How can Mobile AdTech drive telecom business

by Buana Sari Digital Marketer

Telcos worldwide are fighting a battle in a fast-evolving landscape of stagnating revenues from traditional telecom services, evolving customer expectations, and high competition from agile OTT players. This resulting decline in revenue and cost squeeze is motivating telcos to seek new tools and strategies to cut costs and reignite revenue growth.

Experts indicate the transformation of telcos to ‘techcos’ - that happens to be the highlight of 2023. The big news is that several telcos are reinventing themselves for the new age by transforming themselves into digital service providers (DSPs), riding on the mobile advertising technology (AdTech) boom. The growing popularity of mobile advertising among consumers and enterprises has made AdTech an essential tool for telcos for reaching and engaging them. Juniper Research predicts that total spend on digital ads will reach USD 520 Billion by 2023; rising from USD 294 Billion in 2019. The mobile ad spending is predicted to reach nearly USD 399.6 billion by 2024 (Source : Statista).

Many telcos are yet to participate in the growing opportunities presented by advertising technologies especially mobile advertising. Most telcos have multiple access to digital assets, rich consumer data, and the mobile communication infra to make serious inroads in mobile advertising.

Several telcos have failed to participate in the ad tech boom or chosen the wrong way to participate. For instance, the singapore-based telco SingTel attempted to expand its mobile advertising business to compensate for falling revenues from its traditional services like SMS and calling and due the rise of major players like WhatsApp. It acquired Amobee, an AdTech company for USD 321 million. Despite being in a position to enter and expand into mobile advertising, SingTel’s acquisition of Amobee never became successful, with the telco selling Amobee as part of a strategic move to reset its portfolio. A few telcos took to AdTechs like Google Ads and Facebook Ads for the generation of advertising revenues.

Telcos like Indosat Ooredoo Hutchinson have successfully partnered with innovative mobile video customer interaction platform and technology moLotus to take advantage of the mobile advertising revolution. The moLotus technology is offering a ready-to-go solution for kickstarting the revenue generation opportunity within merely three months. This breakthrough technology has entered into win-win partnerships with telco giants like Vodafone, Celcom, Digi, Ooredoo and Airtel creating new mobile advertising revenues.

Here are the best ways in which telcos can drive business revenues via mobile advertising platforms :

1. Monetizing Subscriber Data

With mobile advertising becoming the main ingredient of the telco marketing mix, telcos have transformed the way in which they use their huge data assets. The subscriber data points including location, buying patterns, internet usage, roaming usage, behavioral patterns, travel patterns, etc. are being used for generating revenues via mobile advertising.

Data scientists are of the opinion that telcos can do a lot more with the available data. Powerful big data analytics features of marketing automation platforms like Google, moLotus, Hubspot, Marketo, Facebook, etc. make data analysis even easier and simpler.

Data monetization has gained momentum recently with big telcos investing more on ad tech. Big telcos are already harnessing this vast database using mobile technologies like moLotus to enhance engagement, obtain deep insights, increase sales, improve customer experience, enhance ad strategies and optimize campaigns.

This breakthrough technology uses the telecom subscriber database appropriately to design and deliver automated, interactive, personalized, rich media campaigns. The campaigns reach customers directly in their inbox. There is absolutely no requirement of any mobile application or data plans for customers to receive it unlike Google and FB ads.

moLotus uses telco data assets to transform raw data into deep insights which can be further applied to multiple uses, augmenting telecom revenues and decision-making. Further it compiles the customer data into crisp and comprehensive formats for superior and easier strategizing.

2. Building Better Customization and Reach

With more and more telco customers using mobile phones, the ability to determine customer behavior on the basis of their mobile usage becomes all the more easy and critical. Telecom companies now possess a larger chunk of customer data including details like age, address, gender, device details, data plan used, etc. This data can be used for customization of ads thereby enhancing customer experiences.

Mobile advertising has turned out to be the best tool at the disposal of telcos enabling customization. They can reach the right customer via mobile advertising tools like moLotus, Facebook Ads, Google Ads, AdRoll, etc. adding up to the business revenues.

moLotus mobile ads are unique in themselves reaching all mobile devices irrespective of the mobile phone type. moLotus holds the highest accuracy in terms of targeting right buyer personas fit for telco business. With moLotus telcos now have the ability to target customers based on language, interest, location, demography, etc. adding to more conversions and revenues. Telecom operators are better equipped to focus their advertising efforts in specific locations across the world.

3. Maximizing Consumer Revenue Quickly

ARPU maximization is perceived to be the most challenging battlefield for telcos this year with telcos competing with each other; spending effort and energy in trying to boost ARPU through multiple marketing activities with little success. However, with new mobile advertising technologies in place, they can easily boost ARPU. In recent months telcos using moLotus have experienced a significant uplift in ARPU from 2% to 4%. Research shows that adoption of ad tech like moLotus mobile video customer interaction platform by telco majors like Indosat Ooredoo Hutchinson, Vodafone, Airtel, Celcom, Digi, etc. is the driver of this trend. The trend is likely to continue with more and more telcos adding moLotus to their marketing mix this year.

moLotus shadow marketing is assisting telcos in executing their existing advertising campaigns profitably with hike in consumer revenues. High impact mobile videos ads with multiple easy interaction options like Call, SMS, Web Link Click, USSD, etc. will aid telcos to quickly respond to customers amounting to high conversion rates and maximum customer potential.

4. Attaining Go-to-market Success Quickly

Marketers define a go-to-market strategy as a cluster of marketing activities that ensure a product entry to the market with maximum possibility of success. It is quite crucial for modern telcos to launch new products and services or transform the existing ones. In order to do so they need to first research and identify the target market for product launch. Whatever may be the purpose, a telecom brand’s go-to-market strategy can make or break a product launch.

For better target market identification telcos need to know about customers’ purchase habits, psychographics, demographics, pain points, etc. Also, they need to define the product value proposition, pricing strategy, promotional strategy and set metrics for monitoring performance.

Achieving go-to-market success quickly is now easier with the advent of mobile advertising tools and technologies like moLotus. The ad tech ensures success by offering a unique “3 months go-to-market” strategy to telcos. They are using moLotus go-to-market strategy for different kinds of product launches - a new product or service, rebranding of an existing one, new iterations of an old product, etc.

5. Retain More Loyal Customers

Telecommunications industry is facing extremely high churn rates, averaging between ten and sixty-seven percent annually (Source : The Database Marketing Institute, Ltd.). Loyalty is extremely difficult for telco brands to achieve, especially due to the lack of product differentiation or differentiation in service offerings. Existing telco customers are more likely to spend on products and services than the new ones and therefore happen to be more profitable for the telecom operators.

Historically, the telecommunications market has relied on traditional media like emails and printed material for loyalty and reward campaigns. However, things have changed now. More and more telecom brands are embracing mobile advertising tools and technologies for running loyalty programs. Telcos using a new-age mobile technology like moLotus for reducing churn rate have registered success. The tool helps telcos in incentivizing their loyal customer base with special offers, discounts coupons, vouchers via mobile-based unique loyalty campaigns.

The loyalty and reward campaigns delivered by moLotus are designed for special occasions like festivals, birthdays, anniversaries etc. with personalized options for greetings, names, and unique call-to-actions for individual customers. The loyalty cards, offer videos, discount coupons, etc. are enhanced by multimedia.

6. Generating Deep Data Insights

Data scientists are in consensus on the fact that big data analytics are indispensable for telcos. In order to gain deep data insights quickly out of their data assets, telcos are resorting to ad tech, leading to better revenue management. The insights offer telcos power to deal with the cut-throat competition. They can better predict customer behavior, catering to their changing needs.

Mobile ad technologies have come up with advanced data analytics analyzing customer response to product innovations, different pricing options and purchase history, generating valuable data insights for telcos. The deep data insights based on the customer data enables telcos to create and deliver personalized offerings.

The deep data analytics offered by tools like moLotus, Hotjar, Google Analytics, Facebook Analytics, etc. help telecom operators to recognize product usage patterns, personalized customer communication, better customer interaction, efficient service formulation, detailed & quick reporting and revenue management.

7. Boosting Lead Generation & Conversion

Telcos worldwide are busy gathering info about their prospective customers interested in their products and services. Mobile ad tech is being perceived to be the best way for telecom brands to generate leads on account of higher response rate. Mobile video platforms entice customers on their mobile devices to respond with their contact information. In 2023, performance-oriented lead generation is the focus of telcos.

In the past they have been struggling to deliver video ads that are attention-grabbing, short and precise; offering more value to mobile users. They have been relying on social media platforms and digital marketing tools like HubSpot, Facebook, YouTube, etc. for creating lead generation campaigns offering insufficient number of leads and that too at high cost per lead.

Now, a spam-free lead generation platform like moLotus is becoming the preferred choice of telecom brands. The ad tech creates unique lead generation campaigns and captures leads in the form of detailed contact info like name, number, address, etc. moLotus mobile videos not only enhance lead generation potential of the campaigns but also result in quick conversions and more customer acquisitions. The moLotus lead generation campaigns are efficient at increasing brand awareness, recall and customer loyalty.

Conclusion

The telcos riding on the mobile advertising boom by partnering with AdTechs like moLotus are expected to experience significant revenue growth in 2023. They can easily develop innovative products, transform customer processes, drive engagement, boost conversions, expand their customer base, retain their existing customers and earn more using mobile advertising technologies. The telco marketers can easily automate repetitive activities, sparing free time for more strategic work. AdTech will be providing telcos with real-time data insights that will help telco marketers make better decisions quickly.