Does Hyper-Personalization Work in the Nigerian Market?

Hello and welcome to the podcast. Today we're going to be talking about some recent developments in advertising, online advertising. And of course, the reason why we're going to be looking at that is because there are a few of us who try to promote our businesses by advertising online. So if you've discovered the podcast in the last, let's say, month or two, you will remember that I was promoting Heavenly, the program that was going to start in January of 2026, where I'll be training people on how to sell effectively using the phone.

Now, while I was promoting the program over here on the podcast, my partner was promoting it online by running Instagram advertisements, sending people to a landing page, and then we're getting sign ups that way. So there are people in the community, you know, apart from me who are trying to use advertising to grow the business. And honestly speaking, I think at some point, like organic is good, trying to grow through organic is good, Organic growth.

I say organic, sorry, forgive me, organic growth. The arrow thing, you know, in fact, with my wife was here, now she'll say that's the teeth teeth accent that is coming up. So organic growth is where you try to grow your business without using any paid means or any forged means or any artificial means. So when you're starting a business, talking to friends, family members and associates, that is organic. Me with a podcast, you know,

this is organic because I'm not advertising. You find the podcast on your own, You listen to the podcast on your own. If you feel compelled, you reach out to me on your own. So it's all organic and organic. Trying to grow your business organically is good. But eventually we get to the point where we want to scale the business and where we want bigger results. And no matter how small, whether you rush into it or whether you tiptoe into it, I think it's a good idea to try out advertising eventually.

But of course, like most things in business, do it all. I put it, OK, I guess what I'm trying to say is when you do try out advertising eventually, don't rush in blindly because you could lose lots of money doing that. In fact, while I was talking to people who wanted to be a part of the program for how to use the phone effectively to grow your business, I remember talking to a real estate professional who's based in Lagos.

He actually is the CEO of a real estate firm. And back in the good old days, he wanted to grow his, he, he grew his business by being on the radio. So there was a radio show that he hosted in, in Lagos during the drive time hour where they will talk about real estate and things like that. And he said he invested about camera maybe 334 million annually. That's to be on the radio stations. But annually at the end of the year, they were getting, they're getting several hundreds, you know, 15160, sometimes over 200

million in revenue just from being on the radio. So yeah, that's how the guy used to promote his business back in the day. But then with the advent of social media changing people's habits, you know, he figured out this radio thing is not going to work anymore. And he now wanted to try promoting the business online. And he had been running Instagram and Facebook ads, but not to the same effect. In fact, there was one stretch where he thinks he just burned about 500,000 naira because they got a bunch of leads, none of them connected.

So not connected, none of them converted. So yeah, I guess what I'm just trying to say is you could lose a lot of money advertising if you're rushing and and you haven't done a bit of education and you don't know what it is that you're supposed to be paying attention to. Anyway, let me just cut straight to the point. So yeah, that's the reason why we're talking about recent developments in advertising, because there are people listening to the show right now who would want to advertise to grow their businesses, and there are some new things that are cropping up.

So as I see them, I come over here and I say, but of course, remember that I am not an advertising specialist, I'm not APR specialist, I am not a branding specialist, I'm not a business management specialist. So what I'm trying to say is this, whenever I'm talking about sales, you can take whatever I say as gospel truth. But then when I start talking about all these other things, excuse me, please verify before you act on it.

Oh, by the way, my name is Tavishima Ayede. I'm a former lawyer turned business consultant, and I am the host of this podcast. If you like the sorts of things that we're talking about so far, be sure to subscribe on Spotify, YouTube, Apple, or any player of your choice, because this is what we talk about here almost every day on the podcast. So it's a nice place to hang out. Then if you'd love to connect with me because you have questions, you have comments,

you have queries, or you have one or two ideas for collaborations that you want us to discuss, then you can call, send me a text message or a one time message on 08064662140. And yes, I'm the one who's going to answer the phone. If you don't believe me, you can ask Abdul Karim Salami. Listen now to the podcast reached out to me two days ago and we were discussing about the possibilities of how to sell and market a book on engineering that he just launched.

So currently having conversations about that. And if it works, I'll let you guys know because to be honest, I've been involved in a whole bunch of stuff. I have never been involved in the book launch campaign. So I'm looking forward to this one. OK, So what are these new developments in advertising that I want us to talk about today? OK, for those of you who listen to the show Steady, you know that I am not on social media.

So this is your first time listening to the podcast. I apologise. I'm really sorry because lots of you who discovered the show, it's one complaint I hear from you guys all the time. People say I discovered the show, I liked it, but then I went to look for you on Instagram. I didn't see you Facebook, I didn't see you TikTok. I didn't see you, you know, on and on and on. Yes, it's deliberate. I don't have any social media.

In fact, I mean, let me not go into around, I don't have any social media apart from LinkedIn. But however, as I've been scrolling on LinkedIn nowadays, I haven't seen some really cool stuff. There was one time I was scrolling now and then I saw my name say hi, Tavi Shiman, something, something. I say, who is this? And then I checked and I saw that the thing was an advertisement. And I say, wow, now that is high tech.

An advertisement on LinkedIn that addressed me by name. I thought, wow, that's that's pretty cool. I didn't know that advertisements have gone that nuclear. No, that an advertisement can target somebody by name. You know, maybe you don't know something. I'm saying name. Put it this way. Let's say your name is Nosso, then you're scrolling on LinkedIn and then Stambic IBTC is trying to advertise an insurance product. And then on the advertisement,

you see your name there, Claire, you say Stanley Chukuna here. And then the advertisement continues. So the first time I saw it, I was like, man, this is pretty interesting, but I just flash it because I have other things to do. But then like 2 days ago, the thing happened again. I was like, no, you know what? I have to make a podcast episode about this and I have to go and research this sort of thing so that the listeners of the show will know.

That's for those of you who want to double in advertising to promote your business, promote your service, promote your product. Just so that you know that it's possible that you can have hyper targeted advertisements, hyper personalized advertisements that will refer to specific prospects by name. And of course, you know, with everything you know on our experiment, you know you these companies will try it. If it works and it seems to make a difference, you know it will continue.

If it doesn't seem to make a difference, you know they will just kill it. Watch out. Let's watching and be learning. So for those of you who haven't heard about it before, in fact, let me describe the advert. First it was the advert was by the company's agora visa, that is a GORA, then visa VISA. And the caption bold on the advertisement was, is the US still open to Nigerian talents? I repeat, the caption was it's the US, that's the United States of America still open to Nigerian talents.

Then the subtitle, an insider view from a former USCIS division chief. And basically they're just trying to get you to understand the O1 visa path for global tech leaders in 2026. Now, the first time I heard of this whole thing of the 01 visa, the O1 visa, that's for global tech leaders. I think you heard about it on, I think it was the Afropolitan podcast. It's a very correct podcast, by the way. So if you haven't heard of them,

just look for it. Afropolitan, Afro, Afro, then Politan, POLITAN. And there was some tech founder there talking about how if you have the means, if you have the talent, if you have the money, then trying out 01 visas, Abby, 01 visas like is a short path to get into USA. That's for those of you who want to jackpot. But then you know that since your boy Donald Trump came in by, they are making this podcast recording in January of 2026.

So since your boy came in now, the guy has been shaking tables anyhow, trying to destabilize the whole setup. Basically, Donald Trump doesn't want Niger people in America anymore. So it's not if you can't get there, but the visa restrictions, the visa conditions have become much more stringent for Nigerians. So basically this business now Agora visa, what they are trying to do is they are put together a seminar and the seminar is going to hold on the 17th of January and it's going to be hosted by April.

Padilla, that is April, of course, April and then Padilla. Padilla. OK, Am I pronouncing that correctly? OK, I'm not sure about that because I think if it is, if it is Italian, then it won't be Padilla. I think it will be Padilla. I think even though it's a double L But anyway, those of you who know these things, you know your Google languages. Let me know if I got the name correctly or if you happen to know this lady, then let me know.

So they're doing this whole seminar and this is how this sort of thing works. Typically what you do is when you throw a seminar like this and you're in the business of securing visas, securing travel permits, securing, you know, whatever it is. If you throw this kind of seminar and let's say 500 people show up, if I could be more than 500 because, you know, jackpot is on everybody's mind. So if they run this advertisement, I won't be surprised if they get like maybe 2-3 thousand people to show up.

So let's say 3000 people show up. The goal is some people might be interested out of that 3000 maybe, maybe 2000 will drop the e-mail address or phone number and then you get in touch with a couple of them. Maybe you actually have phone calls or e-mail exchanges with maybe 1000. Maybe 500 people actually come up into the office to do physical interviews. And maybe out of that 500, who knows, maybe you might get 100 paying clients who are going to use your business to apply for,

you know, apply for everything, you know, apply for visa, apply for travel permits, apply for Ester code, apply for every, every, every. So that's how this sort of thing, this sort of thing works. You're using the seminar, you're using the free education as a way to lure people in. Now for those of you in the online space, this is what you guys call. It's similar to what those of you in the online space called the lead magnet.

So you give out something which is valuable for free so that people will come and see. When they come and see, so excuse me, when they come and see, hopefully you'll get a chance to have a conversation with a couple of people. Those conversations should be able to turn into buying conversations. And then from there you make a sale. So that was the advert. The only thing that made this advert different and the way that the thing caught my eye was the thing was addressed to me.

The advert started by saying, Tavi Shima, are you wondering if America is still open to you? We have this live briefing. Something, something, something. I say, I say these advertisements are really, really, really, really getting very good because that's what caught my attention. That's what caught my attention. Because think about it, how often do I use scrolling on social media and then people just happen to be talking about you or there is something that's addressed directly to you.

So since I've seen this thing more than once, I said let me go and do some research so I can come over here and then tell you guys. Now what I saw on LinkedIn is called a dynamic ad ad, of course, for advertisement. So it's called a dynamic advertisement or a follower. Follower ads. OK, ignore that. The thing is called the dynamic advertisement. Now what I didn't know was this, that dynamic ads have existed for years now.

It is just that before you don't used to show up on desktop. Now I didn't see them because I do all my work on my phone. I don't use computers anymore or laptops. So I haven't been on LinkedIn on the computer in, I don't think I've been on LinkedIn on the computer in let's say like 11 years. Yeah, yeah, I don't think I've been on a computer for LinkedIn in 11 years. So it's been there. I just didn't know. So on the desktop it would have been on the right.

So maybe some of you have been seen it, but if you haven't seen it, no problem. So this part has episode. It's for those of us who have never seen it before. Now recently, LinkedIn has now rolled out this dynamic ad. I think they now call it enhanced ad personalization. They rolled it out in late 2025, which makes sense. That's the reason why I saw one like November, December last year and then early 2026. Then I saw this Jack Bar advertisement like 2-3 days ago.

And the goal is to allow advertisements to be hyper personalized. Show up in the news feed. So you're scrolling in the news feed, you're scrolling in the news feed and then an advertisement comes up and then The thing is targeted straight to you. So let's say you sell shoes to females. Instead of pictures of the shoe and then general caption, you want it so that the shoe comes up on somebody's timeline. But then instead of saying,

hurry, 20% of wire stocks last, you know, the advertisements, let's say Bing Play is holding her phone. The advertisement will say, hey, Bing Play, we have some good news if you're able to make it to the store on so, so, so and so we have deals going on, on this shoe and 20% off for something, something, something. Then if a Chin Air is on her phone, the ad will come up on Chin Air's phone. And then we say, hey, Chin Air,

we've got some good news for you. If you can make it to the store on so, so, so, so, so, and then, you know, on and on and on and on. So that when Alice sees it, it'll be her name. When Julie sees the advertisement for the shoe, it'll be her name. When Perpetua sees it on her phone, it'll be her name. When Benedicta sees it on her phone, it'll be her name. When Amina sees the advertisement on her own phone, the advert will be in Amina's name.

So that's it. And that's the idea. Dynamic ads or enhanced AD personalization. And the goal is to make this thing hyper personalized. And the goal is if it's hyper personalized, hopefully more people will notice. Hopefully if more people notice, hopefully more people will take action. And hopefully, if more people take action, hopefully you have more buying conversations. And hopefully if you have more buying conversations, you should be able to convert them into money.

So that's the idea. Now some of you are wondering how does it work from a technical sense? From what I found online, there's something called macros that are small bits of code on your LinkedIn profile. So what happens is the advertiser, the script will be a generic script like hey, and then bracket, no information. Hey, bracket, Are you ready to take the next step at bracket? Something, something, something. So it's just general like that.

So now the boss will now take the macro from your LinkedIn profile and then now slot in your name. So that is how my name has been slotting into all those advertisements. The person who created the copy for the adverts just said, you know, hey, or good morning or whatever. And I left a blank space and then my name was filled into it because the bot used the macro from my LinkedIn profile to be able to get that data. So even though what I saw on LinkedIn was my name popping up,

apparently it's not just name you can't do. You can do other kinds of stuff. You can also get the person's company logo and put it next to your own company logo in the advertisement. So imagine that you just scroll, you just scroll, you just scroll. You see advertisement. Not only is it your name, even your company logo, they carried it and they blended inside the advert. I mean, that's mad trips. So they can lift your logo and then the copy of the advertisement apart from name can get very, very contextual.

They can put your job title, they can put your industry, they can put your company name. So the thing can actually say, hey Tavishima, we noticed that you've been a consultant at XYZ company and a podcaster for the last five years. Have you had any problem doing something, something, something as in imagine that advertising copy advertisement that is that targeted. So these are some of the one of the things that you can do with this new form of advertising, at least on LinkedIn.

Now, since I'm not on other social media, I cannot tell you what's going on on Instagram or TikTok or you know, all these other sites. Bob Shah, this is impressive. Now, is this a good something or is it a creepy something? Because there are people like my wife who when they see this thing. They shake. Why? If we say these people have access to my data, I beg, I'm leaving the Internet. So there are some people who are not scared like my brother,

because you know, this thing that Elon Musk is supposedly coming up with, what's it called? The is it Neurolink? Neurolink implant. Whether you put a computer chip in your head. So me, my wife and my brother-in-law or my brother, we've been discussing this thing. And I told him that, look, when this thing is ready, I beg, I will implant the chip in my head straight so that my brain will not be a computer, so I can record the podcast in my head,

upload the podcast. If I need to make phone call, I don't need to pick up my phone. I'd always be doing the phone call, everything from my head, you know, very sci-fi and I'll be like a robot. And my brother said, my brother said over my dead body that why would he give access, give somebody access to his brain? So anyway, don't don't mind us. These are just some of the silly stuff that we debate from time to time. So there's some people who think all this is creepy that the advertisement came up and the advertisement knows your name,

it knows your company, it knows your work history, and he's trying to sell something direct to you in particular. Some people find it creepy. I don't find it creepy, but some people do. So that's the reason why I said, you know, like most things that I knew, people would take time to test these things, see if it's effective, see it's not effective. So whether this becomes a thing on other platforms, we'll wait and see.

But so far from what I found out online, LinkedIn has data to show that these kinds of advertisements, these dynamic ads, they have double the click through, click through rate. So forgive me with this other thing of standard ads. So in other words, what LinkedIn is saying is they have the data that if before you run this kind of advertisement, you didn't make it dynamic ad and you got 20% of people to click through. What LinkedIn is saying is if you do it like this, 40% of people will click through.

That's what they're saying. They have the data to show. And they say that the reason why it works is because it's cutting through the noise. And yes, it's something that I've experienced first hand because like we know our names now. So when you're just scrolling, scrolling, scrolling and you see your name, you will look. So that's why LinkedIn is saying that it it has like this, it's so effective, cuts through the noise.

Then, since it's new, many users like me are still getting used to seeing our names inside the scrolling, scrolling feed. So if you are like my wife or like you're my brother, my brother. And when you see this kind of thing, you begin to shake. You are afraid you say algorithm would know my name? No, I don't like it. What you do is you adjust your privacy settings in LinkedIn so that LinkedIn will not use your profile data in this type of ads.

Now, since this is not an advertising podcast, I'm not going to start going into how you do it and how you do this, how you do that. But I just know that it can be available. So if you're scrolling on LinkedIn, you see this advertisement and you freaks the hell out of you wanna adjust your settings so that that won't happen again. You can just research it using ChatGPT or Gemini or whatever it is That's your favorite AI tool.

Just remember it is dynamic ads. You don't want your data to be used for dynamic ads. You can go and research, find out how to turn this thing off. Then for those of us who don't think it's creepy, yeah, no, Yawa, you just let it be. But for those of you who are thinking about advertising to grow your business, start paying attention, be looking, be seeing what's going on. OK, this thing is now on LinkedIn. Let me see, how far.

What is this thing called? How does it work? Which company is using it? Are they successful doing it? Are they successful? In which context are they successful in which kind of industry? Then you now ask yourself the big question, if they are successfully in this industry, can I use it in my own industry, in my own product, for my own service in the Nigerian market? So that's why I'm making today's podcast because all of us, we already know Google advertising,

we already know LinkedIn, sorry, Instagram advertising, we already know Facebook advertising. There's new things coming out in LinkedIn advertising and let's see if this thing catches on and becomes a global trend and let's see if we can use it to promote Nigerian businesses Now, just in case there's anybody listening to the show right now and not only did you know about it, you actually have started running these kinds of advert advertisements and you're a Nigerian business person.

Hit me up, let me know. You can connect with me by calling, sending a text message or a WhatsApp message on 08064662140. Please let me know if you have run a dynamic ad. I would like to talk. I'd like to hear your experience. I would like to see how you came up with the campaign, see how you executed it, see what the results are. In fact, if you've run this dynamic ad and you are based in Abuja, just let me know. Let's hook up.

Let's make this thing a live podcast recording. You know, I sit down, I interview you, let people hear from your mouth live that this thing is here, this thing is in Niger and this hour works. So that's it. And that's all for today. Thank you very much for listening. I've been your host, Tavi Shima Ayede. Remember, if you'd love to connect, call, send me a text message or a WhatsApp message on 0806466 2140. And then also, if you like the things that we've been talking about so far on the podcast,

subscribe on Spotify, on YouTube, on Apple or any player of your choice. Also, if you find this thing valuable, come on, help your boy out, share the podcast, talk about it, tell your friends, tell your family members, tell your associates. Now look, are you guys looking for correct business content? You want to know how to grow your business? You want to know how to increase your sales? I just discovered this podcast is by this guy.

His name sounds strange. I can't pronounce it. Sounds Japanese, sounds German, sounds Irish. Bushai is a Nigerian. Listen to the podcast, share the podcast. Help your boy grow. You cannot give me money. At least help me expand my ministry as well. I'll get money that way. Alright, so that's it. I'll catch you guys some other time.