Facebook revealed the names of top-earning brands in Instant Articles* in Sub-Saharan Africa. Ghanaian YEN.com.gh made the list with a significant 20.9M Instant Article pageviews in 2020.
YEN.com.gh is one of the biggest news and entertainment platforms in Ghana. The website keeps its readers up-to-date on the latest in current affairs, celeb news and gossip and trending stories about events and people.
“We want to show the real Africa to the world,” said Samuel Obour, Managing Director at YEN.com.gh.
As an example, one YEN.com.gh story generated nearly 207,000 pageviews alone, boosted by the use of Instant Articles. The accompanying revenue has also allowed the company to hire more staff.
Samuel Obour shared what helped YEN.com.gh to make the list of top-earning brands in Instant Articles. “We use a data-driven approach and seek to improve our audience’s lives in real time,” Obour said. “Constant analysis is our everyday routine.”
The YEN.com.gh team doubled down on high-quality reporting, adding value and getting exclusive content. They implemented regular training sessions to work in line with the platform’s policies. The team interacted with readers on their page to get feedback and improve the audience’s experience.
YEN.com.gh is a partner of Genesis Media Emerging Markets company, a media holding operating in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya and Ghana. Other GMEM projects like Legit.ng, TUKO.co.ke and Briefly News also entered the list of top earning brands. By honing their Instant Articles strategy, GMEM was able to achieve higher growth and revenue – including an impressive 47% year-on-year hike in Instant Article pageviews.
“Using Instant Articles has made a big difference,” Yelena Boginskaya, co-CEO at GMEM said. “It’s changed the way people consume news, making it much more engaging and interesting. We never even questioned the need to follow in our readers’ footsteps for better user experience and additional communication channels. High CPMs and additional monetisation opportunities were also among the factors we considered to stay financially stable and fulfill our mission – to set the bar for the quality content and maintain leadership positions locally while showing the real Africa to the world.”
*Instant Articles is a special format for publishers to create fast and interactive articles on Facebook. They load over 4.9x faster than mobile web across regions and devices, meaning lower bounce rates, deeper engagement and monetization through ads.
