Facebook signs up regional advertiser

Tom Gara and Keach Hagey

• Last Updated: February 09. 2010 10:21AM UAE / February 9. 2010 6:21AM GMT

Facebook, the world’s most popular online social network, has signed an online advertising partnership for the Middle East in a move expected to boost spending on online ads.

The website, which says it has more than 10 million Arab users – 1.2 million of them in the UAE – has joined with Connect Ads, the online advertising wing of Egypt’s Linkdotnet.

“We’re expecting dramatic changes in the market following this deal,” said Mohamed el Muhairy, the managing director of Connect Ads.

“Right now, online accounts for about 1 per cent of ad spending in the region.

“We need the big brands like Facebook, MSN and Yahoo if we want to push it up to 10 per cent.”

Regional companies looking to advertise on the site had previously purchased space from various resellers in Europe and Asia, a situation that many in the industry said hampered advertisers.

“It was a long process, dealing with different people who claimed to have inventory and could not always be relied on,” Mr el Muhairy said.

“What this does is cleans up the system and creates a more professional, locally targeted sales system for a site that everybody is using.”

Connect Ads is also the regional advertising representative for the MSN Arabia Web portal and for online properties owned by Linkdotnet, including Yallabina.com and Yallakora.com.

Linkdotnet is the internet subsidiary of Orascom Telecom, Egypt’s largest public company.

The company has been in talks with Facebook since mid-2008. Last month, it began briefing agencies in Dubai and across the region on its new role as Facebook’s official partner, and has already sold advertising space to clients in Egypt, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia.

It will officially launch the service at a workshop and press event in Dubai this month.

“In the past, we were doing Facebook directly with Europe, so having someone on the ground is a good thing,” said Yousef Tuqan Tuqan, the chief executive of Flip Media, a digital media agency in Dubai.

“Facebook is a big deal, and everybody does buy advertising on it.” But the site, known in the industry for the low interest its users show in advertising displayed alongside its pages, will have to work hard to attract big-spending clients in the region.

“The display advertising is a losing proposition in a lot of ways, because the click-through rates just keep falling,” Mr Tuqan said.

Mr el Muhairy said Connect Ads would focus on selling the “engagement advertising” products that Facebook launched in 2008.

The ads let users add comments, become a “fan” of the product and share the advertisement with their friends.

“They are the future for this kind of product because they have the viral side that social networks are built on,” he said.

Zeid Nasser, the founder of MediaME, a website for the regional media and marketing industries, said the partnership was “another demonstration of how the online media sellers are getting organised to provide a more integrated offering”.

“This will probably drive more sales to more clients in the region, and therefore impact the total expenditure,” he said.



tgara@thenational.ae

khagey@thenational.ae