaves the telco firewall, thereby bypassing the need to store or process personal user data. This method aligns with stringent data protection regulations by prioritising user consent, ensuring that publishers can safely enhance their data monetisation strategies without compromising privacy.

Another benefit is that the verified ID helps level the playing field for publishers. Using the MTN Ads verified ID for addressable audiences, publishers large and small will be able to activate their first-party audiences effectively and at scale, giving them an opportunity to compete with the walled gardens for advertising revenue. What’s more, it does so while improving the user experience: consumers will benefit from more relevant advertisements and promotions, improving the overall stickiness of publisher sites. 

Sustainable data monetisation

The ability to build and utilise comprehensive user profiles not only drives more effective advertising and content strategies but also establishes a publisher as a desirable partner for advertisers. This results in a beneficial cycle: better personalisation leads to higher engagement, which in turn attracts more advertisers, thereby increasing the publisher revenue potential. In a fast-changing advertising ecosystem, all publishers should activate the MTN Ads user recognition and addressable audiences verified IDs to their toolkit to future proof their advertising businesses and keep their users happy.

By Jason Probert, GM, Digital Services MTN South Africa

The need for higher-quality audiences is driving change in South Africa’s digital marketing sector, as advertisers and agencies come to realise that traditional approaches to programmatic advertising leave a lot to be desired. 

Tracking cookies, for example, have been found to yield match rates of just 31%-45% (anything above 60% is considered good). Probabilistic IDs, meanwhile, are liable to result in irrelevant advertising, frustrated consumers and diminished campaign effectiveness, based as they are on inferences and best-guess approximations from patchy data.

Both approaches are coming under existential strain with the emergence of privacy regulations like the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPI), and the weakening of traditional advertising signals including tracking cookies, mobile advertising IDs, user agent strings, and IP hashing. Data quality and the effectiveness of traditional IDs are major issues right now, but the worst is yet to come. 

This is why telco deterministic audiences are causing such excitement in the industry. This is an alternative to invasive cookies that leverages telecommunications intelligence to verify first-party created IDs to offer precise and privacy-compliant audiences. The approach promises to deliver a new level of accuracy and reliability in programmatic advertising and set a new standard for connecting with consumers. 

Understanding telco-deterministic audiences

Telco deterministic audiences refer to user groups identified and segmented based on data sourced directly from telecommunications providers. This data is derived from the network activity and service usage of mobile devices, ensuring that each addressable audience is built on concrete, observable behaviours rather than inferred characteristics. 

Unlike probabilistic matching, telco deterministic data is linked to specific, verified individuals through a privacy-first ID. This approach enhances the accuracy of audiences and solves the challenge of resolving user identities across different platforms and devices.

Moreover, the data that telcos collect is managed in compliance with strict data protection regulations. This helps builds trust with consumers and makes telco data a gold standard for advertisers seeking to maintain robust privacy practices while delivering highly personalised advertising campaigns. 

Telco deterministic audiences in South Africa

The good news for brands in South Africa is that telco deterministic audiences are now being made available in the market thanks to a new MTN Ads service that is being launched in partnership with Novatiq, an adtech innovator. 

The MTN Ads addressable audiences use a dynamic ID for audience activation. The in-network technology enables publishers to generate a transient ID for each ad request that is verified and activated in real-time using deterministic network intelligence. This approach allows advertisers to reach real audiences, in real-time and at scale using verified, privacy-compliant data that has been collected and consented to at the first-party data owner level. 

The benefits of telco deterministic audiences

The arrival of telco deterministic audiences in South Africa promises to unlock a wide range of benefits for agencies and advertisers in the country. Most importantly, with MTN Ads they will benefit from programmatic advertising that reaches their audiences at scale, at the right moment, and with the right message, regardless of the signal loss and quality issues that are plaguing traditional IDs. 

Importantly, brands will also be able to rest easy that they are compliant with POPI even as they deliver highly personalised campaigns in real time. As there’s no distribution of data in the bid stream, there’s no danger of personal data being lost or misused. The IDs can only ever be used for specific, consented purposes.

Finally, with audiences verified at source by MTN, advertisers can be assured that the audiences are 100% as advertised. The solution also shields brands from fraudulent bot-activity, issues around brand safety, and the dangers of made-for-advertising sites. Working with MTN audiences, brands marketing budgets are therefore protected and stretch much further. 

Better audiences, greater impact

MTN Ads addressable audiences represent a significant advancement over traditional ID-based targeting methods in digital advertising. By leveraging verified and precise consumer data directly from MTN, brands in South Africa can access higher quality audiences, ensuring that their marketing messages reach the right target, while ensuring privacy compliance and protecting against ad fraud. This approach ensures that brands can deliver personalised experiences to consumers, driving engagement and conversions through responsible and effective advertising strategies, while ensuring a strong ROI along the way.

By Jason Probert, GM, Digital Services MTN South Africa

South Africa’s digital marketing industry faces a stiff challenge. Many of the signals that advertisers have until now used to reach audiences online in the open web with personalised and timely content are drying up. Unless a replacement is found, publishers will increasingly be unable to compete with the walled gardens due to a loss of precision in targeting and measuring ad effectiveness.  

This changing environment means publishers are staring down the barrel of decreased ad revenue through a reduction in brand spend and challenges to premium inventory charges. 

Fortunately, innovations at the nexus of adtech and telecommunications promise to solve these challenges and create a more sustainable advertising model that’s better for brands, publishers, and consumers. The key is to act now and pivot towards advertising solutions that are tailor made for advertising’s future state. 

The root causes of signal loss

Ultimately, the changes taking place in South Africa’s digital advertising ecosystem come down to one word: privacy. The Protection of Personal Information Act (POPI) in South Africa sets out stringent consent requirements and limits on the use of data by organisations, driving a shift towards privacy-centric digital advertising. 

Advertisers must now ensure transparency, seeking explicit consent from individuals before collecting and processing their personal information. This regulatory environment compels companies to innovate in privacy-preserving technologies and methodologies, ensuring compliance while still engaging effectively with consumers. The days of adtech deemed invasive under the terms of POPI are therefore limited.

Another key driver is consumer demand. According to one recent study, 88% of South Africans expressed concern about privacy online. Seventy-five percent were also confident that policies to protect internet user privacy would improve trust in the internet. Brands and publishers take note: consumers are passionate about their privacy rights. 

Signals in decline

In the years since POPI, and other similar privacy rules worldwide, became law, advertising signals have become progressively weaker. 

Third-party tracking cookies are the most famous example of this signal loss. Already, major browsers including Safari and Firefox restrict cookies. Soon they will be joined by Edge and Chrome, which will make cookies an opt-in service for users. In effect, those browser companies are killing off cookies by giving consumers control over whether they are tracked online or not. Given just how much value South African consumers put on their privacy, we can expect to see cookie signals and match rates fall off a cliff edge.

Something similar has already happened to Apple’s ID for Advertisers (IDFA). Once a treasure trove of data on iPhone users’ web and app habits, the IDFA is a shadow of its former self. Apple’s AppTracking Transparency (ATT) framework in iOS 14.5 made the IDFA opt-in, and in the process slashed ID match rates from 80% to just 27%. It is likely that Google’s Advertising IDs for Android will go a similar way.

Enabling privacy-centric advertising

Encouragingly, there’s light at the end of the tunnel for advertisers and publishers. For one, although consumers demand greater privacy, they are also still keen to receive personalised content and engaging, relevant digital experiences. Indeed, two-thirds of South African consumers say that they are happy to swap personal information for a more tailored experience so long as companies are transparent about how they’re using it.

Second, a new wave of innovation has created a roadmap for how brands and publishers can shift to privacy preserving practices that also enable the levels of personalisation and relevance that consumers demand.

As one of South Africa’s largest publishers, MTN is taking the lead in driving the publisher shift in the country. Properties such as Ayoba and MTN Play offer partners the ability to engage with 12 million users (using two new services from a new partnership with adtech innovator Novatiq. Together we are leveraging our network intelligence to enable privacy-first programmatic advertising at scale:

1. MTN Ads Verified ID draws on our subscriber network intelligence to verify publisher specific website and app users across devices in a way that is secure and compliant with POPI privacy regulations;
2. MTN Ads Addressable Audiences uses a publisher generated transient user ID to link to verified first-party audiences based on consented MTN subscriber attributes for real-time, real human  privacy-first personalised advertising.

These services offer brands and publishers a way to verify audiences on the “open web,” allowing them to reach the vast majority of internet users that are not logged-in to a website or platform or in any other way authenticated. It therefore delivers the scale and performance required by advertisers whilst sacrificing nothing in terms of privacy and subscriber data protection. It also offers much improved customer online experience.

Working with Novatiq, MTN is helping ensure that publishers and brands in South Africa can continue to leverage premium inventory to reach the right people, at the right time, and with the right message, thereby supporting ad-funded content and protecting publishers’ monetisation strategies. 

As brands and publishers adapt to the challenges of signal loss, and pivot to meet customer demand and regulatory pressures around data privacy, our solutions will deliver a key differentiator to brands and publishers while making the internet a better place for consumers. 

By Alet Smith, General Manager – Business Intelligence Competency Centre, MTN Group

With data-driven marketing becoming more paramount, MTN is setting new standards in offering advertisers unprecedented access to valuable consumer insights by using its network data, new digital identifiers and innovative technologies in helping brands connect with the right audiences.

Transforming 1^st Party-Telco data into Intelligence

At the core of MTN Ads is the cutting edge technology that enables network content filtering by examining the content of data packets as they pass through a network checkpoint, Deep Packet Inspection (DPI). This technology serves as a rich source of customer data for MTN Ads encompassing online behavioral patterns based on either batch or near real-time data feeds. When cross-analyzed with other GSM data attributes, this wealth of information provides a comprehensive view of customer trends and preferences. Through our analytics team, MTN Ads waves its magic wand (read: advanced analytics) to transform this raw data into golden insights, creating detailed consumer profiles so detailed they are practically 4D, covering (mobility patterns, product affordability, accessibility and psychographic behavior). These customer profiles mapped to personas offer intelligence into online and offline customer behavior, allow brands to reach their ideal audiences with unprecedented accuracy.

Driving Results with Precision Targeting

With access to an audience of over 38 million highly engaged active users, advertisers partnering with MTN Ads report significantly higher engagement rates and more efficient ad spend reached through our MTN powered properties (Ayoba, MTN Play, Chenosis) and inventories (SMS, Display, Service Messaging). This audience, clustered into unique customer profiles using advanced Machine Learning algorithms, can be accessed by advertisers to deliver relevant campaigns.

Contextual Targeting: Mind Reading, but Legal 

Thanks to the DPI technology, MTN Ads has developed a sixth sense for user intent. MTN is able to categorize mobile app data traffic into different industry sectors (banking, insurance, food services, retail, etc.) that are mapped into intent – intent to purchase or engage. Cross analyzing this with recharge channels and data usage behavior, MTN Ads provides valuable indicators of customer preferences that can empower publishers and brands to create timely campaigns that resonate with their customers. 

Driving Results with Affordability Targeting

According to recent reports by Statistics South Africa (Stats SA, 2023), eight out of ten traders in South Africa have no bank account, while 60% of those who do possess one, only use it for processing payments. This significant segment of low-income earners and small entrepreneurs is an appealing segment of the market for retail and financial services. Recognizing this opportunity, MTN Ads has developed alternative risk assessment parameters that enable more accurate profiling of product affordability for unbanked MTN customers, thereby driving financial inclusion.

Driving Results with Audience Optimization

Audience optimization serves as the key to MTN Ads’ strategy for delivering exceptional campaign results. This is done by considering a comprehensive blend of historical campaign data and MTN Ads’ three-themed data framework (affordability, precision, contextual) to develop a 360-degree view of each customer, effectively eliminating blind spots in targeting and driving remarkable results in an increasingly competitive market.

Pioneering the future of Advertising with MTN IDs

The constant rise in smartphone penetration has seen people spending, on average, 5 hours a day on their mobile devices and South Africans spend a whopping 31.7% of their waking hours looking at mobile screens – the highest screen time worldwide (GSMA, 2023). This shift in customer behavior has greatly affected print media and the competition for user’s attention. At the same time, customer privacy regulations are becoming more stringent. With the launch of the new MTN IDs, MTN Ads is not just playing the game – it is rewriting the rulebook, positioning itself to lead the new wave of advertising by transforming how advertisers connect with their audiences.