Facebook and Google ads in Sudan have been blocked since their inception. We now have confirmation that Facebook and Google (along with other platforms) are actively working to remove the geoblock from Sudan, allowing Sudanese companies to use digital advertising platforms. This is nothing short of a monumental change. Every company, big, small, public, private, startup or conglomerate will need to fundamentally change their marketing strategy, digital strategy and approach to advertising. Marketing spends will likely reduce, or become significantly more impactful. The days of buying 50 billboards to build brand awareness will soon be over.
The Benefits of Facebook and Google Ads in Sudan
Facebook and Google’s ad platforms have been geolocked for Sudanese users since their inception. During that time, the world of advertising has changed dramatically and gradually. I remember in 2005 (the year of the dreaded Google Big Daddy Update) how paid ads were slowly contributing more and more to the marketing mix. By 2012, they had overtaken other forms of advertising, and today, for most companies around the globe digital advertising on Google, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and others account for the majority of ad spends. So what are the main advantages of Digital Advertising over traditional advertising?
Measurability:
Digital advertising is significantly more measurable. You can essentially draw a line of sight between digital marketing spend and deliberate marketing outputs. Think of an outdoor advert you’ve seen. Say for example, that it’s for baby formula, and the cost was $1,000 per month. Over the month, maybe 1,000,000 saw the advert. However;
- 50% were men
- 25% were over the age of 40 and under the age of 18
- 15% were unmarried and don’t have children
- 9% had children but those children were over the age of 3
- 1% have children under the age of 3 or are pregnant (this is the actual target market)
So in this example, 10,000 people who saw the advert could buy the product and 990,000 people who saw the advert completely ignored it. 99% of the actual advertising spend was a total waste meaning that of the $1,000 spent per month, $990 was a total waste of money. Digital advertising is different. With Facebook and Google ads, you can target EXACTLY the types of customers you want. So instead of spending $1000 to reach 10,000 potential customers and 990,000 wasted views, you can spend $1000 reaching 100,000 potential customers with no wasted views. What’s more, you can measure exactly how many people saw and engaged with your advert.
Attribution:
When running multiple digital channels, for example, a Facebook campaign, email, IG and LinkedIn it’s important to understand which channel is delivering the best results. Therefore attributing digital marketing spends on each channel allows you to see the results of each channel. This then allows you to focus more on the channels that are working best and attribute spend and customers on these channels. This can’t be done with traditional channels.
Scalability:
The timescale between an idea and an execution is very small with digital channels. Let’s go back to our baby formula example. It’s unlikely that the company bought 1 outdoor location, and much more likely they bought 50 for 12 months or more. However, those 50 adverts sit exactly as they are for all 12 months. Maybe the company can pay extra and change the creative every 6 months. Digital is the opposite. When creating digital adverts, we create 50, 100, 150 different variants of each advert using different colors, language, images, text everything. Then we allow the ad platforms to deliver them all and see which ones perform best. We can create an unlimited number of different ad creatives for each campaign.
Cost:
Digital is just more cost-effective. So if you had an outdoor budget, this may allow you to change the creative once or twice over the 12-month agreement. With digital, you can reach more people with more messages more often for a fraction of the cost.
Overall digital advertising is going to fundamentally change how advertising is done in Sudan. One of 2 things will happen:
- The large companies will understand and adapt quickly, enabling them to beat off any new competitors
- The large companies will be slow to adapt and small competitors will embrace digital advertising and start chipping away at their market share.
How to Start using Facebook and Google Ads in Sudan
With a lower cost to entry for all industries, digital advertising is both a huge threat and opportunity for large companies. If you’ve not considered your digital advertising strategy, now is the time to do it. Feel free to contact us using the form below and we’ll be happy to present how Sudan Digital has been successfully using paid ad platforms for our international clients for years.
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