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.