Performance marketing has always been about acquisition. The challenge for the telemedia industry today is that acquisition alone is no longer enough.
That was one of the key messages to emerge from Telemedia Johannesburg‘s performance marketing panel, where Google and Telecoming explored how South Africa has transformed from a market once driven by volume into one increasingly focused on quality, trust and long-term customer value.
The discussion also highlighted how South Africa’s experience may offer a blueprint not only for the rest of Africa, but potentially for digital subscription businesses around the world.
While the conversation focused heavily on traffic quality, user trust and regulatory maturity, it also offered an intriguing glimpse into how AI-driven discovery could reshape the future of customer acquisition itself.
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South Africa no longer an emerging market
The panel opened with a challenge to one of the most common assumptions about African digital services. Javier de Corral, Sales Director at Telecoming, argued that South Africa should no longer be considered an emerging market at all.
Having worked in the country for more than a decade, he says the market has evolved into one that many supposedly developed markets would envy.
De Corral points to two major shifts. The first was the industry’s response to the fraud challenges that emerged in the late 2010s. The second was the decision by operators to take greater ownership of the products being sold through their billing platforms.
Previously, operators often acted primarily as billing providers. Today, they are far more engaged in understanding customer journeys, monitoring traffic quality and protecting consumer trust.
Those changes fundamentally altered how companies such as Telecoming approached customer acquisition.
“We changed our business model from volume to quality subscriptions,” says de Corral. Instead of pursuing the largest possible number of sign-ups, the focus shifted towards attracting customers who understood the service, genuinely wanted it and were likely to remain engaged over time.
Quality becomes the growth strategy
For Telecoming, that shift required a complete rethink of marketing strategy. Gokhan Varlikli, the company’s Deputy Executive and Chief Marketing Officer, says the South African market initially measured success almost entirely through acquisition volumes. Over time, however, the industry realised that sustainable growth depended on a very different set of metrics.
Today, success is increasingly defined by retention, customer engagement and user satisfaction.
“We switched our marketing strategy from quantity to quality,” says Varlikli. The company now focuses on users who clearly understand what they are subscribing to, who provide informed consent and who are likely to remain active customers over the longer term.
Importantly, that focus extends far beyond the point of subscription. Varlikli argues that quality must encompass the entire customer lifecycle. Better content, stronger customer experiences and ongoing engagement initiatives all contribute to creating lasting value. Push notifications, special content sections and event-driven experiences are designed not simply to acquire customers but to encourage them to return.
“The quality of subscription goes beyond the subscription,” he says. “It is the entire user journey.”
Why trust has become the industry’s most valuable asset
One of the strongest themes throughout the discussion was the growing importance of trust. For Varlikli, trust is now the most important asset in any subscription business. Poor-quality traffic sources may generate short-term acquisition spikes, but they inevitably damage user confidence and undermine the wider market. Worse still, the actions of a small number of bad actors can create regulatory pressure that affects everyone.
“If there is one actor in the market that doesn’t follow the rules, complaints increase and user trust is damaged,” he says. “The companies most affected are often the ones following the rules.”
That observation reflects a broader trend visible throughout Telemedia Johannesburg. Whether discussing fraud prevention, regulation or content services, speakers repeatedly returned to the same conclusion: long-term growth depends on maintaining consumer confidence.
This is one reason South Africa has become such an interesting case study. The market’s combination of operator oversight, regulatory cooperation and industry self-regulation has created an environment where quality acquisition is rewarded and misleading practices are increasingly difficult to sustain.
Google’s role in building quality traffic
For Google, trust and quality are equally important. Zoe Mabie, Telco Industry Manager at Google, says the company’s role is to help build an ecosystem where high-quality traffic leads to satisfied users and sustainable business growth.
“The partnership between VAS companies and Google has at its core the responsibility to improve user trust and long-term performance within every market, mature or emerging,” says Mabie. “But in terms of emerging markets specifically, Google’s role is to guide and scale the ecosystem by promoting best practice and championing partners like [Telecoming] that align with that best practice and ultimately high quality traffic leads to satisfied users and of course long term growth.”
Google’s approach combines traffic filtering, publisher vetting and advertising controls designed to reduce fraud and misleading acquisition practices. Mabie highlights rigorous invalid traffic filtering, proactive publisher reviews and advertiser safeguards within Google’s advertising ecosystem as key tools used to improve traffic quality and protect users. These systems help advertisers focus on acquiring genuine customers, rather than simply generating clicks.
The relationship between Google and companies such as Telecoming has also become significantly more collaborative.
De Corral notes that Telecoming’s Google operation has evolved from a single account manager handling multiple countries into a dedicated team of more than 20 specialists. At the same time, Google itself now provides dedicated account managers and technical specialists working closely with advertisers.
“This is not done in a silo,” says de Corral. “It takes years of complete collaboration.”
Can South Africa’s model be exported?
One of the most interesting discussions centred on whether South Africa’s success can be replicated elsewhere. According to de Corral, the answer appears to be yes.
He says that conversations with operators across Africa have changed dramatically in recent years. Where operators once focused almost exclusively on revenue forecasts, they are now asking questions about fraud prevention, consumer protection and service quality.
The industry is no longer simply asking how much money can be generated. It is increasingly asking how that money will be generated responsibly.
Google’s Mabie agrees. “The South African model is a repeatable playbook, but it would require a strict tri-party alignment, where Google can secure the ad traffic, mobile network operators can secure the billing gateways, and then you’ve got regulators enforcing compliance,” she says.
“More specifically, Google can work with regional operators to mandate secure direct carrier billing frameworks, such as mandatory double opt-in pages, while also using its own ad network to block misleading content by bad traffic providers,” she adds. “By standardising these technical guardrails and cleaning up the advertising supply chain, we can actually replicate the success of South Africa, which obviously will promote user trust and ultimately growth.”
Likewise, Varlikli believes the South African framework offers valuable lessons for other markets. The combination of engaged operators, trusted partners and strong self-regulation creates an environment that attracts long-term investment rather than short-term opportunism.
At the centre of that framework sits WASPA. Both Telecoming executives repeatedly highlighted the role of the self regulator in creating common standards, monitoring compliance and maintaining a level playing field. Rather than prescribing specific commercial models, WASPA establishes rules that allow companies to compete fairly while protecting consumers and the reputation of the wider industry.
“Everyone is playing by the same rules,” says de Corral. “That’s what worries us most – the long term of the industry, not the quick buck.”
The discussion also highlighted examples from Europe, including regulatory models in France, the Netherlands and the UK’s AIMM, demonstrating that self-regulation and industry-led governance can work across multiple markets when there is broad stakeholder buy-in.
The next challenge: AI-driven discovery
While much of the discussion focused on current acquisition strategies, the panel ended by looking ahead to a potentially disruptive new reality. As consumers increasingly interact with AI assistants and conversational search tools, the traditional mechanics of traffic generation may begin to change.
Asked whether AI-driven discovery could eventually alter how users find subscription services, Varlikli suggested that large language models are currently more product tools than advertising channels. However, he acknowledged that AI platforms will likely develop their own commercial ecosystems over time.
Mabie offered insight into how Google is already adapting. She highlighted Google’s AI Max for Search initiative, which reflects a broader shift towards conversational search behaviour. Instead of entering short keywords, consumers increasingly ask complete questions.
A user might search for the nearest bike repair shop or ask a detailed question about a service. AI systems then interpret the intent behind those queries and connect users with relevant businesses.
“The way users are searching is changing,” says Mabie. “They’re searching in more conversational ways.”
For telemedia businesses, this creates both opportunities and challenges. Traditional search optimisation, traffic acquisition and customer discovery models may need to evolve as AI increasingly intermediates the relationship between consumers and digital services.
At the same time, Google’s vast advertising ecosystem and growing AI capabilities mean that established platforms are unlikely to surrender that role easily.
The future belongs to trust
If there was one conclusion that united all three panellists, it was that performance marketing is no longer simply a numbers game.
The South African market has demonstrated that sustainable subscription growth comes from trust, transparency and collaboration rather than aggressive acquisition tactics.
Quality traffic, clear customer consent, better content and stronger partnerships have helped transform South Africa into one of the most mature telemedia markets in the world.
As other African markets begin asking the same questions about fraud prevention, customer protection and service quality, South Africa’s experience increasingly looks less like a local success story and more like a roadmap for the future.
The next chapter may be written by AI, conversational discovery and new forms of customer engagement. But the foundations are unlikely to change. Trust remains the industry’s most valuable performance metric.
