From 21.21 percent in 2017 to 44.30 percent in 2022, the internet penetration in Nigeria is growing exponentially, and there are no signs of declination in the figures whatsoever. In fact, according to the NCC (Nigerian Communications Commission), the number of internet users in Nigeria as of 2022 is approximately 84 million, and it is expected to exceed 117 million users by the year 2027.

As a business person, if there’s only one thing you should know about these incremental figures, it should be how to leverage on the internet penetration in Nigeria for your business growth. While there are many ways to leverage internet penetration in Nigeria, this article will focus mainly on the advertising aspect and highlight some major reasons why you should make online advertising in Nigeria a priority in your marketing plan.

Why online advertising in Nigeria?

Without a doubt, you might have heard about digital marketing and how you can move your business online and acquire more customers with the help of digital technologies.

Fortunately, you might have been told about the different aspects of digital marketing and how they will help you grow your business. However, why exactly is this article emphasizing on online advertising in Nigeria?

There are a couple of reasons for this emphasis, and we will discuss them in details.

– Flexibility – Imagine your team has been working on a project for some months, and the project is scheduled for completion in 30 days. Everyone in your team is excited about the massive project, and you want to drive a huge awareness for the project 72 hours before the launch date. 

Interestingly, you’ve made a provision for massive discounts on the launch date and your target audience are female medical doctors between 35 and 45 yrs of age who own a Samsung device.

How best would you reach these set of people? Undoubtedly, online advertising will be your best channel to reach this audience. 

The flexibility of online advertising cuts across multiple areas such as budget, audience targeting, scheduling, devices, etc.

– Meet prospects at various buying journeys – Every prospect goes through a series of stages in their purchase journey. While some are already aware of your business and can always pick up their credit/debit card to make payment for whatever you’re selling, some are completely new to your business and need some time to understand your products and services.

With the help of online advertising, you can strategically position your ads to meet the needs of each prospect irrespective of their position in the buying process. This is possible with various online advertising channels and ad formats. You can use ads to build massive awareness for your brands, encourage signups or even make a direct purchase on your website.

– Measurability – one of the major advantages of online advertising ahead of most other marketing channels is the measurability.

Marketing is a game of numbers, hence being able to track and measure the impact of your marketing efforts in business growth is a major plus to online advertising.

You can track from the moment prospects see your advertisement, to when they eventually completed the desired action on your website.

That’s not all, you will be able to see how prospects engage with your offer. You’ll have access to review the best performing demographics, the devices they are using, the locations, the time of the day you’re getting the best results, the days of the week that drive the most results and the channels that are contributing massively to the growth of your business.

– Scalability – once your business starts to grow, scaling becomes inevitable. Scaling is an important part of expansion in every business. However, scaling can also be disastrous to your business if you don’t know your numbers.

Online advertising makes scaling a very easy and profitable process. Consider these two scenarios;

(i) Your marketing team decided to invest 50 million Naira in television and radio advertising, and after about 5 months, you noticed a significant increase in your sales. 

Of course, your team tried to implement some means of tracking, however, since most of the new customers saw your ads on the TV and also listened to the commercial on the radio station, it becomes much more difficult for you to tell which of the channels are contributing majorly to the increased sales.

The increased sales encourage your marketing team to scale and you approved an additional 50 million Naira for this purpose. Which channel should have the most share of this new budget for scaling?

Unfortunately your team can’t decide but to share the budget the same way they did previously. 

(ii) You’ve heard about online advertising and you recently approved 30 million Naira for your marketing team to advertise on search engines, social media and classified ads websites.

They launch ads across the various online channels and after 3 months, you notice a significant increase in sales.

You requested for a performance report and you realize that search engines drive about 75 percent of the sales.

Now you approved an additional 20 million Naira for the marketing team to scale the advertising. Where do you think they should allocate more budget?

Obviously, they will allocate more budget to the advertising channels that drive the most sales.

This is one of the good things about online advertising. Scaling can be easier and profitable.

Online advertising platforms in Nigeria

As digital technologies continue to evolve, various online advertising platforms are also emerging. These emerging platforms are creating more opportunities for business owners and marketers to deliver their advertising messages to their preferred audiences across the world.

In this section, I will discuss some of the most popular and reliable online advertising platforms in Nigeria.

– Search engines

Google, Bing, Yahoo! and scores of other search engine platforms offer online advertising opportunities for businesses of different sizes everywhere in the world.

While it is possible for you to advertise your business on most of the available search engine platforms, it is important to know that not all of them can help you drive the most visibility for your business.

For instance, some search engine platforms might be unknown in your area or have very little market reach.

However, no matter where you live on earth, chances are that the people in that location are already familiar with Google. In large numbers!

Apart from the huge popularity of Google across the world, Google advertising platform offers several advertising solutions that cater to the needs of businesses of all sizes.

Whether your goal is to drive massive awareness for your business across blogs and YouTube, encourage more people to install your mobile app or get more people to discover your business on Google search, maps or via their Gmail account, there’s always a provision that can help you achieve exactly what you want.

So, advertising your business on search engines particularly on Google and Bing is one of the best ways to drive massive customers for your business on the internet.

– Social media

Facebook, twitter, LinkedIn, tiktok, and other social media platforms also offer advertising solutions for businesses of all sizes.

In Nigeria, Facebook is undoubtedly the most used social media advertising solution for all kinds of businesses and offers.

While Facebook advertising might be good for your business, it is also important to understand your primary goals and know if it can help you achieve the goals.

For some businesses, LinkedIn advertising might be the best option for them to be able to achieve their goals.

But how do you know which platform will be best for you to advertise your business? With the service of a skilful and experienced digital marketing strategist, you will be able to make informed decisions on which platform to use for your online advertising.

– Blogs

There are thousands of top quality blogs in Nigeria that you can place your adverts to drive more visibility for your business.

In many cases, you may be able to advertise on the blogs without having to contact the blog owners. However, in some cases, you’ll need to contact the blog administrator directly before you can place ads on their blogs.

While it is possible to drive massive visibility for your business by placing adverts on blogs, you may have very limited control over who sees your ads. Also, you may have very limited information about the ads delivery.

– Classified

Classified ads are also good forms of online advertising that can help businesses drive more visibility.

Many classified ads platforms make it possible for users to post their advertising for free, with the option to sponsor the ads for enhanced visibility.

Maximizing your online advertising budget.

Now that you’re familiar with the various online advertising options available, it is important for you to define your goals and choose the right channel that can help you achieve the goals.

While it is possible to gain more visibility via all of the available online advertising channels, not all of them can help you drive quality traffic that will result in immediate results.

Before you decide on which platform to use, make sure you consider your goal and the available advertising budget.

One dangerous thing you should never forget about online advertising is the possibility of burning your advertising budget without getting the desired results. This is especially possible if your ads are managed by inexperienced marketers.

– Using the right strategies for your goal(s).

With the right strategies tailored to your business goals, you can achieve huge success with online advertising.

Just as mentioned earlier in this article, there are many online marketing strategies that you can implement for your business. However, only the right strategies that are tailored to your business goal can help you attain impressive results.

– Hiring the right person.

Hiring the right person for your online advertising goes beyond looking at the numerous certifications.

Most of the high achievers in digital marketing are the doers. 

While it is important to consider the certification of the person you’re about to hire, it is more important to know about their track records.

Experience is paramount when it comes to hiring a digital marketer for your business.

More so, when it comes to hiring someone to be in charge of your online advertising, choosing a specialist over a general practitioner is highly recommended.

Do not settle for an individual who claims to be a digital marketer, graphic designer, web developer, social media influencer, content writer, etc.

Rather, go with a specialist in the area you need help with.

About Ojasweb Digital Solution

Ojasweb Digital Solution is a result oriented data driven Google advertising agency that designs and implements actionable strategies that help businesses acquire more customers and leads with the help of Google ads without overpaying for ads.