According to the current market and financial estimates, search advertising is responsible for 40.5% of the total digital advertising revenue. However, by 2027, 77% of digital advertising revenue will come from programmatic advertising (statista.com).

So, what is programmatic advertising and how is it different from search advertising?

Programmatic Advertising

Programmatic advertising is a type of digital advertising that uses data and algorithms to purchase advertising spaces in real-time. This form of advertising is often referred to as “proactive advertising,” as it targets audiences who could be interested in the advertised product or service, but who may not be actively searching for it. The banner ads you see on websites represent a good example of programmatic advertising.

Read Also: Monetizing African Content: The Lucrative World of Display Advertising

Search Advertising

Just as the name implies, search advertising targets people who are already searching for the product or service being advertised. It draws its strength from using keywords to reach its target audience. This form of advertising can be described as “reactive advertising.” 

Why is Programmatic Advertising on the Rise in Africa?

One key reason can be attributed to this: Increased internet penetration. According to internetworldstats.com, Africa’s internet penetration rate stands at 42.3% — meaning almost half of the continent’s population have access to the internet. It also means that Africa makes up 11.2% of the global internet users.

The implication of this is that global advertisers are now looking more favourably towards Africa, hence the increase in revenue from digital media advertising.

Read Also: Overcoming Payment Delays: How Atunwa Helps Content Publishers Deal With Cashflow Challenges

Impact for You as an African Digital Content Publisher

As an African digital content publisher, it is not enough to simply put out content and hope for advertisers to knock on your door. As it stands, and from our records, African content publishers earn 30-40% less than their global counterparts.

Therefore, it becomes imperative to optimize your content and platform for monetization. And one of the fastest ways to get monetized is via programmatic ads.

At Atunwa, we work with African publishers and help them monetize their digital content and reach an even wider audience. 

If you currently struggle with monetization or you believe you’re not being monetized well enough, you can reach us via mac@atunwadigital.com for a quick chat.

The post Digital Advertising: How Programmatic Ads Can Help African Content Publishers Smile To The Bank appeared first on Atunwa Digital.

On the night he took me out to a bar to ‘wash’ (Nigerian slang for celebrating a new acquisition) his new car, I asked him the one question I had in mind. “It’s my blog,” he said. “What blog?” I asked, even more curious. “My website. Google Adsense has been paying me cool dollars,” he added, with a wry smile on his face as he sipped his drink.

I wasn’t sure of how to feel at that moment. In 2010, Victor suggested we set up a blog and write content about trending topics in Nigeria. I wasn’t particularly interested because I had a 9-5 while he was unemployed, and also, I just didn’t see what good could come out of blogging.

He soon registered a domain name and started posting content on there and that was that — or so I thought. Somewhere along the line, he got a job and I imagined the blogging thing must have failed. Anyways, he kept publishing content on the website and would often send me the links on Blackberry Messenger. At no point did I imagine his content was getting monetized.

Read also: Overcoming Payment Delays: How Atunwa Helps Content Publishers Deal With Cashflow Challenges

Back at the bar, I probed further, asking how much he had made and when he started making money from his website. He didn’t tell me the exact amount he had made but said he started getting monetized somewhere around December 2011 and while it was only a few dollars here and there at first, he started making between $1,000-$4,000 (150,000-600,000 naira) monthly from 2012 and sometimes even more as the traffic to his website increased. He saved up every dime and relied on his income from his 9-5 for his day-to-day living.

So, what exactly did Victor do to make so much money within a short space of time with just one website?

Simple answer: display advertisements.

What is display advertising? It is a digital form of advertising that places digital advertisements on websites or mobile apps and is typically placed in strategic spaces on specific web pages. These advertisements can be in the form of static images, videos, or interactive elements like games.

Publishers who have this type of advertising on their websites or apps can monetize using any of the following models: cost per thousand impressions (CPM); cost per click (CPC); or cost per action (CPA). Display advertising also has other monetization models like revenue share and fixed fees. However, from what Victor told me, he only monetized through CPM, CPC, and CPA, so let’s focus on those three.

Cost per Thousand Impressions (CPM): Also known as cost per mille, CPM is a monetization model where the advertiser pays a specific amount for every 1,000 impressions their ads get. This means that for every 1,000 times, the ad gets seen, the advertiser pays a certain rate. It doesn’t take into account whether the audience engaged with the ad or not.

Cost per Click (CPC): In this model, the advertiser only pays when a user clicks on their ad.  Unlike the CPM model, your website and app users must click on the display ad for it to count as extra dollars in your pocket.

Cost per Action (CPA): CPA only pays the publisher when their website or app user takes a specific action on the ad. The specific action is determined by the advertiser. This can be a sign-up to download something.

Read Also: Unlocking The Monetization Potential Of The African Audio/Video Content Publisher

In Victor’s case, he was able to incorporate all three models to increase his earning potential. However, that wouldn’t have been possible without the help of the media representation company he partnered with.

One challenge that African content publishers face in their quest to monetize their content is the lack of adequate representation, which affects their earning potential and sees them leaving money on the table as African content publishers typically make 30-40% less from their content than their global counterparts.

Even in Victor’s case, he could have earned more if there was an African and Africa-focused digital content monetization platform at the time.

Since 2018, Atunwa Digital has been helping African content publishers create new revenue streams to add more value to their digital content and inventories.

Atunwa Digital’s radical customer support and transparency ensure people like you and Victor are rewarded accordingly for your creativity and hard work.

Note: Atunwa Digital does not work with Victor but his story is testament to the earning potential in the digital space. He is also a personal friend of the author.

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In Africa, advertising is the most common way to monetize content. So long as content publishers have enough quality content and are consistent with their creations, they can easily monetize using this method.

Another form of monetization that is somewhat typical in the African digital content market is sponsorship. However, this doesn’t happen as often as it should as many African content creators either lack the content quality or the capacity to attract sponsorships.

The most challenging method of monetization, which interestingly gives content publishers the most control, is subscription-based monetization.

But what do all these mean and how can they be utilized? First, let’s understand what they are and how a content publisher can monetize using any or all of them.

Advertising

This is the most widely used digital content monetization strategy. Content creators seek advertising opportunities and incorporate them into their content. For audio and video, this typically involves pre-rolls, mid-rolls, and post-rolls.

Read Also: How Website And App Content Publishers Can Maximize Their Earning And Monetization Potential

Pre-rolls are advertisements that play at the beginning of audio or video content, often used in on-demand content. Midrolls are also ad breaks, but as the name suggests, they happen midway through the content. Post-rolls are the same, but they happen at the end of the content. Content publishers usually don’t mention the advertiser’s name. They just take a break, the ad plays, and the content resumes, similar to radio advertisements.

However, African content creators face two main issues in securing advertisements. Firstly, they struggle to attract ads due to a lack of capacity, and secondly, they lack the technical knowledge to insert ad breaks. Atunwa Digital can provide free assistance for creators in this category.

Sponsorships

Sponsorships are similar to advertising but with a slight difference. In this case, the advertiser sponsors the entire content or a portion of it. Unlike advertising, sponsorships require content creators to mention the advertiser or discuss their products/services.

However, acquiring sponsorships is more challenging, as brands often prefer content with a large following or featuring popular celebrities. While established radio and TV stations and popular content creators may not face difficulties in securing sponsorships, smaller stations, and independent publishers struggle.

If you have a substantial inventory but still struggle with advertising and sponsorships, Atunwa Digital can assist.

Read Also: Maximizing Audio Monetization: Three Key Factors for Audio Advertising Success

Subscriptions

The subscription model involves creating premium content behind a paywall. Consumers interested in accessing the content must pay a certain amount.

African content publishers often face challenges with the subscription model. Limited resources and lower purchasing power in Africa contribute to this issue. Even major content publishers on the continent struggle to attract subscribers to paid premium content.

There are various reasons why this model is not so popular in the African content space but two of them are maybe more pronounced.

One is limited resources. While the consumption of digital content continues to soar in Africa, the same cannot necessarily be said for purchasing power. It is for this reason that content publishers like Netflix have some of their cheapest offerings on the continent.

The second reason is a lack of quality content. While most people may be willing to consume content with subpar quality when they are free, more scrutiny is employed when such content has to be paid for. Content publishers and aggregators like Netflix address this issue by having an array of content on their platforms, so the consumer can have a variety of options. But if you’re not Netflix, it becomes imperative to partner with a digital content monetization company like Atunwa Digital that can help you optimize your monetization efforts.

Read Also: 5 Things to Know About Content Monetization

In addition to monetization support, Atunwa Digital also offers technical advice on which monetization model will be best for your content.

It’s important to understand the various monetization models and select the one that suits your needs as a content publisher.

The post Unlocking The Monetization Potential Of The African Audio/Video Content Publisher appeared first on Atunwa Digital.

Our publishers are currently facing several significant challenges. Firstly, they encounter issues with advertisers credit terms, which typically involve waiting for payment for 120 to 150 days after completing campaigns. Secondly, advertisers tend to decrease their spending during periods of economic uncertainty, impacting the publishers’ cashflows. Lastly, the forex crunch and losses arise when vendors or service providers charge in foreign currencies such as USD, GBP, or Euros, requiring companies and content publishers to convert their local currencies to make payments, especially if they do not have sufficient foreign currency reserves.

You May Also Like: Maximizing Audio Monetization: Three Key Factors for Audio Advertising Success

Imagine having to manage payroll for employees, pay vendors, and fulfill debt or investor obligations while having no certainty about receiving timely payments for completed campaigns within the same month. Unfortunately, this is the reality for many of our clients in the media business.

Our clients can be categorized into three groups based on their digital revenue:

1. Those that generate sufficient digital revenues to be paid out on a monthly basis.

2. Those that generate enough digital revenues to be paid out quarterly.

3. Those whose digital revenues are so minimal that they might receive annual payouts.

To address these challenges, Atunwa has developed strategies to assist our clients:

• We minimize delays on receivables longer than Net-60 by issuing payments while actively working with advertisers to align with their respective payment timelines.
• For clients who do not meet the monthly payment thresholds for regular payouts, we offer prepayments that can be recouped from their future earnings.

When providing these solutions, we carefully consider several factors, including the strength of our working relationship with the client, the volume of their digital inventory, and their willingness to implement our recommended “setup” to ensure the delivery of premium inventories for effective monetization. By considering these elements, we aim to support our clients in overcoming their cashflow challenges and achieving greater financial stability.

The post Overcoming Payment Delays: How Atunwa Helps Content Publishers Deal With Cashflow Challenges appeared first on Atunwa Digital.

Content monetization is when brands use content marketing to make money by generating traffic, brand awareness, leads, or sales. The benefits of content marketing include: Increasing your brand’s exposure and credibility in your target market Building a loyal audience that can be tapped for sales or other opportunities Building a community of advocates who will spread the word about your brand and help other people make decisions about what to buy Increasing your brand’s credibility and credibility in the market so that people will trust what you say and buy from you in the future.

Here are some things to know about content monetization

1. Be authentic and stay confident in the content you put out. No matter what, be confident!

Be authentic & stay confident in your content. Embrace the fact that you’re not perfect and people will forgive your mistakes over & over again. An example with podcasts is not putting out an episode because you feel after hours of editing it still may not be good enough.

That said, don’t let perfection get in the way of being yourself. The quality of your content will speak for itself. 

2. Focus on the metrics that matter and seek to improve your content. 

When it comes to content monetization, the most important thing to focus on is the metrics that matter most to your business. Are you generating leads or sales? Are people clicking on your CTAs and buying your products? By focusing on the right metrics, you can measure your progress, discover where you can improve, and increase the ROI of your content.

3. Explore multi platform distribution. Your content will be seen and shared by more people. 

Your distribution won’t be effective if you’re focusing on one or two channel. You want more views and engagement so you need to ensure all your platforms are active with some form of your content. Articles can be repurposed for social media. Create videos repurposed for YouTube, TikTok and Instagram.This is the best way to make sure that as many people as possible have regular access to your brand.

4. Monetize with ads or other forms of sponsorship.

Advertisements placed around your content could be a good source of income for your blog. You can choose to sell ads directly with advertisers or agencies or you can sign up with an ad network such as Google Adsense to help. The higher your traffic, the better opportunities you’ll have for advertisements. Atunwa works with advertisers and agencies to source demand to publishers in an easy and efficient way. The team at Atunwa also shares recommendations and tips on how publishers can improve the value of their advertising inventory.

5. Consider selling merchandise related to your blog or podcast, such as T-shirts.

In addition to their ordinary revenue streams, selling branded merchandise creates an additional income stream. Selling or giving away branded merchandise is an effective avenue for boosting brand recognition. Branded merchandise can be acquired easily and at a fair price. If you’re looking for a way to build loyalty and keep customers hooked on your brand, selling branded merchandise is a great strategy. Google, as big as they are sell branded T-shirts shipped across the world.

Takeaway: Content monetization is an important part of building a successful website or blog, but it can be confusing to get started with this type of marketing strategy if you aren’t familiar with the process. However, keeping it simple and focusing on what matters enables you to earn from your content as time goes on. Always keep in mind that monetization is important but it’s also not just about money, its also about positive user experience.

In our experience, we have come to understand that you will also be discovered by new audiences on multiple platforms. You can host your podcasts for example on AtunwaPodcasts.com but you can also make that same content available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcast or on Spotify. All of these platforms are equally monetizable and you can distribute your content on their platform for free. Explore the pros and cons of each platform so you are well informed about what makes them unique from each other.

The post 5 Things to know about content monetization appeared first on Atunwa Digital.

Programmatic advertising is essentially the buying of ad space in an automated way. It uses audience data and insights from a variety of sources, to allow advertisers to show highly relevant ads for the audience, at the right time and in the right place.

Types of Programmatic Advertising

There are two main types of programmatic advertising; Programmatic Direct, and Real Time Bidding (RTB).

RTB

RTB programmatic advertising is the automated process of buying display ad space in real time, by bidding based on the target audience you wish to reach.

There are a few components used in RTB:

Ad exchange:

This is where the publisher’s inventory is sold via an auction, and bid on and bought by advertisers.

SSP (Supply side platform)

A supply side platform (often called SSP), is a system which allows publishers to access the ad exchange and list their inventory to be sold in auction.

DSP (Demand side platform)

A DSP is a demand side platform. This is system which allows advertisers (and agencies) to access the ad exchange auction and bid for ad space.

There are essentially these main steps to how RTB works:

1. Publishers make their ad space available to the ad exchanges beforehand, via the SSP (supply side platform)
2. Advertisers decide roughly which audiences they want to target with their ads (this could be based on their existing audience data such as existing website visitors, act-alike audiences of existing customers / site visitors, or new prospecting audiences based on interest / demographics etc)
3. When a website user visits a web page and it loads, information about the visitor of the page (gathered via cookies) and the content of the page is gathered and reported back to the ad exchange
4. If the website user on the site matches the targeting defined by the advertiser, the advertiser will be entered into the auction, to bid against all the other advertisers who are also bidding for this audience
5. Whichever advertiser has the highest bid will win the ad space and their ad shows to that user on that site during that particular visit
6. Publishers get paid for the ads they show on their sites

All of the steps above (apart from step one, two and six) are carried out in less than a second as the page loads.

Programmatic Direct

Programmatic Direct (sometimes called Programmatic Guaranteed) on the other hand, is where ad space is still purchased programmatically but is purchased in advance, based on a specific number of required impressions and audiences required.

What are the benefits of programmatic display ad buying?

The biggest benefit of programmatic advertising is that advertisers can be incredibly specific with their ads relevance to the audience, because of the amount of data available on audiences. The data and targeting is very powerful and because the process takes place in real time and is assisted by automated bidding decisions based on data, it reaches the right audience, at the right time, in the right place. This simply isn’t possible with traditional display advertising which is negotiated with publishers and bought upfront.

• Reduced human error in the process of media buying because machines target the right consumer, at the right time, in the right place
• There’s less hands-on work required from things like creating insertion orders etc, which means that you can focus more on strategy!
• The reduced need for sales people also makes the entire process cheaper in most instances
• You can target specific ad messaging to specific audiences, resulting in precise matching of ad relevant to the audience
• The programmatic buying process does not slow down the page load time for the user, which keeps publishers happy and users happy too

Challenges of programmatic

Brand Safety

There are always going to be some sites that you don’t want your ads showing up on. The risk with programmatic buying which is based mostly on the user rather than the content of the site, is that your ads could end up in unsavoury locations! You can use a site blacklist to stop this from happening though, where you can list specific sites you simply don’t want your ads to appear on. Generally, blacklists are used by the demand side platform. Websites often change their domains though, so it’s best to constantly update your blacklist.

Some platforms allow you to exclude entire categories of content too, in addition to specific sites. If you have the option to do this, you should use it in conjunction with your blacklist as category exclusions aren’t always exhaustive.

If your brand is super-sensitive, you can take the opposite approach, which is to whitelist and only have a set of sites your ads can be shown on. This however will limit your ability to reach your audience. This will however likely make your buy more expensive.

If you’re using an agency to run your programmatic ads, you should ask them what they are doing to exclude low quality and sensitive sites from having your ads served on them. Because low quality / sensitive category sites often provide cheaper traffic, often agencies will not use a blacklist or not be extensive with it because it can drive up the cost of the buy and make reaching your delivery KPIs more tricky.

Cookie reliance

Programmatic is reliant on cookies to track users across devices, which can mean that when it comes to tracking users across devices, it can be a challenge. This is however the case across almost all display advertising, with the exception of platforms such as Facebook where the user is logged in so can be tracked even without cookies.

Ad Fraud

Ad fraud is a big concern across display advertising in general, however, programmatic ads are viewable at a rate of 44 percent to 55 percent, which brings them in line with industry benchmarks. The industry average for suspicious activity is 16%. This means that programmatic advertising can have lower levels of ad fraud than other methods of display advertising. The machine learning techniques used in programmatic can actually even help identify fraudulent ad issues and avoid them.

URL Masking

URL masking is where a publisher lists their website in the ad exchange as another, more reputable website. This is one way publishers try to abuse the programmatic auction process.

The future of programmatic advertising

As programmatic continues to grow, we’ll start to see it more across TV buying and radio. This will take a long time to progress, as currently there are not enough of a need for TV advertising to become programmatic as the ad space always sells out anyway, so there’s no need to move to auction type sales. In the future, if TV diversifies, this may change.

As mobile phones know more and more about users interests, demographics, and their locations, we’re likely to even see outdoor advertising such as billboards become programmatic. Information about the users in the local area will be shared with ad networks, and then advertisers could bid on the ad inventory for that half-hour of the day for example.

How to get started with programmatic

There are various programmatic solutions available for advertisers, depending on your budgets and experience. This is where Atunwa Digital can help you get started. We make the process painless while teaching you along the way. Contact us today to understand how to get started.

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Who has your content?

It is important to know all websites and mobile apps featuring your content and confirm if any unauthorized streams exist for your content. Once the assessment is completed, you can determine which 3rd party websites and mobile apps can be allowed to feature your content and monitor to ensure all sources for your content are using audio streams you have approved and that you always have visibility into the audience analytics and you control the in-stream advertising opportunities delivered to audiences accessing your content

What are your analytics?

Understanding where in the world your audiences are accessing content from and the average time audiences spend listening to your content will help you determine the potential revenue you can generate from the audio stream(s)

Is your streaming environment stable?

It is best to have a streaming machine – ie. laptop, desktop, or streaming server – that is only used for audio streaming purposes and a consistent internet connection, with at least one back up, to ensure streaming uptime is over 95%

What services should I look for in a streaming partner?

The ideal situation is a streaming partner that provides you with: high-quality unlimited streaming with your bitrate preference, media players, analytics into stream traffic performance, programmatic advertising availability, and options to run your own advertising campaigns. It is not recommended to sign exclusivity deals – unless you are certain the terms provide you the best monetization option.

How can I guarantee transparency on earnings?

Receiving revenue reports directly from your streaming partners advertising server and having an opportunity to review your partners advertising server can help provide better insights into how much your digital inventory is worth

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