Affle India Focused More On Returns For Advertisers Than Clicks, Says CEO

Affle (India) Ltd.’s inbuilt operational leverage is helping the mobile marketing firm drive user conversions—or getting them to click on advertisements and complete specific actions, including purchases—for its advertiser-clients.

That’s according to the company’s Founder-Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Anuj Khanna Sohum, who said its conversion-focused metric helped revenue grow at an annualised rate of 32 percent during FY16-18. “We’re not so focused on impressions and clicks but actually focused on driving return on investments for advertisers,” he told BloombergQuint in an interaction.

“We measure that (ad spends) by saying if we’ve delivered a qualified shopper to you, online or offline,” he said. “We’re disrupting not only digital but bringing mobile advertising in a very different way.”

Affle India focuses on user conversion, as its revenues are dependent on success rather than clicks, JM Financial Ltd. said in a recent report.

The company’s business model is based on three use cases—new user conversion (online); conversion of existing user (repeat conversion online); and new/existing user conversion offline, the report added.

“We’re not just doing impressions and clicks or a SaaS platform-based model but actually linking it to a business outcome. So if you drive a conversion, that’s when you charge the advertiser, not for other metrics that have been traditionally followed by digital advertisers,” Sohum said, adding his outlook for the next five years is at least as good as that of the last five.

On Monday, Affle India shares rose 4.09 percent to Rs 938.70 apiece on the BSE while the benchmark Sensex shed 0.70 percent to end the day at 37,123.31 points.

WATCH | CEO Anuj Khanna Sohum on Affle India's progress since listing