When it comes to the state of finance app marketing in Africa, the continent is fertile terrain for the proliferation of fintech solutions with over a billion dollars already invested in fintech this year. Driving this growth in fintech is two factors. A large population of sub-Saharan Africa does not have a traditional bank account meaning they’re unbanked or underbanked. Also, over the years, there has been an increase in mobile and internet penetration in Africa. In Nigeria alone, there are about 170 million mobile subscriptions. While internet usage is spread over multiple devices in other countries, with the increase in cheaper android phones available on the market, in Nigeria and Africa as a whole, most internet usage is via mobile. What this means is that large swaths of the African population rely on mobile only.
With a large unbanked population and also, a large youth population drawn to mobile technology, finance solutions in Africa are shifting to mobile apps to connect better with customers.
Data-driven trends across the continent
One only has to look at the data to see how much the finance industry is growing across Africa. Public search data from Google shows that consumer demand for financial services is growing, with finance-related searches across the continent increasing. In Nigeria, finance-related searches have tripled in the last 5 years.
Between H1 of 2021 and H1 of 2022, overall finance app installs grew by 29% across the continent, suggesting that Africans are turning to mobile apps to tap into financial solutions. This growth was largely driven by an impressive 173% surge coming from Ghana, followed by Nigeria, which saw an increase of 38%. In Kenya, growth was more muted, with an increase of 11%, while South Africa saw a decline of 8% on the same platform.
When it comes to the types of apps, these range from lending, banking, investment, crypto and more. Africa’s crypto market grew by a remarkable $105.6 billion in the last year alone, with Nigeria now the world’s second-largest bitcoin market after the USA.
The rise of mobile marketing
As mobile apps grow in importance, so does mobile marketing. 72% of the installs for finance apps in Nigeria were driven by paid marketing and only three out of every 10 downloads were organic. What this means is that brands can’t rely on word of mouth to succeed. Mobile marketing is now a central part of finance app marketing and companies who want to grow their user base, increase revenue, and stand apart from the competition, need to prioritize mobile marketing, and have a strong strategy in place to connect more effectively with end users.
Succeeding in 2023: insights from Otávio Tranchesi, Industry Lead, Finance at AppsFlyer, and Oluwapelumi Oyetimein, Growth and Performance Expert and also Executive President at DigiClan Africa
There are three areas mobile marketers should focus on if they want to see success in the coming year.
- Understanding your data and gleaning the right insights from this data. Brands have to make sure they’re measuring the right metrics and taking into consideration the full lifecycle of customers. By measuring the right data marketers can make better-informed decisions, measure the ROI spent on marketing campaigns, and budget better.
- Having the right creative strategy and knowing which creatives resonate with your customers. For Pelumi, operating in Nigeria, it’s important to understand the different parts of the country but find commonalities that bind these different groups “Find common lines that people resonate with and one of those things is language. One of the very first things I do in Nigeria ensures that I’m not running ads in English alone but also running ads in pidgin as well.” He also added that using cultural symbols and communally loved symbols in your creatives sparks recognition, interest, and ultimately conversion.
- Privacy is a key tenet of AppsFlyer. With the changing landscape of technology and the internet, marketers who want to succeed have to provide the right tools without compromising customer privacy.
According to Pelumi, a current trend in the African marketing space is the growing request for more targeted marketing. He noted a gap in the talent pool of those who can deliver this feature and what the market demands. Asked how to improve marketers’ strategies globally, Pelumi suggested assimilation. “One thing that helps is actually visiting these places, mixing with the people, and understanding their particular idiosyncrasies. Marketing is psychology and every audience is different.” He also noted that to continue to thrive and prevent uninstalls of their apps, brands have to have active Customer Relationship Management beyond push notifications like email marketing, sms, and other social media platforms outside their apps.
With increasing mobile device access and internet penetration, marketing now, especially via mobile is more complex, involving multiple platforms like web, email, sms etc. This makes the approach of mobile advertising and attribution by AppsFlyer one of the best ways to accurately measure your reach among users.
To learn more about the growth of finance apps in Africa, and how to succeed, watch a full webinar and fireside chat between Otavio and Pelumi here.
About AppsFlyer
Appsflyer is a holistic solution for modern marketing. As digital app adoption grows globally, brands have to contend with a new frontier of products and marketing. AppsFlyer connects data across platforms so companies can accurately monitor traffic and have accurate attribution across all platforms. AppsFlyer provides tools to brands to accurately measure if their campaign strategies are working, support the optimization of these strategies, and also provide deep linking and segmentation tools to build customer retention.
With over 12,000 customers across the globe, AppsFlyer has partnered with companies like Nike, Tinder, and also Kuda and Wema in the African Fintech space and they’ve helped a host of companies globally measure their brand engagement and improve customer retention.
