Digital advertising market for mobile operators

For many years, operators have been attempting to enter the digital advertising market. Most often, these efforts took the form of banner networks, experiments with SMS marketing campaigns, or sponsored content within mobile apps. Many of these initiatives looked promising at first, but only a few became sustainable sources of revenue.

The limitations were as follows:

The telecoms advertising model is based on impressions — CPM — whilst the world of digital marketing was rapidly shifting towards a performance-based model. At the same time, operators consistently underutilised the one advantage that no external platform could replicate: direct relationships with subscribers, backed by real behavioural data.

This is precisely why the shift to a results-oriented model completely changes the situation.

Under the CPA model, advertisers pay only when a subscriber performs a specific action — installing an app, applying for a loan, making a purchase, or activating a service. Revenue becomes tied to actual conversions. Meanwhile, the behavioural data already held by operators finally becomes the asset it was always meant to be.

Aleksandr Moskotin Co-Founder

Three structural advantages make telecom channels uniquely suited to performance marketing:

🟡 Direct communication via SMS, RCS and push notifications with a level of engagement that display advertising cannot match
🟡 Operators monitor subscribers’ intentions at a level inaccessible to external data providers
🟡 Trusted relationships, as subscribers respond better to messages from their own operator

When these advantages are combined with AI-powered targeting and CPA monetisation, the cornerstones of afina’s offering, operators can themselves become powerful performance marketing platforms.