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From the "Promote Publication" button to smart AI: the evolution of advertising for small businesses in Kazakhstan

Imagine a friend who has opened a small business — a coffee shop in a residential area, a beauty studio or a home improvement store. In Kazakhstan, such projects are most often launched out of pure enthusiasm: someone takes out a loan, someone invests their last savings, dreaming of working for themselves and providing for their family.

The first months usually pass on a wave of optimism. Acquaintances come, friends tell friends — word of mouth is working. But sooner or later, this flow dries up, and the business owner is faced with a harsh reality: in order to grow further, new customers are needed. And here the real difficulties begin.

Advertising remains the only reliable way to get a steady stream of customers. But quality marketing is expensive. Even a novice targetologist today charges 200-300 thousand tenge per month, an amount that for many small studios or stores is equal to the entire monthly profit.

Therefore, small business owners are trying to cope on their own. Instagram Facebook or Instagram ads are launched, they click the "Promote publication" button and watch in amazement as the budget melts before their eyes, but the calls do not arrive. As a result, people get disappointed and conclude that advertising just "doesn't work."

In fact, the problem isn't that social media doesn't bring customers. It's about dozens of small but critically important details: setting up audiences correctly, understanding who exactly should see ads, which segments are wasting the budget, and which ones are really producing results.

It is to solve this problem that we have created an AI targetologist, a smart assistant that takes over all the routine work of setting up ads. What previously required hiring an expensive specialist can now be done by an automated system.

Let's take a conditional example. The owner of the children's development center spent 50,000 tenge on advertising and received many responses, but most of them turned out to be "empty" — people were interested, but did not come to classes. After enabling AI targeting for the same budget, the number of applications not only increased, but more importantly, they became of higher quality. Parents began to actually sign up for trial lessons and pay for courses.

Or another situation: the owner of an online sports nutrition store simply "poured" traffic on everyone, not understanding who his real audience was. In a few weeks, the AI system has independently identified a segment of people who do not just click on ads, but actually make purchases. The result is a one—and-a-half-fold increase in advertising payback with the same budget.

An ordinary advertising specialist often focuses on superficial indicators: the number of impressions, clicks, and audience reach. The AI system goes deeper — it analyzes which of the visitors actually leaves requests, who makes purchases, and automatically disables ineffective ads.

This approach used to be available only to those who could afford expensive specialists. Now every small business owner can get the same level of quality of advertising settings, whether it's a car wash, a manicure studio, or a small cafe.

We decided to support small businesses in Kazakhstan and want every entrepreneur to have a fair chance to succeed. It doesn't matter if your project is big or small, everyone deserves access to modern marketing tools.

When a well-thought-out system is responsible for advertising, rather than random settings, a business gets more customers with the same budget. This is not magic — it's just effective solutions that work for the benefit of ordinary people who have decided to start their own business and earn honestly.