According to a new release from Bizcommunity, the latest dentsu Africa Digital Digest argues that the biggest shifts shaping digital marketing across Africa are happening in consumer behaviour, not on specific platforms.
The report notes that shoppers now move seamlessly between search, social, messaging apps, marketplaces and creators. It cites Gen Z as an example: they can discover, validate and purchase a product within a single mobile session. The digest says 73% of consumers aged 18 to 24 use smartphones for online shopping, collapsing discovery, validation and conversion into one experience.
For marketers, the implication is that planning cycles are outpaced by the speed of attention. The report quotes, “The boundary between digital and traditional media is disappearing. Consumers do not think in channels. They move fluidly between experiences, platforms and moments. Marketing needs to reflect that reality.”
Implications for small businesses
SME owners and brand managers should reconsider strategies that rely on fixed media budgets or long-term channel plans. Instead, they are encouraged to map consumer moments, the specific points where a shopper is likely to engage, and to build partnerships that place their brand inside the ecosystems where those moments occur.
The digest also highlights a case study where dentsu’s Merkury technology helped Standard Chartered’s Signature CIO proposition achieve a 7% lower cost per lead and a 19.32% higher engagement rate compared with Meta targeting approaches. While the example involves a large financial institution, the underlying principle, using data-driven technology to reach consumers where they already are, can be applied by smaller firms.
Fintech companies, according to the report, are moving from a focus on acquiring new users to retaining existing ones and building trust. Retail brands are warned that the traditional calendar of sales events is becoming less reliable as consumer intent shifts with culture, economics, promotions and social discovery.
Marketers are therefore urged to shift from a funnel-centric view, where consumers progress through a set of stages, to a moments-centric view, where each interaction is treated as a potential conversion point.
For African businesses, the message is clear: stop planning around platforms. Start planning around behaviour. The next customer may already belong to another brand’s ecosystem, making partnerships a powerful source of growth.
Commerce journeys now thread through TikTok, Google, WhatsApp and marketplaces before a purchase is sealed, a pattern highlighted in the digest. This multi-platform path means that a single ad placement rarely captures the whole decision process, prompting brands to embed themselves across several touchpoints. The report points out that audience growth is increasingly found inside partnerships and ecosystems rather than relying solely on paid media, urging marketers to think beyond isolated channels and to weave their messages into the broader digital fabric where consumers already congregate.
When a brand chooses to partner, it typically negotiates data-sharing agreements and co-creation of content that aligns with the partner’s audience profile. The partnership then becomes a conduit for the brand’s messaging, allowing it to appear naturally within the partner’s user experience. By tapping into the partner’s existing engagement loops, the brand can reach consumers at moments they are already attentive, reducing the need for separate media buys and accelerating the path from awareness to conversion.
Fintech firms are entering a phase where trust, retention and lifetime value outweigh pure sign-up numbers, a shift the digest describes as the next phase of growth. Rather than chasing fresh registrations, companies are focusing on deepening relationships with existing users, offering personalised financial tools and transparent communication to cement loyalty. This change reflects a broader industry realignment toward sustainable revenue streams built on ongoing customer engagement.
To operationalise the retention focus, fintechs are deploying continuous engagement loops that blend in-app messaging, proactive support and reward schemes tied to usage milestones. By monitoring behavioural signals such as transaction frequency and feature adoption, they can trigger timely interventions that reinforce trust. The emphasis on lifetime value also drives investment in secure infrastructure and compliance measures, reassuring users that their data and finances are protected over the long term.
The traditional retail calendar, once anchored by predictable sales events, is losing its reliability as consumer intent now sways with cultural trends, economic shifts, promotional bursts and social discovery cues. Marketers observing this volatility note that spikes in demand can emerge spontaneously from viral content or influencer activity, bypassing scheduled campaigns. Consequently, brands are urged to maintain flexible inventory and agile promotional tactics that can respond to these rapid sentiment changes.
Because attention moves faster than planning cycles, marketers are encouraged to shorten their strategic windows and adopt real-time monitoring tools that capture emerging consumer moments. The digest advises that brands should set up dashboards that track cross-platform engagement metrics, enabling swift reallocation of resources as new touchpoints gain traction. By aligning budget flows with live audience behaviour, companies can stay ahead of the rapid shifts that define the current African digital market.
