Krasnodar, Russia (June 10, 2024): Magnit, one of Russia’s leading retailers, has partnered with MTS Ads (the advertising division of MTS) to enable targeting in Telegram Ads using anonymized aggregated consumer segment data from its loyalty program. The two companies believe that this new tool will be appealing to other brands as well, enabling advertisers to both run broad reach-focused campaigns and target specific audience segments.

In collaboration with OMD OM Group and MTS Ads, Magnit has already tested this tool, launching its first targeted advertising campaign on Telegram using its own data to promote massive discounts in Magnit Cosmetic. By leveraging insights from its loyalty program for targeting, the Company was able to establish a highly precise audience segment for communication, resulting in a remarkable 20 percentage point increase in sales within just two days of the campaign.

Anonymized data from Magnit’s loyalty program, which boasts around 80 million members, is aggregated on Magnit.DMP, a digital marketing management platform. To kick off the campaign on Telegram, the Company first defined the target audience segment: women aged 20 to 40 who shopped at Magnit Cosmetic in January and February but did not shop in March. This initial segment comprised 1.5 million people and included subscribers from all major operators in roughly equal proportions. Of this group, over 90% (about 1.35 million people) had Telegram accounts and were addressable. Communication was successfully delivered to 1.25 million individuals, with 650,000 of them actually viewing the advertising message.

The advertising campaign ran for just 36 hours, achieving a message delivery rate of 50%, which is significantly above the market benchmark. Those who saw the ads increased their spending in Magnit Cosmetic stores by 20 percentage points (or 2 percentage points across the total chain) compared to the control group.

Specialists from Magnit and MTS Ads conducted a thorough analysis of the selected audience to uncover additional characteristics and determine which advertisers might find this group appealing. They discovered that 38% of these customers have children aged three to seven, a significant increase compared to the average of just 13% for the Magnit Cosmetic chain. Interestingly, the most frequently purchased product among this audience was cat food. These insights suggest that this audience could be particularly interesting to manufacturers of children’s products and pet supplies. Additionally, the average ticket in this audience segment was 9–10% higher than the average for the Magnit Cosmetic chain.

Overall, the rich and detailed data available on Magnit.DMP indicates that in the future, Telegram can be utilized not just for general reach campaigns but also for targeted promotions of supplier products, launching new items, and announcing sales and giveaways.

Mikhail Tarasov, Magnit's Director of Advertising Product Development:

“The impressive results we have seen in matching and the impact from the ads leveraging our data, along with the ability to conduct sales lift studies, indicate that Telegram could play a significant role in targeted advertising for our suppliers and in our own promotional campaigns. We plan to continue exploring the effectiveness and possible applications of this channel in attracting new customers and engaging with our existing ones.”

Yulia Lomako, Magnit’s Director of Marketing Communications:

“Launching advertising through MTS in Telegram Ads using data from Magnit’s loyalty program allows us to significantly enhance the effectiveness of our campaigns by targeting the right audience. Plus, the ability to quickly generate sales lift reports will enable us to fine-tune our future campaigns.”

Artem Pulikov, Commercial Director at MTS Ads:

“Telegram continues to demonstrate its effectiveness. We were confident that leveraging big data would significantly enhance our advertising campaign results—without the customer’s CRM data, we would not have achieved such impressive outcomes. In just two days, we managed to reach over half of our target audience, resulting in an amazing ROI of 250%. This case study highlights that Magnit’s data can be utilized not only by the retail chain itself but also by all the manufacturers whose products are on its shelves.”

Elizaveta Kalinina, Digital Group Account Director at OMD AMS:

“Retailer data is an important resource for the advertising market, increasing the effectiveness of promotions not only for retailers themselves, but also for brands. It is primarily interesting for vendors to measure the direct impact on sales. Other categories of advertisers should also not discount this type of targeting, because buying behavior is one of the most telling characteristics of the consumer. Telegram Ads is a relatively new but already very broad advertising format that needs to expand its toolset. The solution proposed by MTS Ads and Magnit, in my opinion, will be in high demand in our advertising market. Moreover, the tool’s capabilities are expected to be expanded to include new formats.”

Magnit and MTS Ads Introduce Targeted Telegram Ads Based on Retailer’s Data