From left: Rasha Hamzeh, Managing Director of The Inhouse; Mahyar Yahfoufi, Founder & CEO at MindField.Creative and media consultancy The Inhouse and digital marketing agency MindField have launched a Podcast Engine Optimisation (PEO) framework to solve the podcast discovery gap in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).
As the region’s podcasting market surges towards a projected $1.36b revenue in 2026, the two companies have designed the framework as a response to its critical ROI crisis. According to The Inhouse and MindField, while engagement leads globally, 90 per cent of branded podcasts fail to scale as they miss their audience.
PEO aims to bridge this gap, shifting the focus from vanity download metrics to high-impact search intent and audience retention. The framework
“With PEO, we have productised the ‘secret sauce’ of audience acquisition into a scalable framework,” said Rasha Hamzeh, Managing Director of The Inhouse. Hamzeh’s expertise in the realm of podcasts stems from her co-build of Luca’s Insight Track, which has been featured as a Top 10 Apple Podcast and has more than 220,000 subscribers.
Through this experience, The Inhouse brings PEO to the region with MindField’s artificial intelligence (AI) workflows to ensure that recorded content, on Podeo, YouTube, or Apple, is squeezed for maximum ROI.
“We aren’t just making podcasts; we are building category leaders who own their niche’s search intent,” said Hamzeh.
Furthermore, Mahyar Yahfoufi, Founder and CEO at MindField added that the launch signals a shift towards the era of predictive discovery, as having ‘good content’ as a baseline isn’t a strategy that cuts through the noise.
“By injecting MindField’s deep AI DNA into the podcasting sector, we are giving brands a competitive weapon to win attention in an AI-first world,” he said. “This is about rewriting the code of how brands convert listeners into loyal customers.”
The PEO pillar system includes:
• AI-enhanced metadata ecosystems: Crafting keyword-rich descriptions that bridge the gap between human interest and AI indexing for maximum search visibility.
• Hyper-localised platform synergy: Proprietary optimisation for regional giants like Podeo and Anghami, ensuring seamless cross-platform attribution.
• The PEO audit (ROI forecasting): An industry-first diagnostic tool that identifies leaks in the listener funnel and forecasts the financial impact of optimised discovery.
• Visual discovery Optimisation: Using AI-driven heatmaps to maximise click-through rates (CTR) on thumbnails to win the ‘scroll’.
Mona Nassar, Head of Search Marketing and Data Analytics at MindField, said: “Podcast discovery is the new frontier of search. For years, the ‘audio-first’ intent remained a black box.”
“With PEO, we apply sophisticated data analytics to ensure every episode is mapped to the user’s journey, ensuring your brand’s voice is the first one the algorithm finds,” she added.
The Inhouse and MindField claim that the PEO framework is already the silent engine behind the region’s most influential voices. These strategies have been implemented to power cultural icons like Ricardo Karam, transforming his Conversations into digital-first powerhouses, and the Tarwida Podcast into a vital digital touchstone for Palestinian arts and heritage.
With the launch of PEO, The Inhouse and MindField aim to set a new global benchmark, ensuring that MENA brands are ‘engine optimised’ for a world where attention is the most valuable currency and data drives every creative decision.
