Abhijeet Ranjan on how Public App has become a strong platform for advertisers

The year 2022 was a tremendous learning phase for Public App, and the platform has made significant improvements. Public App has been recognised as the Most Innovative Startup App at the India Digital Awards 2022 by IAMAI. Throughout the year, the app experienced consistent growth in both active user base and advertising volumes.

Public App onboarded several new authorities and politicians onto the platform, allowing it to expand its reach and deliver even more valuable content to its users. As India’s largest location-based social network, Public App has quickly become a go-to source for local updates and vernacular video content. The platform now hosts over 50,000 content creators, including verified accounts for politicians, authorities, and organisations.

The platform has evolved to better meet the needs of its users and advertisers. Public App has enhanced its advertising capabilities to provide more personalised and relevant content to its users, while also offering brands the ability to target their audience through regional and relatable content. Public App’s steady growth is also a testament to the value and importance of a platform that provides real-time, credible information.

In conversation with Adgully, Abhijeet Ranjan, Chief Revenue Officer, Public App, speaks at length about the app’s offerings for consumers, its monetisation model, how it is different from its sister app, and much more.

How is Public App different from sister app Inshorts?

Both Inshorts and the Public App share a common focus on informative content, but their approaches and functionalities are quite distinct. Inshorts, for instance, is a content aggregator app that caters to audiences who prefer reading quick news summaries of about 60 words. With over 10 million active users, Inshorts is India’s highest-rated and #1 English news app, popular among urban audiences.

On the other hand, the Public App aims to fill the gap in the market for vernacular informative content by becoming a location-based social network that connects local communities across Bharat. It serves as a comprehensive platform for all local requirements, encompassing diverse categories such as local information, events, happenings, weather updates, traffic updates, local commerce and much more. The app enables people to record and share happenings around them, thereby facilitating real-time local updates. Furthermore, the platform is used by politicians, government authorities, media houses, and citizen journalists to disseminate verified and trustworthy video content. Today, it stands proud as the country’s top app for local updates.

One significant difference between the two apps is the audience they cater to. While Inshorts caters to English speaking audiences in Tier 1 cities and metros, Public App provides informative content in several vernacular languages to reach a wider audience across the entire country, including Tier 1, 2 and Tier 3 cities. Additionally, the Public app utilises state-of-the-art machine learning algorithms to provide each user with a personalised feed based on their language, location, and content preferences.

How has the information in local languages helped you in getting more users?

India is a culturally rich and diverse country with over 1.4 billion people, who speak more than 15 languages and have thousands of dialects. At the heart of this diversity lies a need for a connection to one’s community and local culture. With such a vast history of cultural diversity, we observed that people lacked access to reliable local information sources and had no way to stay connected to local happenings and community surroundings. Recognising this, we at Public App realised the importance of offering informative content in regional languages.

With almost 73% of the Internet subscribers in India using regional languages, there was a clear demand for content in regional languages. The pandemic had further reinforced this need, as more and more people were exploring digital platforms for reliable information.

Our platform has helped fill the gap by providing a reliable source of local information in regional languages. Our nationwide user base stands as proof that people are looking for informative content in local languages, and we are proud to be the platform that caters to this need. In this culturally rich country, people are passionate about their native languages and connecting with their community happenings and Public understands this need and continually tries to fill this gap.

How has the app’s monetization model evolved in the past two years?

Since 2021, we have been generating revenue from advertisements on the Public App, which focuses on providing brands with a unique opportunity to advertise in users’ native languages using engaging formats. We have invested heavily in ad tech solutions to provide creative and innovative solutions to brands, and have already successfully conducted multilingual campaigns with major brands such as GSK, Star Sports, Infinix, A23, Swiggy, Amazon Pay, Mahindra Finance, Amazon Prime Video, Duroflex, Kalyan Jewellers and TVS.

We have done a campaign with A23 for raising awareness about gaming. Executed in 5 Indian languages, the campaign generated 100 million+ views and more than 4 lakh clicks. We have also done innovation-led campaigns with TVS, Duroflex and Amazon Prime Video around Gudi Padwa and Ugadi in March 2023, which got a good response. MakeMyTrip did a geo targeted roadblock campaign and Amazon Pay did a single day roadblock, which got 20 million+ impressions across multiple vernacular languages.

What are the changes that you have observes in consumer behaviour?

In recent years, there has been a significant change in the way people in India consume content, and Public App has played a key role in catering to these evolving consumer behaviour patterns. With increased Internet penetration, affordable data, and the pandemic, there has been a rise in digital usage, particularly in Tier 2 and 3 cities, where the app has a substantial user base. Short video platforms, which offer quick and easily digestible content, have become increasingly popular and Public App’s vernacular short video format has captured the attention of users looking for informative content in their native language.

As a result of the rise in content consumption, brands are shifting their digital campaigns towards short video advertising, and Public App provides a unique opportunity for brands to connect with their target audience in a meaningful way through regional and relatable content. Additionally, the younger population comprising millennials and GenZ make up a large chunk of Public App’s user base, reflecting the shift in how the younger generation views informative content. The platform’s state-of-the-art machine learning also ensures that every user receives a personalised feed according to their language preference, place of origin, and affinity towards particular types of content, making it an ideal platform for users to stay informed about their local community.

What’s new in Public App’s monetisation model?

The Public App platform offers a unique opportunity for brands to connect with a diverse audience in India. As a multilingual country, India boasts a plethora of languages, dialects, and accents, each with its own unique flavour and charm. For Indians, language is not just a means of communication but a source of identity, pride, and belonging. Speaking one’s mother tongue is a matter of emotional attachment. Hence, the potential for brands to tap into regional advertising is huge, and Public App provides a platform to create personalised and engaging campaigns that resonate with their target audience.

Since launching its monetisation, Public App has invested heavily in ad tech solutions to offer innovative and creative solutions for brands. We are constantly looking at launching newer and more innovative ad formats for our partners.

As we are a 100% video-based information platform, we have doubled down on the video ad solutions available to brands, including launching a fully native in-feed video banner recently which allows them to capture audience attention in a non-intrusive manner. We have done a campaign with Star Sports recently during IPL for that format, which garnered over 5 million views in 2 days with an industry best 5% engagement rate and 1.5% CTR. Apart from this, we have vertical and 2-in-1 video formats which the brands can leverage.

We have also launched a native half-page display banner which is showing great traction. We believe that ads should merge seamlessly with the user journey and not interrupt it, hence, all our ad formats are native. All our Ad-formats are 100% viewable as well and brands have the option to target the audience base contextually, behaviour-wise, geo-location-wise to district level and by hashtags, language or day parts.

By providing engaging rich media ads in the user’s native language, Public App has created an ideal platform for brands to market their products and services to a wider audience. The strength of Public App lies in its ability to reach users in both metro and remote areas of India. This is particularly important for brands looking to expand their reach beyond metros and target previously untapped markets. These markets are also relatively new w.r.t. consuming rich media formats and we are seeing great results in moving the top-of-funnel metrics of Brand Awareness and Consideration for our partners.

Looking ahead, Public App aims to further enhance its advertising capabilities, leveraging advanced data analytics and machine learning to optimise ad delivery and provide more personalised and relevant ads to users. As a result, Public App is well-positioned to attract a wide range of brands looking to connect with a diverse and engaged audience in India.

What are your growth expectations and plans in 2023?

In 2023, user stickiness is our key priority in addition to expanding our active user base. We are determined to identify content needs at the grass root level and collaborate with more local creators and communities to provide informative and engaging content to our users.

By understanding and identifying content needs at the grassroot level, we are better equipped to serve the brands that choose our platform to market to our users. We can offer a wide range of audience segments, from urban to the most rural or local areas, ensuring that brands reach their target audience more effectively. Moreover, with our focus on user engagement, we can help brands create content that resonates with our users and keeps them engaged and strikes a chord with them in their preferred native language. With our plans to expand our active user base and improve user stickiness, we believe that Public App is the perfect platform for brands to reach out to consumers in India.

To achieve our goal, our product team is working tirelessly to improve the app’s features and make content consumption easier and more accessible for everyone. We are committed to enhancing our user-friendliness while keeping in mind the diverse needs of our users. We believe that by focusing on making our app more user-friendly and informative, we can cater to a wider audience and establish ourselves as the go-to app for local updates and happenings.

What brands are you offering ad solutions for and how do you aim to take it to the next level?

Our platform is offering comprehensive ad solutions for brands seeking to connect with users across India, from the bustling metros to the most remote corners of the country. As a nation with a rich tapestry of cultural diversity, India boasts an incredible number of languages and dialects spoken throughout its regions. It is precisely this diversity that makes regional content so powerful, as it delivers messaging that truly resonates with users on a deep, personal level. The opportunities for vernacular advertising are immense, and we anticipate that this trend will only continue to grow. Hence, Public will be an excellent choice for brands looking to reach into the depth of our country in their own language.

We also take our ad solutions to the next level by offering an end-to-end solution for brands looking to connect with users across India in their native languages and have already successfully conducted multilingual campaigns with major brands such as One Plus, Redbus, Amazon Pay, Equitas Bank, Sun Nxt, Federal Bank, O General ACs, Croma, Swiggy, MakeMyTrip and TVS. Our goal is to help brands create experiential campaigns that connect with audiences at the grassroots level, ultimately expanding their reach. We work closely with our clients to develop bespoke campaigns that reflect their brand values and appeal to their target audience. Our comprehensive approach to advertising enables brands to connect with users in their preferred language, ensuring that their message is received loud and clear.

In addition to that, we provide brands with state-of-the-art technology such as lazy loading, HTML5-based animations, responsive mobile design, and video load function logic. We also use AI/ML to provide personalised video recommendations based on user's browsing history, dwell times, and interests. With all these tools and resources, we are confident that our ad solutions will help brands to reach their target audiences effectively and efficiently, and make a significant impact on their marketing campaigns.

What are your plans for expansion this year? What new can we expect to see from Public App?

Our expansion plan this year centers on our commitment to the current User engagement and stickiness. User engagement is critical to our success, and we are focused on creating an interface that provides easy access to all app features to meet the diverse needs of our users.

An equal priority will also be to expand our user base by understanding the content needs of users at the grass-root level and reaching even deeper pockets of India. To better serve our users, we are continuously developing new features, including a live video streaming feature that enables local leaders and authorities to interact with their communities. We are also working on an in-built video creation tool with advanced features to make content creation on mobile devices easier for users.

Our focus on user stickiness also means we are committed to providing engaging content that resonates with our users. Our user interface is designed for easy accessibility and user engagement, with polls and thematic campaigns that encourage user participation in pressing current issues. To become a preferred advertising solution, the Public continually evolves with changing consumer preferences and offers innovative ad formats supported by cutting-edge technology. With the ability to geo-target users through hyper-localized regional content and advertise in major Indian languages, Public provides brands with a platform to establish a stronger connection with their audience and build impactful campaigns. The platform currently has over 60 million+ active users, making it a valuable advertising solution for brands.