In 2023, the Middle East adspend exceeded the $6 billion threshold for the first time ever. This figure was calculated by the IAB MENA Adspend Results which was released early last month.
The report covers a multi-method approach based on financial analysis & statistical modelling validated by in-depth interviews. It also includes a sell-side focus that measures all spend arriving at the sales side after discounts and before service commissions. Finally, the report has a key focus on digital ad spend bought & delivered within the region.
Data was collected from 16 markets in the MENA region. These include Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, Lebanon, Libya, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen.
The report considered the impact of global crises on the industry within the region. It evaluated the effect of past crises, the situation as it currently stands and predicts how trends will continue to evolve under these circumstances.
According to the report, the MENA market recorded double-digit growth, with a 13.6 percent increase compared to 2022. However, this increase fell short of the projected 17 per cent growth for ad spend in the region.
The report also compared the increase in spending between the MENA region and markets like Europe and the US. It positioned the MENA market to be 2.5 per cent ahead of Europe and 6.3 percent ahead of the US.
These advancements were compared to the region’s spending in 2022 across four categories; display, social, search, and others. The report confirms that the market has moved to favour video instead of static outreach on digital platforms. This was especially seen across social media platforms.
The UAE and Saudi Arabia claimed the top two ad spend sports within the region. The two markets grew above the regional average, with Saudi Arabia at 16.1 per cent and the UAE at 14.1 percent.
IAB MENA also predicted the five most likely formats of digital ad spend to grow in the coming years. The report estimates that CTV will mature quickly to gather scale in the region, with high double-digit growth expected for coming year.
The report further states that out-of-home is rapidly digitising, and will open up new opportunities, but this is dependent on the growth of inventory for programmatically addressable installments.
For the gaming and mixed reality segments, the report finds that they will provide large-scale, attentive, and hard-to-reach audiences as inventory & measurement ramp up. Retail media is also expected to scale up in the MENA region, with rapid growth driven by advertiser demand, increase in offerings and focus on data & outcomes. Finally, the report concludes that the ongoing digitisation of the economy in the region continues to shift budgets online and will drive performance-related adspend.
To read the full report, click here.
