Tag: Internet advertising

Arab Mobile Advertising Startup Noqoush Raises $3 Million

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Noqoush Mobile Media Group, an Arab mobile advertising and mobile media monetization startup, announced concluding its first 3 million dollar investment round a couple of weeks ago.

In a press release, the company stated that a group of Arab and Foreign angel investors invested in its technical capabilities and future visions aiming at developing a full-fledged mobile advertising platform and mobile media monetization solutions targeting the massive mobile growth in the Middle East.

This first round of investment is aimed at providing the company with the required liquidity to enhance its capabilities, boost its growth, and attract the needed skills and competences to meet the increasing demand on its mobile media solutions.

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Video: AdGoing Online Ad Marketplace At DemoCamp Dubai

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AdGoingAdGoing is a Saudi based company that bills itself as an online ad marketplace, aiming to make it easy to buy and sell advertising online, giving advertisers and publishers a platform to find each other.

The service supports both banner and text ads, as well as their variations. The system is mainly targeted at smaller publishers and bloggers who want to make money out of their advertising spaces, as well as advertisers who want to tap into the system for cheaper advertising rates and to have their ads go on a variety of sites and blogs.

Ads served up on the system are on a CPC (Cost per click) basis, and the system displays ads on a real time auction basis.

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Arab World: Current State Of The Internet & Future Growth

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Over the past few days, a number of articles sprung up about reports and predictions that have been announced by various parties, analyzing where the Internet stands today in the Arab world, and where they see it a few years from now.

Here is a quick straight-forward round-up of these opinions, reports and projections:

Present day:

  • At present there are roughly around 56 million Arab internet users in the Arab world, representing only 17% of the 337 million population. [Madar Research]
  • There is not enough Arabic content on the internet to take full advantage of newly built broadband networks in the region. [Ali al Ahmed, chief strategist, Etisalat]
  • More people are getting online in the Arab world, and are relying more and more on the Internet for their news, videos, social interactions and more, but only 1% of all content online is in Arabic, not offering them much choice. [Arab Media Outlook report]
  • Online news consumption is gaining ground with 22% to 34% of the people using internet at least as much as print media to read news. [Arab Media Outlook report]
  • On average, 70% of the people in the four main Arab markets researched use social networks in some capacity and about 15% use social networking sites at least once a day. [Arab Media Outlook report]
  • About 6 million internet users in the Middle East – or about 12% of the total online population in the region – have access to broadband networks. [Arab Media Outlook report]
  • People in the Arab world are spending about three hours per day on the internet on average, which is already on par with the amount of time spent on TV. [Arab Media Outlook report]
  • About $56 million or 1% of the total media advertising spend is online in the Middle East. [Arab Media Outlook report]
Looking forward:
  • The number of Arabic internet users in the Middle East and North Africa is expected to grow by nearly 50% over the next three years, rising to 82 million users by 2013. [Vint Cerf, Chief Internet Evangelist, Google]
  • Broadband usage in the region is expected to grow at an annual rate of 25% until 2013. [Arab Media Outlook report]
  • Broadband growth around the region over the next five years will stimulate the media industry, driven largely by Egypt and Saudi Arabia. [Arab Media Outlook report]
  • Internet advertising spend in the Middle East will rise to at least 4.5% by 2013, to around $266 million. [Arab Media Outlook report]

[Sources: The National, Zawya, BI-ME, Arabian Business, AMEInfo]

Search Advertising’s Double-Digit Growth In The Arab World

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As several regional reports and studies have shown, online advertising in the Arab world is pretty much still in its infancy, with it only representing around 1% of total advertising spends in the region. Search advertising which is a relatively newer form of online advertising has just started making inroads into the market over the past couple of years, and it’s interesting to have some insight into how things are looking with it, and what kind of growth it is seeing.

Google of course is the main player in the search advertising market worldwide and in the region, and according to Husni Khuffash, Google’s Country Business Manager, Google search advertising is witnessing a double-digit growth in the Arab World, despite the reports of a worldwide decline in the performance of search ads.

Meanwhile, David Sheridan, CEO, Neo Digital, commented that search ads currently consist well under 10 per cent (5-6%) of total online advertising budgets, which in turn constitute only around one per cent of the total ad spend.

Sheridan, however, agrees that search advertising is seeing a double-digit growth in the region, with Neo Digital seeing more than 10 per cent growth in online advertising based on pay per click.

In fact, he said search ads constituted 15 to 20 per cent of the total agency expenditure, with some clients spending about 10 per cent of their online budgets on Google search display ads, and between 15 and 20 per cent on text search, varying according to each client’s needs.

However, he also thinks that search ads aren’t probably the best way to advertise to a specific targeted audience, and that more specific advertising is still better placed on specific portals.

An important point he makes is that one of the main reasons why the search ad market is not so big here compared to other markets is because those are heavy e-commerce markets as opposed to the Arab region, where pay per click is more intended for lead generation and directing traffic to websites, not to drive direct sales.

This, I think, not only applies for search advertising but online advertising in general. As long as businesses don’t see the results of their online campaigns translated into conversions and revenue, their investments in online advertising in general will be limited. The only way for them to start seeing those conversions and that revenue rolling in though if for them to work on more elaborate online strategies and start venturing into e-commerce.

Most digital advertisers in the Arab region are still government, telecommunications and automotive; with smaller companies that search advertising should appeal to not being very active.

Expectations are that the search ad sector will maintain a steady growth, just like online advertising as a whole, despite the almost untapped e-commerce market in the Arab World. But, in my opinion, it will only take off hugely when the internet starts being perceived as a really important sales channel by companies.

[Via: Business 24-7]

Survey: Traffic Transparency Would Help Internet Advertising

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Web TrafficA recent survey by the market research company Real Opinions shows that 87% of those involved in advertising or marketing for their organisations in the Middle East said that transparency in website visitor numbers and profiles of visitors would be influential in increasing their usage of the Internet for advertising.

Put into perspective, 58% claim their budgets for marketing and advertising have decreased, but the current economic climate has encouraged them to look online for maximizing their impact, with 37% claiming their interest in the Internet has increased (50% claim no change).

Dan Healy, the CEO of Real Opinions who conducted the survey commented, ‘With decreasing budgets, organisations appear to be looking around for new paradigms in which to conduct their advertising and marketing activities to help them reach their goals. They are looking at the Internet advertising industry and websites to help them justify a new approach.’

‘As the Internet allows users to follow their special interests, websites have the ability to accurately show how unique their visitors are and how it can match an advertiser’s target market they wish to reach with communication. It’s shouldn’t just be how many visitors a website receives, advertisers want to know the profile of these people. This in turn can provide a very cost efficient advertising model for many organisations to achieve the return on investment they seek in this economic climate,’ Dan added.

Mobile Internet Users On The Rise In The Middle East

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Mobile InternetMore Middle East business people used mobile devices to hook on to the internet last month, compared with February 2007, while fewer used computers, a just released survey showed.

The survey, presented to the Digital Marketing Conference in Dubai by the Dubai-based research company Real Opinions, said computers were still by far the main way to connect to the internet.

The percentage who regularly logged in to the web with their mobiles increased from 33.5 per cent to 40 per cent.

Numbers of people using desktops to log in decreased from 63.50 per cent to 58.93 per cent, while those using laptops slid from 82.80 per cent to 81.35 per cent.

Mr Dan Healy, the chief executive of Real Opinions, said mobile device users tended to be professionals and high-end targets for advertisers.

“This is a select group of business internet users,” he said. “These are people with authority and relatively high disposable income, which are the target group for the travel industry, the hotels and the airlines. “This gives advertisers more creative ways to access them.”

The survey, of 446 business internet users in the region, also found they spend far more time using the internet than they do with any other kind of media.
The survey said users spent an average of 3.51 hours a day surfing online, compared with 2.28 hours watching television.

But it found that, while internet use dominated other media in the mid-morning and mid-afternoon, radio was stronger in the morning rush hour, and television was stronger in the evening.

Most respondents, 58 per cent, said the current economic climate had affected their organisation’s budget for marketing and advertising, but 37 per cent also said it had increased their organisation’s interest in internet marketing.

[Source: The National]

Cyber Gear Launches DIYads For Self Serve Advertising

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diyadsonline.com

Cyber Gear, a UAE based web design and online marketing firm, has just launched DIYadsonline.com, a new “do it yourself” online ad creation, placement and performance analysis service for the Middle East.

The service is targeted at advertisers who are on a budget, and need to cheaply put together an online display ad, and get it out there as quickly and easily as possible. At DIYadsonline.com prices start at US$ 99/month for up to 5,000 banner impressions.

Currently, online campaigns created through the service can be run on DubaiCityGuide.com, another service by Cyber Gear, with the company aiming to add new sites to the DIYads publishers network in the coming weeks.

Sharad Agarwal, CEO of Cyber Gear, said in the company’s press release that “Self serve display ads are the ‘killer app’ of Web advertising. We have developed a proprietary real time ad customization tool and intuitive web-based interface that deploys XML Feed to create more engaging display ads using Flash technology. The new tool will enable advertisers select from a number of ad targeting factors such as geographic, demographic and various user interest categories.” 

diyadsonline.com

The new service comes at a time when many companies are cutting down their advertising budgets, and many people are expecting a bigger push towards online advertising; so it should be interesting to see how well it does.

I wouldn’t expect the system to create some really awesome or ultra creative banner ads, but it still could be enough for someone making an entrance to online advertising, with a limited budget, and wanting to test the waters.

Report: MENA Advertising Growth To Double In 2009

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An industry report released by ZenithOptimedia, a media-buying arm of one of the world’s largest advertising firms, Publicis Group, says 2009 advertising growth for the MENA region will grow by 10 percent, nearly the double of this year’s expected growth rate of 5.8 percent.

Egypt should be a strong contributor to the growth of advertising in the region, with most of the gains coming from the GCC and the growing pan-Arab advertising market.

This stands out against a gloomy worldwide outlook, forecasting a 0.2 percent drop in advertising spend next year, with the North American market taking the worst hit, expected to decline 5.7 percent. 

Internet advertising is expected to grow 18 percent next year though, both globally and in the North American market, taking a 15.6 percent share of global ad expenditures in 2011, 5.2 percentage points ahead of magazines and 5.6 points behind newspapers. The gap between internet and newspapers currently stands at 15.1 points.

Reduced advertising budgets are expected to help boost internet advertising, which costs fractions of what it costs to advertise via traditional media, and offers advertisers a clear way to track audience.

The report also expects television to do relatively well in the downturn, making up a record 38.5 percent of global ad expenditure in 2010 and 2011.

Up To August, 1.2 Million Dinars Invested In Online Advertising In Tunisia In 2008

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TunisiaAccording to estimative numbers released by Tunisian market research firm Sigma Conseil, that cover the first eight months of 2008, a total investment of 1.2 Million Dinars  (US$ 930,000) has been made in online advertising, a third of which is by the Telecom sector, followed by the Financial and Automotive sectors.

The study shows that Tunisiana, the private mobile operator that is a subsidiary of Orascom Telecom, is on the top of the list of online advertisers, followed by the Arab Tunisian Bank (ATB), TopNet (an Internet service provider), Hannibal Lease, ANG Consulting and Tunisie Télécom (Public mobile and fixed line operator).

In a previous study released in the beginning of 2008, Sigma Conseil estimated the total investment in online advertising in 2007 at only 2% of the total advertising budget in Tunisia which was estimated at 100 Million Dinars (US$ 77 Million).

So mainly, even though there was a 1% growth in online advertising in Tunisia from 2005/2006 to 2007, according to Sigma Conseil’s numbers 2008 isn’t showing that much growth so far in comparison to last year.

Internet Advertising In Algeria Shows 300% Growth In Q3 2008

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AlgeriaAlgeria has recorded a 300% increase in internet advertising during the third quarter of this year, compared to the same period of 2007, reports Algerian daily Le Quotidien d’Oran. This large increase is estimated at 18.6 million Algerian Dinars (US$300,500), compared to only 22 million Algerian Dinars (US$355,500) in an annual spending last year.

The Internet has become one of the main media channels used by the 59 identified advertisers across the country who have found it to be a profitable and inexpensive market, that helps them target specific potential customers.

Algeria has not reached the level of other countries in the area of online advertising yet, but it’s on its way as more major advertisers increasingly choose to explore online advertising with small budgets, pending national ADSL deployment and further development of the local content industry.

To better understand this strong increase in online advertising spending in Algeria, Med & Com, the leading online marketing agency in the country, conducted a study on fifty Algerian sites. The results revealed that the holy month of Ramadan saw a peak in online advertising, registering a record of almost 8.5 million Algerian Dinars (US$ 137,365), with 81 campaigns launched by 40 brands.

The report also reveals a strong presence for the automotive, mobile telephony and ICT sectors; The automotive sector through 17 advertisers covered 27% of the online advertising spend, closely followed by ICT and technology services companies with 22%, through 14 advertisers. The communication and web publishing sector accounts for 15% of the total spend, real esate for 8%, as air travel, food and tourism cover 3% each, leaving 14% for other sectors. 

Always according to the Med & Com report, press and news portals are increasinly attracting more and more advertisers, taking in 31% of the total online advertising spend. Professional sites get 18%, automotive related sites 17%, Youth and leisure sites another 17%, sport and football sites 11%, and mobile and ICT related sites 7%.