Advertising Platforms in Nigeria and How Each One Bills You

A Google Business Profile costs nothing, and Jiji lets you list goods free up to a limit, so both come before any ad budget. The first paid money for most small businesses in Nigeria should then go to Meta or Google. TikTok, X and LinkedIn each have a use and a catch: TikTok sets a high daily minimum, and the other two charge Nigerian advertisers in foreign currency.

With no card that pays in foreign currency, a good part of the choice is made for you. Of the five global platforms, only Google and Meta publish a way to pay in naira.

Minimum spend and payment on each platform

Google Ads and the free Business Profile

A shop, restaurant, salon or workshop that people look up should start with a Business Profile. It is a listing and not an advert, and Google says creating one and appearing on Search and Maps costs nothing. Google Ads on searches in your city is the next step.

Those ads run on Search, YouTube and the sites that carry Google’s display ads. Google says there is no minimum spend, and you set a daily or monthly cap. An account can be billed in naira, but the currency is fixed when the account is created and cannot be changed later. For Nigeria, Google’s payment page lists credit and debit cards with a Visa or Mastercard logo. You can be charged automatically after your ads run, or add money first.

Two charges are specific to Nigeria. Google adds 7.5% VAT for every customer with a billing address here. And since 1 January 2024, naira accounts pay an “operating charge” on any spend from ads shown to people outside Nigeria. The rate was 50% in the first month and has been 1% in every month Google has listed since. With customers only in Nigeria, Google’s advice is to set your location option to “Presence”, so that only people in or regularly in your target area see the ad.

How to pay for Facebook and Instagram ads

One ad account covers Facebook, Instagram and Meta’s other apps. This is the platform for an online or Instagram store, and the next step for goods already on Jiji, because it reaches people who are not searching yet.

Meta’s list of accepted payment options has a section for Nigeria. It takes Visa, Mastercard and American Express credit cards or co-branded debit cards, and PayPal. It also has two local methods: “Naira card”, and the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS), the bank-owned company that runs instant transfers between Nigerian accounts.

Those local methods have to be chosen at the start. They are offered only if the ad account’s country is Nigeria and its currency is the naira, and only when you first set the account up. You cannot add one later, so with no card that suits, make the choice then. Meta calls them manual payment methods: the account runs on a balance that you top up before your ads go out, and the ads are paid for from it.

Meta says it requires a minimum budget, varying by country and objective, and gives no figure. Ads Manager shows an alert if your budget is too low.

TikTok’s daily minimum

TikTok is for a brand that already makes short videos and has more than $50 a day to spend. That is the highest minimum of the five: its budget rules say a campaign’s daily budget must exceed $50 and an ad group’s must exceed $20. Over a 30-day month that is more than $1,500 for one campaign. Below that, Instagram through Meta is the nearer fit.

Nigeria is on TikTok’s list of countries where you can create an ad account in its Business Center without going through a TikTok representative, though not on its separate list for creating a Business Center yourself. What TikTok does not publish is how a Nigerian account pays. Its table of payment methods for Europe, the Middle East and Africa has entries for Egypt, Morocco and South Africa and none for Nigeria. Its instruction is to open Billing in Ads Manager and click “Add Payment Method” to see what your account is offered. Do that before you plan a campaign around it.

X and LinkedIn, billed in foreign currency

X says there is no minimum spend for its ads. You pay with a Visa, Mastercard or American Express credit or debit card, and X places a temporary $5 hold on a new card to check it. Its ads currency page puts Nigeria among the countries charged in US dollars, and the country and currency chosen when the ads account is created cannot be changed afterwards. The card you add must work for foreign-currency payments, and that depends on your bank.

LinkedIn sells access to what it calls a professional audience, which suits services sold to companies if $10 a day on a foreign-currency card is workable. That $10 is its minimum daily budget for any ad format, and a new campaign needs a lifetime budget of at least $100. Thirty days at the minimum is $300.

Its list of account currencies has 31 entries and no naira. The only African currencies are the Egyptian pound and the South African rand. Self-service accounts pay by credit card, and the currency cannot be changed once the account exists.

Nigerian sites that take adverts

All four price in naira. For print, the names to approach are among Nigeria’s national newspapers and their publishers.

Jiji

Goods you can photograph, such as phones, clothes, furniture or cars, should go on Jiji first, because posting is free up to a limit. Each category has its own number of free slots. Jiji says large categories such as Cars have fewer, and once they are used up a new advert is saved as a draft.

Paid promotion comes as Boost packages, in tiers from Basic to Enterprise, sold for one, three or six months, with twelve-month terms on the top tiers. Jiji does not print the prices on its public pages: they depend on the category and appear on the Premium Services page after you sign in. Sellers with a package can also use Pro Sales, where you pay only when someone clicks. You fund your Jiji balance with a Verve, Visa or Mastercard card, a bank transfer or your bank’s USSD code.

Nairaland

A very small budget can start here. Nairaland sells banner space by forum section, so choose the section your buyers read: a property advert can sit on the Properties board and a job advert on Jobs. Its instructions for advertisers ask for a 318 by 106 pixel banner in JPG or PNG. Ads run on prepaid credit, which you fund by transferring at least ₦5,000 to Nairaland’s bank account and submitting a payment claim. Each section has six advertiser slots, and its weekly rate is on Nairaland’s ad rates page and moves with demand.

Private Property

Private Property has moved to privateproperty.ng. A limited free account allows up to 20 listings, and that plus Jiji’s property category is where to start. Pay for a package only when you have more listings than the free limits hold. Packages for agents run from Starter, at ₦10,000 a month for 100 listings, to Exclusive at ₦200,000 a month. Its FAQ says the plan is charged to your card on a yearly basis, so ask what the first payment will be before you sign up.

Jobzilla

For hiring, try the free post on Jobzilla first. It will post a vacancy free if you email the details, though it says there is no guarantee a free post is published on time, or at all. A post pinned to its home page and jobs page for 10 days costs ₦10,000 per role. An email to its subscriber list is ₦50,000.

OLX, Cheki and the classifieds that have gone

OLX Group announced on 1 April 2019 that its Nigerian users would be redirected to Jiji, and the Nigerian address now leads to OLX’s global page, which has no Nigeria on it. Autochek bought Cheki Nigeria in September 2020, as Techpoint reported, and the Cheki outlets were to be rebranded. The old Nigerian address now fails with an expired security certificate, and Autochek’s site takes car listings from sellers.

Ady.ng no longer resolves. Adverture.net shows an unrelated placeholder page. Gidimarket’s domain shows a registrar’s holding page that says it was recently registered, Tradestable’s forwards to a page offering it for sale, and Mobofree’s forwards to a domain-parking service.