Airtel Africa has launched
Airtel Ads, Africa’s first integrated Demand-Side Platform (DSP) aimed at
empowering advertisers and agencies to efficiently manage, purchase, and
optimize digital ad inventory across multiple ad exchanges in real-time.
Powered by Intent.ai, Airtel Ads is designed for media
agencies and businesses, streamlining the process of purchasing advertising
space. This feature enables advertisers to make informed ad placement decisions
by combining various tools and functionalities within a single platform and
offers a comprehensive solution for digital advertising management.
The platform will leverage Airtel Africa’s extensive
customer base of more than 150 million customers, utilizing data from both
telecommunications services and mobile wallets. This approach aims to not only
target digitally engaged individuals but also include those traditionally
excluded from the digital realm through its 2G and feature phone user base.
Additionally, through the integrated Airtel Voice Reward Ads, the platform has
the capability to reach consumers on various devices.
Understanding the current limitations in ad
performance for organisations, Airtel Ads aims to seamlessly merge all ad
networks with Airtel Africa’s first party telecommunications data. It will
provide a unified advertising platform with precise audience segmentation, a
dedicated marketing team, data analytics with post-campaign support in addition
to both native language support and access to 260+ bidding parameters. The
platform, powered by ai based brand safety tools, will also accept payments in
local African currencies.
Since its inception, the platform has achieved a
weekly audience reach of 27 billion impressions, 23.5 million in-app daily
impressions and over 200 million daily SMS notifications daily with end-of-SMS
tag messaging potential.
Speaking on the launch, Airtel
Africa’s Chief Commercial Officer, Anthony Shiner said: “We are excited to introduce Airtel Ads in
Africa. This innovative platform will support advertisers and businesses to
gain unprecedented control over their marketing campaigns, leveraging Airtel
Africa’s extensive customer base and world class technology. Airtel Ads is a
testament to our leadership in shaping the communications landscape in Africa,
ensuring businesses are supported to achieve their objectives using data first
tools to inform their business decisions.”
By: Nana Appiah Acquaye