AdMana, a digital ad network platform which was among the five startups who received investment commitments at the Nepal Startup Meet 2019, has quickly built an expertise on allowing brands and businesses to achieve marketing goals and publishers to earn a fair amount of ad revenue.

“Our business model revolves around making things easier for publishers who are occupied with contents and businesses who want to capitalise on millions of potential customers poking around websites, applications, blogs and such,” said Dipesh Khetan, co-founder of AdMana Technology. “We have tied up with over 20 advertisers including corporate houses and startups and over 200 popular websites.”

With over 65 percent of Nepalis having access to the internet, businesses can use their browsing habits to push targeted ad campaigns cost-effectively.

And the company’s platform connects millions of confirmed users, harvests insights into their interests and helps brands build target campaigns based on geo-tagging and demographic marketing, extend their reach, increase visibility on multiple user interfaces and ultimately gain a base of recurring consumers.

“The best part is that anyone, whether it be any start-up or corporation, can be an advertiser and promote their products on our platform,” said Khetan. “And rather than paying a chunk of money every month with no idea about how effective their campaign was, advertisers can place ads at over 200 websites for the same money and only pay for target achievements such as ad views, impressions and sign-ups.”

Founded two years ago and with the first-mover advantage in cross-channel advertising in Nepal, the platform now boasts 15 million viewers and its presence is expanding at a constant rate of 1.5 million unique viewers across multiple mediums every month.

With the digital advertising industry building a strong foothold, big business names such as Worldlink, NIC Asia, IME and Magic Footwear have opted to relay marketing messages in the form of pictures and GIFs through AdMana’s cross channel platform.

Through the network, the company allows publishers to copy-paste source codes of images and GIFs in their websites which can be accessed across multiple devices and marketing channels.

“Cross-channel marketing involves using multiple digital platforms to promote product or services and this has helped companies to create a consistent brand image and strategically position their product,” said Akshar Nepal, an entrepreneur and marketing lecturer at Kathmandu University.

According to Nepal, most people are exposed to brand communication on a digital platform over traditional mediums and companies have created more personalised and enriching messages for their consumers, all at a lower cost.

While publishers who are more focused on content have little time to make sure that the adverts are compatible with all user interfaces, mobile, computers and applications, AdMana’s team of 11 dedicated employees removes the hassles for publishers.

Anyone with a website or an application can become a publisher through the cross-channel network. All they have to do is signup, copy codes from Admana.net to their back-ends and wait to be paid for running the advertisements.

“In this digital age, I find such a platform up to the mark as it is a great advertising platform which makes timely payments to the publishers,” a journalist associated with the less-heard Palpalko.com wrote on the company’s FaceBook page.

AdMana acts as an intermediary for firms and publishers and earns revenue through a certain margin it places on advertisements depending upon size and content.

“As the company has now evolved from a startup to a growth phase firm, our revenue has been consistent with the growing number of tie-ups,” said Khetan, without disclosing any monetary figures. “We are now planning to diversify our reach by venturing into video-ads and pop-ups.”

But every business faces sustainability issues and so does AdMana which is struggling to pierce through resistance to change and technological adaptation in Nepal, retention of skilled manpower and threat of new entrants.

“There is a lack of trust and knowledge of digital marketing among many businesses and they are hesitant to tie-up with us,” said Khetan. “Also, there is a layer of the approval process in corporate houses which makes it difficult and time-consuming for us to wait for the green signal from all decision-makers in a corporate house and most of the times, our proposal floats on different tables without anything materializing.”

According to Khetan, retention of human resources is becoming a challenge as fresh undergraduates or even mid-level staff are quick to change their minds and opt for abroad studies. And as the market in Nepal is quite small, new entrants in the digital advertising business also pose a threat to the company’s sustainability.