VEON AdTech: Generating Growth for Local Businesses and Building a Better Protected World for Customers

“VEON has developed an elegant way to deliver meaningful ads to the right consumers, at the right moments, on the right device,” says George Held, CEO of VEON AdTech, who discusses how the company’s digital marketing services empower local businesses and enhance user experience, at the ZTE 5G Summit & User Congress 2023 in Thailand. VEON, a global digital operator serving nearly 160 million customers in six dynamic markets, is addressing the growing digital advertising opportunity in its markets by establishing a dedicated AdTech company in April 2023, headquartered in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. VEON AdTech works with VEON’s digital operators and supports the VEON Group in providing highly targeted digital marketing services based on machine-learning algorithms building on VEON companies’ proximity to their customers.

Why Telco operator is looking into precision marketing services and why is VEON AdTech?

People who see ads want them to be relevant, customized, and based on customer insights. VEON has developed an elegant new way to deliver meaningful ads to the right consumers, at the right moments, on the right device. This improves the effectiveness of marketing communication, boosts the performance of local businesses, and reduces information overload.

Using detailed customer knowledge, combined with the application of advanced mathematical models on the enriched Telco data, VEON is empowering local businesses to flourish and local economies to grow.

In 2023, 2 billion ad impressions per month were served and 30 billion ad impressions per month were delivered through VEON AdTech services.

How VEON AdTech is approaching this customer need?

In order to enhance performance of local businesses, VEON AdTech combines  Telco-data-based customer insights and advanced mathematical models. Today, VEON manages 31 petabytes of customer data. 28 TB of data is loaded daily, and 2.7 million data messages per second are streamed in real-time.

Using anonymized traffic data, VEON AdTech is enabling local businesses to communicate with their customers in the most efficient and accurate format through precision marketing instruments:

• VEON AdTech enables local entrepreneurs to attract new customers through highly targeted communication. All customer communications are highly customized and targeted to the “segment of one”.
• Customer communications are delivered not only through the global advertisers (META, Google, Telegram, and TikTok), but most importantly through locally relevant channels (VEON’s own applications, local websites) and SMS.
• VEON provides local businesses with the ability to measure the effectiveness of their communication campaigns in real time. No more “spray and pray” and waste of advertisement budgets.

This is paramount for local economies, and especially for small businesses, for whom VEON AdTech is often the most effective advertising channel utilizing state-of-the-art technologies.

How does your innovation streamline, simplify or enhance the user experience? 

VEON AdTech’s geo-analytics uses big data from anonymized traffic to optimize locations and opening hours for retailers. The service has been successfully used at Samarkand Darvoza, one of Uzbekistan's largest shopping centers.

The project showed that of the 18,000 people who visit Samarkand Darvoza every day, the largest demographic group was men between 26 and 35, and the most popular visiting time was 9 pm. The anonymized data also revealed that 20% of people visited the shopping center only to go to the food court. According to Shokir Mirsaidov, Commercial Director of Samarkand Darvoza Shopping and Entertainment Centre, the geo-analytics provided valuable insights into its customers: “We wanted to understand the behavior, number and composition of people visiting our shopping visitors. The analysis we received gave us a clear understanding of the demographics of our customers, but also told us about the people who were not visiting.”

VEON AdTech also enables advertisers to send personalized and targeted communication messages to potential customers, based on their interests and behavior. The service also protects consumers from informational pollution through  accurate targeting of interests and with easy opt-outs. A countrywide pizza chain in Uzbekistan worked with VEON AdTech to target specific demographics for a precision marketing campaign. “The targeted communications not only brought about a 73% increase in app traffic, but also exceeded our expectations by driving a 58% boost in sales,” stated Sergey Kim, Development Director of Dodo Pizza chain in Uzbekistan.

How do you ensure your service delivers in a secure and trustworthy manner?

VEON AdTech complies with international business standards to ensure consistency, security, and scalability. It follows the IAB standards and obeys the ICC marketing code.

VEON AdTech stores and manages customer data locally in data centers located in each country. The data centers are fully Tier 3 or Tier 4 certified, meet ISO 27001 Cyber Security requirements, and are managed by top local talent with Oracle, Microsoft, or VMWare certifications.

VEON AdTech respects stringent privacy policies and complies with local data privacy rules, requirements of local Central Banks and Ministries of Communication, and customer Terms and Conditions (T&C). Customers are fully informed about the T&C and can opt out of VEON communication at any time.

VEON AdTech also adheres to the highest ethical standards and ensures that only business scenarios that meet VEON’s ethics standards are implemented in commercial operations.

To date, what results have you seen from the implementation of your services?

• Geo-analytics: By applying advanced mathematical models on people’s movements, we help governments to plan city infrastructure and roads, bus routes and public events, and help local businesses to predict the best locations for their new stores and optimize delivery routes.
• Video analytics: Through the utilization of computer vision and AI, we are helping firefighters to identify and stop fires, ensure safety at the workplace, and enable efficient operations of the local businesses.
• Precision marketing (AdTech): By capitalizing on the proximity to the customers and detailed local knowledge, only in 2023, 2 billion ad impressions per month were served and 30 billion ad impressions per month were made available through VEON AdTech services.

All of this is executed on the customer data stored in the in-country Data Centers, ensuring full compliance with local data privacy rules, and managed by top local talent.

Through detailed customer knowledge, and by applying advanced mathematical models, we will empower local businesses to flourish and local economies to grow.

How is your product unique and truly innovative compared to other solutions on the market?

VEON AdTech leverages enriched VEON Telco Data and advanced mathematical models to offer valuable solutions to local businesses, improving their operational efficiencies and reducing informational pollution for the end-consumers.

VEON AdTech uses VEON’s own local applications and websites (Telco Self-service, Television/media, Music, Healthcare, Fintech, etc) as the most relevant advertisement publishing platforms for the end consumers. This is an integral part of VEON Digital Operator (DO1440) strategy and a key monetization channel. This is executed in addition to advertisements via META, Google, Telegram, and TikTok.

VEON AdTech adheres to stringent privacy policies and provides the highest level of protection to users, both from information overload and from unwanted communication. Users can easily and consistently opt out of VEON communication at any time.

VEON AdTech stores and manages customer data locally in each country of operation, ensuring full compliance with local data privacy rules. VEON AdTech complies with major international standards, such as the IAB standards and the ICC marketing code.

What is your vision for sustainable future growth?

Fast growth of VEON AdTech is fueled by the knowledge, connection, and proximity it has to customers.

This is just the beginning.

Together, we are generating growth for local businesses, building a new value creation stream for mobile operators and a better protected world for customers.