“How can technology help to acquire, engage, and retain customers in one of Africa’s most competitive markets?” That was the question at the center of Martech Africa 3.0, as the 2026 edition of the conference returned with a format designed to answer it through lived experience rather than just theory.
The event, themed “Mastering the Growth Loop: Redefining Customer Acquisition, Engagement and Retention through Martech”, brought together marketing practitioners, tech founders, and business leaders to exchange ideas on leveraging technology to build commercially effective marketing operations. This time, the conference not only had panel sessions discussing the use of marketing technology but also had experienced marketing tech leaders sharing real-world case studies drawn from companies operating within Nigeria’s tech space.
The conveners designed the programme around three pillars that define the growth challenge for most Nigerian businesses: acquiring the right customers, keeping them engaged, and converting them into long-term advocates. Each session was anchored by a practitioner who had lived the problems and could speak the strategy they used to solve them. With about 120 people in the room and a further 100 joining via a live YouTube stream, the conference drew one of its strongest audiences to date.
Priscilla Otukoya, Head of Growth and Revenue at Tuteria opened the case study sessions with a session on “Attracting the Right Audience: Leveraging Martech for Smarter Customer Acquisition.” Otukoya challenged the common tendency to optimise for volume over quality, arguing that sustainable growth depends on identifying and attracting users who are most likely to derive genuine value from a product.
The next case study session was delivered by John Onuorah, Growth Marketing Manager at Food Court, who spoke about “Keeping Customers Close: Martech Approaches for Sustained Engagement.” Drawing directly from his work at the consumer food platform, Onuorah walked attendees through the mechanics of building an engagement system that moves beyond one-off campaigns toward sustained, measurable interaction with customers.
Omolade Marquis, Senior Growth Marketer at Cowrywise, closed the case study sessions with a talk titled “Turning Customers into Loyal Advocates: Martech Approaches to Retention.” Marquis detailed how Cowrywise, operating in the competitive personal finance space, built retention programmes that went beyond transactional nudges to cultivate genuine loyalty.
These sessions were also complemented by panel discussions that extended the conversation across the full customer lifecycle, drawing in perspectives from practitioners beyond the three case study speakers.
The event’s convener and founder of YourNotify, Shina Memud, noted that Martech Africa 3.0 was designed to close the gap between awareness of available tools and practical capability to deploy them at different stages of the customer lifecycle. He also shared plans to extend the conference’s impact through a recurring knowledge-sharing series and highlighted the need for cost-effective tools to ensure that
The conference closed with a general agreement that Nigeria’s marketing technology community has matured past the awareness stage. The question is no longer whether martech works, it is whether organisations have the systems, skills, and discipline to make it work for them. For the practitioners in the room, Martech Africa 3.0 offered both the frameworks and the inspiration to begin.
