According to a report released in August 2016, there are 74.7 million unique mobile users in Nigeria out of an estimated 184.6 million people. This puts mobile penetration at about 40 percent. The number of smartphone users in Nigeria between 2011 and 2016 also increased from 4 million to 15.5 million. While, on the continent, mobile subscribers hit 557 million in June 2016, which is an increase of 180 million subscribers from 2011.

“Mobile is the dominant platform in Africa. It is the primary and most used channel for Africans and it is the most effective media channel to reach users on the continent at scale and with precision,” said Oduntan Odunbanjo, Chief Operating officer at Twin pine .

With the growing number of mobile phone users in Nigeria, it is not out of place to say that Nigerians are mobile-obsessed. This is because almost everyone in the country, which includes those in the rural area have phones. When you go to the rural villages you see people who don’t even have electricity looking for ways to charge their phones to stay online. In view of this growing trend, any business that wants to reach out to its consumer needs to look at mobile advertising as the way to do so quickly in order to avoid being left behind.

Over the years, analytics figures have proven that more than half of the website traffic on most pages come from mobile devices. There is a 60 percent chance that the person reading this article now is also using one. Since more people in Nigeria make use of the device over 40 percent of smartphones users are likely to engage with mobile ads than with the traditional ads. This gives business the option of delivering their brands directly to their consumer’s hands. The consumers don’t need to go out of bed to learn about them.

However, businesses cannot make this happen if they don’t have the right content to drive the advertising and make it engaging to its consumers.

At a Twinpine event tagged “An evening of innovation with Twinpine,” which took place on  the 17th of November 2016, Odunbanjo during a presentation said that Content is actually the foundation of advertising and advertising thrives on content.

On the flip side, Twinpine is beginning to see a convergence of content and advertising where advertising is beginning to look more like content. Trends like ad blocking are increasingly driving this convergence and native ads and mobile videos are thriving on it.

Now, where does Twinpine come in?

The mobile marketing stack is seeing a lot of convergence across data, technology, channels, advertising content and creatives. In view of this trend, Twinpine is helping brands and businesses leverage on mobile as a channel to grow their revenue, market share and profits.

What have they done so far?

With over one billion mobile impressions, Africa’s premium mobile marketing platform, Twinpine, which has been operating since 2011 has added newer ad formats. This format is increasingly becoming a differentiator for media platforms and brands.

The company, which was built on a need to help African publishers succeed on mobile, has been able to manage several leading mobile sites and blogs in Nigeria which include Linda Ikeji, The Guardian, and Punch. They have been able to help them monetize their mobile audiences.

“We have worked with over 300 businesses and 100 leading brands and agencies since we started. Many of which have consistently worked with us on their mobile marketing campaigns over the years,” Odunbanjo said.

How does Twinpine Mobile Advertising work?

Twinpine is a Nigerian owned company focused on mobile advertising. It is similar to other advertising networks like Adsense and AdBrite, which help advertisers and publishers connect with each other.

Mobile sites and apps publishers register with Twinpine Advertising network in order to get advertisers that will help them monetize their mobile sites and apps. On the flip side, the advertisers register with Twinpine to enable them to display targeted Ads on mobile websites and Apps.

The advertiser places the campaigns and is given the options to select the mobile sites they want their ads to be published. They advertisers are also allowed to target ads by time, days of the week, age and sex.