What AdMarula does

AdMarula is a South African digital media consultancy and performance marketing affiliate network founded in 2011 in Somerset West, Western Cape, by Swedish co-founders Daniel Gross (CEO) and Daniel Bernholc (CTO), the latter formerly CTO at TradeDoubler, one of Europe's largest performance marketing networks. The company operates a two-sided marketplace connecting advertisers (merchants) with publishers (affiliates) — website owners, bloggers, social influencers, and e-newsletter distributors — through a proprietary tracking and campaign management platform supporting CPA, CPC, CPL, and CPM campaign models with cookie-based tracking. The platform includes advertiser and publisher interfaces, real-time reporting, exports in Excel/PDF/CSV/XML, and quality/fraud control with manual publisher screening. Complementing the core network are a Digital Strategy consultancy, Paid Media/SEM, Retargeting and Remarketing services, an AI-powered Dynamic Display Retargeting product, a Convert Tool for on-site remarketing, a Social Performance Marketing service, the mobile-focused Command Centre platform with algorithm-based bidding and traffic prediction, and a CartBooster technical partnership covering CodeCorrect, Ambassador, Beacon, and Exit features.

AdMarula serves advertisers across finance, retail, travel, telco, automotive, food, gaming, and health verticals — including named customers such as Travelstart, AVIS, African Bank, Budget Car Rental, Bridgement, Mr Price Sport, Salomon, UCOOK, Loot, Faithful to Nature, The Herbalist, and Sonatur — as well as agencies managing affiliate programs for their clients. On the supply side, the publisher network is open to free self-serve registration with manual approval. Sales is consultative, with dedicated Account Managers providing hands-on setup, training, and templates; publishers are acquired through self-serve onboarding.

The business model is a marketplace take-rate: AdMarula charges a 30% commission on top of the total commission paid to publishers (e.g., if a publisher receives R100 per sale, AdMarula earns R30), plus managed services fees for campaign setup, training, and creative hosting. Performance-based pricing is the core proposition: advertisers pay only for measured clicks, leads, sales, or impressions. The company is privately held, has 1–10 employees, operates exclusively in South Africa, and has no disclosed institutional funding, parent company, or subsidiary structure.

Name

AdMarula

Legal name

AdMarula (Proprietary) Limited

Website

https://admarula.com/

Company type

Private

Founded year

2011

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

AdMarula is a South African performance marketing affiliate network, founded in 2011, connecting advertisers with publishers across CPA, CPC, CPL, and CPM campaign models. The company serves mid-market brands in finance, retail, travel, telco, and automotive verticals, and offers retargeting, paid media, and conversion optimization tools.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Performance Marketing / Affiliate Network

NAICS

Advertising Agencies (541810), Media Buying Agencies (541830)

SIC

Services-Advertising Agencies (7311), Services-Advertising (7310)

akta.pro primary industry

Affiliate & Partner Marketing (Performance Partnerships) (BPAFACAE)

akta.pro secondary industry

Marketing Technology, AdTech & MarTech Services (BPAFAAAN)

Keywords

• Performance marketing
• Affiliate marketing
• Lead generation
• Digital media consultancy
• Retargeting advertising

Headquarters

HQ city

Somerset West

HQ country

South Africa

HQ region

Africa

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales, Operations

Revenue model

1. Network Commission (Affiliate Marketing): AdMarula charges a 30% commission on top of the total commission paid to publishers. For example, if the advertiser pays the publisher R100 per sale, AdMarula earns R30 (30% of R100), and the publisher receives the full R100. This is an industry standard network fee applied across all transaction-based campaign models (CPA, CPC, CPL, CPM).
2. Advertiser Campaign Management Fees: Fees charged to advertisers for campaign setup, management, training, templates, creative hosting, and access to the publisher network. Advertisers gain access to a dedicated Account Manager and a secure Advertiser interface.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion3 records

Distribution channels4 records

Marketing channels5 records

Core offering

AdMarula operates a performance-based affiliate marketing network that connects South African advertisers with a vetted publisher network, executing campaigns across CPA, CPC, CPL, and CPM models where advertisers pay only for measurable results. The offering is supported by dedicated account management, real-time tracking and reporting platforms, and a portfolio of complementary services including digital strategy consulting, paid media/SEM, retargeting, social performance marketing, mobile advertising (Command Centre), and the CartBooster conversion optimization toolset.

Product overview

AdMarula is a digital media consultancy and performance marketing network offering a unified platform with multiple service modules. The core Performance Marketing Network connects advertisers with publishers through various campaign pricing models (CPA, CPC, CPL, CPM). Supporting services include Digital Strategy consulting, Retargeting & Remarketing (with Dynamic Display and Convert Tool features), Social Performance Marketing, Paid Media/SEM, and the mobile Command Centre platform. CartBooster, an integrated technical partner tool, adds conversion optimization through voucher validation, referral marketing, and exit-intent features. The platform includes Advertiser and Publisher Interfaces with comprehensive reporting and fraud control.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• CartBooster: A technical partner specializing in increasing sales and conversion rates for online merchants. Offers tools including CODECORRECT (discount code correction), AMBASSADOR (referral marketing), BEACON (re-engagement tool), and EXIT (exit-intent offers).
• Command Centre

Products and services

• Performance Marketing Network (Affiliate Marketing & Lead Generation) Core affiliate marketing and lead generation network connecting South African advertisers with a vetted publisher network across CPA, CPC, CPL, and CPM campaign models, where advertisers pay only for measurable results (sales, leads, clicks, or impressions).
• Digital Strategy Consultancy service helping South African businesses outline and execute digital strategies, including campaign goal setting, KPI definition, media planning, execution, monitoring, and performance reporting.
• Retargeting & Remarketing Online targeting advertising served to previous website visitors, with off-site retargeting reaching new prospects and on-site remarketing re-engaging current or inactive customers. Includes AI-powered Dynamic Display Retargeting and the Convert Tool.
• Social Performance Marketing Social commerce service helping brands maximize social performance through workshops, social strategy definition, and campaign implementation with full commerce journey tracking, narrowing the gap from social intent to purchase.
• Paid Media/SEM Search engine marketing and pay-per-click advertising services including Google Ads campaign setup and management, navigation of Google's algorithms, cookie rule changes, automation PPC, video, and new ad formats.
• Command Centre (Mobile Advertising Platform) Mobile advertising platform with algorithm-based traffic bidding and adjustment, plus a prediction engine for forecasting traffic over specified time periods, delivering the right message to the right audience at the right time.
• CartBooster AdMarula technical partner tool offering four conversion-focused features for online merchants: CodeCorrect (real-time voucher validation), Ambassador (customer referral program), Beacon (re-engagement of inactive visitors), and Exit (exit-intent offers).
• Reporting & Analytics Comprehensive reporting suite with program overview, daily events, publisher performance, sales/leads breakdown, keyword reports, and exportable formats (Excel, PDF, CSV, XML).
• Quality & Fraud Control Fraud protection system for affiliate programs including manual publisher screening, click/sale validation, reliable tracking, and automatic fraudulent traffic identification.

Quantifiable outcome

• E-commerce transactions in South Africa projected to grow 150% to R225bn by 2025
• +3 more outcomes

Named customers12 records

Segments3 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature4 records

Partnerships

One partnership is on record.

• CartBoostercoreTechnology or IntegrationCartBooster is described as an 'AdMarula technical partner' specializing in increasing sales and conversion rates for online merchants. Their tools include CodeCorrect (discount/voucher validation), Ambassador (referral marketing), Beacon (re-engagement of inactive visitors), and Exit (exit-intent capture). AdMarula promotes CartBooster as part of its conversion optimization offering, with a dedicated form on the CartBooster page and cross-promotion on admarula.com.

Scale indicators4 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• Impact.com: Global partnership and affiliate management platform connecting advertisers with publishers. AdMarula already references Impact.com's educational content on its site, indicating a comparable performance-partnership business model that AdMarula operates in a more regional, services-heavy form.
• Awin: One of the world's largest affiliate marketing networks, providing tracking, reporting, and publisher-recruitment tools to advertisers globally. Operates the same two-sided affiliate marketplace model as AdMarula but at global scale, serving as the primary international benchmark.
• TradeDoubler: European-headquartered performance marketing network founded in 1999. AdMarula's CTO Daniel Bernholc was previously CTO of TradeDoubler, and the network's value proposition (affiliate tracking, advertiser/publisher matchmaking, performance pricing) is essentially the model AdMarula replicates regionally in South Africa.
• CJ Affiliate: One of the largest global affiliate marketing networks (formerly Commission Junction), offering CPA, CPL, and CPC campaign management with deep reporting. Comparable to AdMarula in serving enterprise advertisers across multiple verticals via a publisher network, but at significantly greater scale.
• Rakuten Advertising: Global affiliate and display advertising network operating in over 200 countries. Shares AdMarula's two-sided performance marketing model and serves many of the same vertical categories (retail, finance, travel), with similar CPA/CPC/CPM campaign mechanics.
• PartnerStack: B2B-focused partnership management platform for affiliate, referral, and reseller programs with self-serve onboarding and automated payouts. Comparable to AdMarula's publisher-network model in mechanism (marketplace commissions, tracking) but targeted at SaaS brands versus AdMarula's broader vertical mix.
• Webgains: International affiliate marketing network operating across Europe and the Americas with CPA, CPL, and CPC campaign models. Highly comparable to AdMarula's network architecture, tracking technology, and advertiser/publisher positioning.
• ShareASale: Long-standing affiliate marketing network (acquired by Awin) connecting thousands of merchants with publishers. Mirrors AdMarula's self-serve publisher sign-up, performance-based pricing, and merchant interface, serving as a comparable SMB-friendly network alternative.
• Refersion: DTC-focused affiliate and influencer marketing platform with creator/affiliate tracking and payouts. Overlaps with AdMarula's social-influencer publisher recruitment and performance pricing model, particularly relevant given AdMarula's emphasis on cashback sites and social influencers.

Emerging players

• Tapfiliate: Smaller SaaS affiliate tracking platform for SMBs and DTC brands offering self-serve affiliate program management. Comparable to AdMarula in offering CPA/CPL tracking and publisher dashboards, but as a pure-tech platform without the agency/managed-services layer.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Facebookfacebook.com/AdMarula
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/admarula
• Xx.com/AdMarula
• Instagraminstagram.com/admarula

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles2 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about AdMarula