The Bookmark Awards, presented by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) South Africa in partnership with Mark1, acknowledges outstanding achievements of brands that are committed to advancing the advertising industry.

Winners are recognised by industry experts who understand the challenges that finalists have had to overcome to achieve their goals. Additionally, it also showcases the finalists’ commitment to shaping the future of digital marketing through innovation, technology and industry trends.

"It's encouraging to be a finalist. This shows that the online industry is ready to embrace new disruptive ideas. We are inspired to continue creating more innovative ad products in a publisher environment that can hopefully sustain the future of journalism beyond the crumbling of the cookie," said Velly Bosega, CEO of SME South Africa (Oak Ventures).

“Previously, SME Advice (formerly known as Startwise), was awarded the National Start-up Champion of 2022 by the South African Small Business Awards. However, to have the entire website be recognised as a one-stop shop for SMEs is a wonderful achievement,” Bosega explains.

What makes SME South Africa a strong contender for the Publisher Innovation category is the way it connects its audience with funders and business experts. It further provides value to SMEs through its free resources and numerous guides about industry-specific matters. “Our website takes SMEs through the entire journey of starting, managing and growing their businesses,” he adds.

SME South Africa is also a finalist in the Publisher Monetisation category. “What’s important here is that we introduced a different business model as a new revenue stream. It goes beyond the norm of traditional branding banner campaigns, we offer performance-based campaigns that generate sales for B2B marketers.

Bosega highlights that other marketing methods focus on generating leads, whereas this model focuses on increasing sales for the affiliate partners. Leads are filtered through a lead-verifying tool that delivers qualified customers directly to company CRMs or Google Docs.

“SME South Africa also monetises their skills and expertise in the SME industry,” he elaborates. “This is done through writing well-researched sponsored content and building of SME content hubs on behalf of B2B clients. One example of this is the SME Hub that we have created for MTN.”

SME South Africa is excited to attend the 2024 award show on 15 August where the team hopes to walk away as this year’s category winner.