Happy Pay, a South African buy now, pay later (BNPL) platform, has publicly launched Happy Ads, an AI-powered advertising platform that charges retailers only when a campaign leads to a sale, Disrupt Africa reported on 22 October.
Most digital ads are sold by the impression or the click. Happy Ads works on cost per acquisition: retailers set the commission they are willing to pay and are charged only when a shopper completes a purchase.
What the pilot claims
- More than R100 million in merchant sales
- More than 268 million impressions
- An average 20x return on ad spend
- Reach: 800,000 registered Happy Pay users plus two million customers across its partner network, with six million more users "set to join"
"Most digital advertising platforms sell attention and leave retailers hoping that attention eventually turns into revenue," said co-founder and chief executive Wesley Billett. "If we don't generate a sale, the merchant doesn't pay."
Why a payments app can sell ads
Happy Pay lets shoppers split purchases into interest-free instalments and pays for that with an ad-subsidised network. Because it sits at checkout, it sees what people browse and buy. An AI engine ranks products for each shopper from their browsing, purchases and interests, and every completed sale feeds back into the model. Shoppers can pay with Happy Pay's instalments or with any of the retailer's own payment methods, and the sale is still attributed.
It is retail media run by a fintech: own the moment of purchase, then sell access to it. "Buy Now Pay Later should be more than a payment button at checkout," Billett said. Happy Pay raised a $5 million seed round in March.
