New and improving airtime technology is giving merchants many benefits from integrating airtime top-up into their digital strategies.
Of all of the mobile phone subscribers around the world, there is a vast market for prepaid mobile plans, especially in regions like Africa, Latin America, and South Asia, where prepaid plans dominate.
These markets represent over half the world’s total population and, naturally, the need to offer a good airtime top-up technology is at the top of the agenda of many merchants worldwide.
You may be wondering: what is airtime and why does airtime benefit merchants? In this article, we’ll touch upon the main benefits for businesses of offering airtime top-ups.
But first of all, we will need context:
What is Mobile Airtime?
Among the most frequently asked questions for any mobile phone company is the query, “What is airtime?” Mobile airtime is defined by the amount of time used on a mobile network. This mobile solution service is commonly used as a way of payment that allows any individual or to disburse airtime in bulk to a list or individual contact instantly.
The airtime is the same for contract, pre-paid, or pay-as-you-go cellular customers, and it can be applied as a reward. Especially in emerging regions or unbanked populations where most of the people use prepaid mobile phones, airtime as a reward is a very valuable incentive for any kind of business looking for an effective marketing reward strategy.
What is an Airtime API?
Airtime transfers is a service that can be offered in seconds by simply integrating an airtime API on your existing websites or application, allowing your business to provide a product that has growing demand across the world, especially in emerging markets.
A mobile airtime API is software that helps distribute airtime to mobile phones for these services.
Thanks to API technology, you’ll be able to communicate with “multiple software intermediaries” – which is a way of saying, multiple mobile operators.
Airtime APIs should be easy to integrate into your own software. This allows you to connect the API – and its vast mobile operator network — to plug and play into your company’s mobile app, website, and other platforms.
What are the benefits of airtime top-ups for merchants?
Thinking of implementing a Mobile Airtime Top-up service into your web or app? Harness a mobile airtime API can have numerous benefits for merchants, including:
1. Mobile Airtime creates new revenue streams
An airtime transfer service – whether made for domestic or international recipients – can create a profitable stream of income for digital businesses.
As mobile phone coverage increases across the globe, so does the demand for prepaid phones that are reliant on airtime purchases.
[Want to build an airtime top-up service to create a new revenue stream? Contact our support team and learn how to integrate airtime services on your website, app, or social media channel.]
2. A great product for incentives and rewards programs
Businesses seeking to create a new revenue stream can offer airtime rewards as incentives through points and loyalty programs.
When trying to set a reward marketing strategy across emerging regions, mobile airtime becomes the best service to offer, as it is able to reach the unbanked population in these markets.
Airtime is money and is often used for remittance and rewards in many countries.
3. Airtime is a top service in emerging regions
Not everyone in the world has access to a bank account. For emerging markets across many regions of the planet, logging into internet banking or even nipping to a local branch, is just not an option.
But, these markets are huge potential growth markets for digital goods and services. Enabling smooth bank-like services through mobile apps and websites, to markets that are fast connecting through booming smartphone adoption, will be key to expanding the reach.
There are numerous solutions, but linking up with Airtime Services through simple tools is fast emerging as the easiest point of entry, connecting to the most people without reinventing the wheel at home.
4. Reach 5.22 billion mobile phone users
Today, advancements in software in the form of the application programming interface (API) have revolutionized how airtime top-ups can be sent across the world.
As easy and soft a simple integration via Airtime Top-up API, a business is able to reach 5.22 billion mobile phones across the globe to start applying reward airtime strategies and start building a mobile community to engage with.
5. Increase user engagement, customer loyalty, and sales
As part of a reward marketing strategy, offering airtime can leverage loyalty programs through participation.
Airtime top-up rewards are great incentives for customers around the world to take part in a business program.
Organizations use this reward to run memorable mass-market campaigns, helping the businesses to engage, build customer loyalty and, consequently, increase sales.
Airtime top-up main use cases
Cryptocurrency transactions
Mobile airtime APIs support cryptocurrency by allowing crypto providers the means to accept mobile recharge worldwide payments using a range of cryptocurrency coins. This method mitigates the drawbacks of using crypto because it’s a highly liquid way of using cryptocurrency.
On top of this, a business earns more profits with your crypto when buying airtime in bulk with the discounts/commissions offered by a provider like Reloadly, ranging anywhere from 6% to 15% profits.
Social media rewards
For a social media platform, rewards are very important to keep a high engagement with its digital community. Nevertheless, it is not easy to deliver rewards to users in hard-to-reach areas and regions with large underbanked populations.
For that reason, many social media platforms decide to implement an airtime top-up service as rewards to reach people everywhere and boost inclusion.
Metaverse marketing strategies
This kind of reward program in the Metaverse would be significant for two reasons: first, airtime can be exchanged for cryptocurrency or money; and secondly, airtime can be used to purchase data bundles, which will be high in demand as virtual reality will spark the need for speedy and heavy data consumption.
Survey incentives
Encourage higher response rates for your surveys and studies by providing airtime top-ups as an incentive. Successfully soliciting participation from people living in remote places is difficult. Prepaid customers especially love gifts that help pay their phone bills.
NGO community engagement
In prepaid-dominated markets in the emerging world, the airtime API has especially become a potent tool for businesses that are searching for new ways to reach customers.
Non-profits, social enterprises, and charitable organizations increasingly utilize airtime and data top-ups as a payment solution. Tapping the global top-up network allows for instant remittances to anyone that holds a phone.
Remittances
One of the most popular use cases for a mobile airtime API is sending money internationally in the form of remittances. Airtime is increasingly used as money in prepaid-dominated regions such as Africa, South Asia, and Latin America. Furthermore, senders are increasingly looking to have control over how their recipients are using the money they send home. This economic and social reality has inspired businesses to develop services around this particular user demand.
Employee rewards
At work, motivation and commitment are everything. For that reason, companies can implement different kinds of incentive programs and offer free airtime top-ups on various occasions such as after reaching the company goals or closing a big sale.
How to choose the best airtime top-up provider?
Technology in the telecom ecosystem is constantly evolving, and now there are tools made for whatever level of programming skills (from no knowledge to professional coders)
These tools aim to take the complexity out of coding, making the integration of an international airtime transfer service a plug-and-play experience for businesses of any size.
Today, there are several tools you and your team should learn about when it comes to building an international airtime transfer service, like:
Airtime API
As a software interface for interacting with other related services in the telecom and fintech industries, an airtime API crucially provides consistent coding in stable environments that allow for easily replicable functions.
In truth, APIs are already everywhere, even if you haven’t directly interacted with them yet, and they are increasingly responsible for enabling widespread technological disruption, especially in the telecom industry.
Thanks to the airtime API, businesses can directly plug into the nexus of global mobile operators. In this way, companies like Reloadly act as an airtime aggregator that provides global telecom access in one place.
Airtime SDK
An SDK (or Software Developer Kit) allows maximum customization. The common analogy goes that APIs are building blocks, while an SDK is an entire workshop.
Much like an airtime API, an SDK provides a set of tools, developer libraries, relevant documentation, code samples, and more.
Airtime Plugin
An airtime plugin is a digital tool that helps businesses scale up airtime services through their websites and mobile apps, making customization easy even for those without a degree in programming.
In essence, a plugin is a simple and easy-to-use software application or component made for one or more different platforms.
Learn more about the Reloadly Airtime Plugin here.
Conclusion: Making the most of airtime top-ups for merchants
Mobile Airtime top-ups offer a huge catalog of use cases that any company can leverage to scale its business and connect to a network of 5.22 billion mobile phone users. Making a difference and offering added value to our customers is crucial today to make a brand memorable for new and existing customers.
Becoming a virtual airtime supplier may be only the beginning of a profitable, scalable and multi-dimensional business venture that you may grow into going forward.
Want more? Schedule a free demo now.
