Arica's largest mobile network operator, MTN provides voice, data, fintech, digital, and enterprise services to over 300 million customers across 16 markets. Beyond consumer mobile coverage, MTN is dedicated to powering local economies by providing tailored connectivity and technology tools to growing businesses.
To support small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Côte d'Ivoire, MTN launched Y'ello PME, an all-in-one, flexible subscription that consolidates essential business tools. With a single contract and simplified billing, Y'ello PME equips business owners with fixed internet, mobile telephony, cloud solutions, digital services, and MoMo (Mobile Money).
To drive awareness and consideration for the Y'ello PME offer, MTN partnered with media agency Simply Black Media and Eskimi to run a digital campaign targeting business owners and professionals across Côte d'Ivoire. The campaign used a mix of static banners and templated Rich Media formats to balance broad visibility with stronger audience engagement.
Reaching SMEs at the right moment
The primary objective of the MTN Y'ello PME campaign was to increase awareness of MTN's B2B products among business owners, self-employed, and corporate decision-makers.
SME owners juggle multiple operational responsibilities, making them a hard-to-reach segment using standard demographic filters alone. To maximize message impact, the campaign required an audience-planning approach that engaged business leaders in both professional and everyday lifestyle contexts.
One of MTN's key challenges is reaching the right audience at the right moment and driving them to take the desired action. Ensuring that media investments translate into meaningful business outcomes is essential to achieving the brand's objectives, shared Zaoro Faustin Lamah, Digital Planner at Simply Black Media.
A multi-layered targeting strategy
Reaching Côte d'Ivoire's diverse SME community required more than a single audience definition. The campaign combined several targeting approaches to connect MTN with potential customers across diverse professional interests and content consumption habits.
We combined multiple targeting approaches to ensure we reached the most relevant audience. Interest-based targeting was used to reach business owners and professionals based on business- and management-related interests. Contextual targeting enabled us to align ad placements with business-related content, while Eskimi's DeepContext solution further refined the targeting by serving ads on highly relevant pages whose content matched the campaign's messaging, explained Zaoro Faustin Lamah.
The strategy included:
- Generic behavioral targeting focused on SMEs and professionals
- Behavioral segments related to health, education, and lifestyle
- Topic-based contextual targeting across health, education, and jobs
- DeepContext targeting built specifically around MTN Côte d'Ivoire and Y'ello PME
Using several targeting layers allowed the campaign to build broad awareness while identifying the audiences and environments that generated the strongest response.
Intelligent alignment through DeepContext
DeepContext was used to identify pages whose meaning and intent aligned with the SME audience and wider MTN's brand positioning.
Rather than relying only on keywords or predefined content categories, DeepContext evaluated the full meaning of each page. The campaign's Brand Blueprint prioritized several groups of contextual signals:
- Technology and telecommunications
- Finance and business
- Education and professional development
- Local culture and everyday interests
At the same time, the Brand Blueprint excluded unsafe and unsuitable content, as well as pages that lacked a meaningful connection to telecommunications, business, or the audience's professional interests.
This balance helped MTN maintain broad cultural relevance while prioritizing environments where business owners and decision-makers were more receptive to the Y'ello PME offer.
Eskimi's DeepContext solution adds significant value by enabling us to reach business owners and decision-makers when they are actively consuming highly relevant content. By placing ads within specific business-related environments, the solution enhances message relevance, strengthens brand perception, and aligns perfectly with MTN's strategy of delivering tailored solutions to SMEs, noted Zaoro Faustin Lamah.
Multi-tier audience performance
Across the activation period, the campaign delivered high-impact visibility and clear intent metrics:
- 4.3 million impressions delivered across premium publisher environments.
- 0.9 million unique users reached, establishing significant market coverage among decision-makers.
- 0.43% average CTR, demonstrating strong audience interest.
- 7.71% average engagement rate, proving meaningful interaction with the Rich Media.
The campaign met its awareness objectives in terms of impressions and reach. While visibility was the primary goal, we also observed an increase in form submissions on the landing page, indicating that the campaign successfully reached the right audience at the right time and generated meaningful engagement, shared Zaoro Faustin Lamah.
Behavioral targeting and DeepContext achieved a CTR of 0.45%, slightly above average, while the specific health-related interests delivered the campaign’s highest CTR at 0.51%. The campaign achieved an average engagement rate of 7.71%, with Health-focused targeting delivering the strongest results: 10.72% for behavioral and 9.49% for contextual targeting.
DeepContext added a more selective layer, placing ads in safe, suitable environments that closely align with MTN's positioning for business solutions. This approach achieved 91% brand safety, 9 percentage points higher than both Contextual and Behavioral targeting.
Most importantly, the campaign generated impact beyond media delivery. MTN observed an increase in form submissions on the Y'ello PME landing page, indicating that the campaign reached potential customers who were interested in exploring the offer further.
