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This detailed case study was made by a Speakol publisher. Speakol is one of the most extensive content discovery and native advertising network in the MENA and GCC (United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, and Bahrain) regions. 

The publisher has run 4 successful low-budget campaigns for Saudi Arabia with AdCombo offers, Speakol network, and minimal effort for 30 days. 

The case study offers useful insightful info, best practices, and tips on engaging the audience and increasing CR while running campaigns for Saudi Arabia and the GCC region.

We also prepared 2 bonuses that are waiting for you at the end of the article!  Read thoroughly not to miss them 😉 

Let’s get rolling!

Hey guys! I’d like to share my experience of running ads with Beauty & Weight loss offers for the GCC countries.
It all started when I realized that the GCC countries had great traffic and that people in the Gulf are interested in cosmetics, beauty, and weight-loss products. What’s more, there are almost no other affiliates in that region. So, I decided to run campaigns there to generate leads and conversions. 

Before launching my campaigns, I had conducted market research to familiarize myself with the GCC market, learn more about common tendencies, and how best to engage the local audience and make them loyal to the products without offending them or violating their cultural norms. This proved to be crucial to the success of my campaigns.

Targeting

To target the GCC in general and SA in particular, I localized my message as much as possible. I tried to offer better sales conditions to attract and engage my audience. I also provided adequate information on the products I was promoting and not just gave them a 30% discount or made the buy-one-get-one offer. 

As the GCC and SA are conservative countries, I became aware that women are not always the decision-makers, so it’s better to make sure you are also targeting men when promoting products. For instance, knowing that Saudi men start working late enables you to pick the right time for running your campaign, when they are already at work, so your ads can hit them.

Using Speakol, I was also able to target cities. I focused on Riyadh, a conservative city with a lot of money in. Thus, I needed my message and creative materials to appeal properly to the feelings of the natives.

If I had chosen to target Jeddah for instance, a more liberal and outgoing city, my message would have been more informal and funny. The thing is, it’s important to know the character of the city you are targeting before creating your marketing message.

I decided to try various Beauty and Weight-loss products and see how they perform. Then, based on statistics, I would be able to optimize and decide which ones to keep and which ones to discard. 

NB: The current offers’ IDs differ from the ones indicated below since the offers have been updated.

Campaign #1

Flekosteel, a balm that improves joints mobility and relieves muscle pain, was the first offer for the promotion. 

Traffic source: Speakol
Affiliate Network: AdCombo
Offer: Flekosteel
GEO: SA
Time span: 01.03.2020 – 31.03.2020
Payout: $17.50
Spend: $350
Revenue: $1,365
Profit: $1015
ROI: 290%

For Flekosteel, I ran the campaign targeting SA. I set a competitive CPC rate to get the most out of Saudi traffic. I also made the best out of all the targeting options that Speakol offers. There is an option to select and deselect any websites, targeting devices, and operating systems and target specific cities.

I opted for a creative that was acceptable to the targeting region and the audience. The text on the image clearly highlighted what Flekosteel is and its advantage. When you use banners, add some descriptive text to inform users about the kind of product you’re promoting and the benefits of using it. 

For this campaign, I decided to use both a prelander and a landing page. Prelanders usually present a prime opportunity to convince and convert users who may have doubts on whether to make a purchase or not. I used the AdCombo prelander  [61954] Flekosteel_SA_ blog best life, followed by the AdCombo landing page  [61957] Flekosteel_Purple_SA. 

The results were astounding. In 30 days, my ad got 8.6 million impressions and received 33,739 clicks. The CTR was also pretty high – 0.39%. With an average CPC of  $0.009, I got 175 leads with $1.91 per lead. It was such a success as my ROI had reached 290%.

Campaign #2

Knowing how people in the Gulf are obsessed with Weight loss products, I ran a campaign promoting Black Latte, an instant fat loss drink, and targeting Al Riyadh, SA. 

Traffic source: Speakol
Affiliate Network: AdCombo
Offer: Black Latte
GEO: SA
Time Span: 01.03.2020 – 31.03.2020
Payout: $17.50
Spend: $550
Revenue: $1,237
Profit: $687
ROI: 125%

For a whole month, I tried to optimize my targeting options and CPC bid until I reached a good formula that drove positive results. I chose a very simple creative: an image of  Black Latte and a smiling contented woman.

I had spent $550 on the promotion, and my ad was displayed to 11.5 million viewers. It had generated 46,790 clicks, 103 of which became converted leads. With the high CTR of 0.41%, the average CPC decreased to $0.011. This campaign was worth every penny, having scored a 125% ROI. 

For this campaign, I used both the AdCombo prelander and lading page: [58959] Black Latte – female view – SA and [58957] Black Latte – light blue – SA respectively as they seemed to be optimal for the purposes of my campaign. Btw, AdCombo provides various attractive localized pages to engage and convert your audiences.

Campaign # 3

With such exciting results, I ran another weight-loss campaign promoting Keto Guru.

Traffic source: Speakol
Affiliate Network: AdCombo
Offer: Keto Guru
GEO: SA
Time Span: 01.03.2020 – 31.03.2020
Payout: $17
Spend: $320
Revenue: $878.50
Profit: $558,5
ROI: 174,5%

I adjusted the bidding price and chose the creative that beneficially introduced the product.  It depicted the weight loss before and after the results of a man (not a woman as expected). I decided to avoid showing images of women’s bodies while targeting GCC.

Making use of the city targeting options that Speakol has, I focused on Riyadh. For this campaign I used the AdCombo prelander and landing page: the prelander [63298] Meduza blog – Keto Guru – SA and the landing page [63475] Pink – Keto Guru – SA.

After a month my ads with the budget of $320 got 11.5 million impressions and generated 36,088 clicks. My bid reached $0.011. As a result, I got 175 leads for $2.43 per lead, which was amazing. My campaign was terminated with a 174,5% ROI.

Campaign # 4

Arab women are obsessed with beauty and anti-aging creams, that’s why I ran the fourth campaign promoting Goji Cream, the ultimate anti-aging daily moisturizer. I was targeting women of all ages in Saudi Arabia. 

Traffic source: Speakol
Affiliate Network: AdCombo
Offer: Goji Cream
GEO: SA
Time Span: 01.03.2020 – 31.03.2020 
Payout: $17.50
Spend: $200
Revenue: $612
Profit: $412
ROI: 206%

With an ad budget of $200, I made an astounding 206% ROI by promoting Goji Cream. This success resulted from A/B testing and attempts to balance the CPC to generate the highest CTR.
I managed to pay an average CPC of $0.017 and get a 0.38% CTR.  

The image I chose spoke volumes of the product, and it also had a positive impact on the campaign success. The picture emphasized the model’s clear, bright skin and primarily focused on her face. For this campaign, I utilized the AdCombo prelander [21324] CAMPUS Goji Cream – AE and the AdCombo landing page [21251] Goji cream – Red – AE. 

Design

For all the campaigns run I used prelanders and landing pages in both Arabic and English to reach out to both local citizens and foreign residents. I concentrated on giving them a modest look, especially to the Arabian pages. Otherwise, I risked lowering my CTR for people in the Middle East who tend to click on modest photos that seem more familiar to them and ignore Western-looking images.
I also tried to unify the colors of both the prelanders and landing pages to give a sense of familiarity and comfort.

Source searching

Another important aspect of running my campaigns was the choice of websites. I tried to experiment by targeting many websites for each product. I installed the pixel codes and started tracking the performance of each website.

Using the Speakol advertisers’ dashboard, I closely monitored everything related to the websites’ performance, including impressions, clicks, CTR, average CPC, leads, bids, and expenses on each ad. I could also easily adjust the bid price if necessary.
I kept checking until I settled on the most performing websites and concentrated my efforts on them.

Here is a glimpse into the stats of all the campaigns I ran with AdCombo:

Points to recap

1. Conduct market research of the region you are targeting before launching your campaign. Be familiar with the cultural norms and local trends;
   
   
2. Show how valuable your product is. Provide more information about it;
   
   
3. Localize your message as much as possible. If you’re targeting the GCC countries, make sure that you’re appealing to the natives in their mother tongue or even dialect to maximize their engagement with your ad;
   
   
4. Use direct and informative titles. Make sure your phrasing describes your product very clearly to avoid confusion or misunderstanding;
   
   
5. Choose creatives that will not offend locals or violate their cultural values or traditions. When targeting the GCC countries in general and the SA in particular, you need to pick the creatives that lay stress on the product, not people.
   Use pictures that are modestly attractive and not shocking. So if you want to add some images of people, you’d better use ones of men.
   If you decide to use women’s images, take modest, conservative pictures with minimal skin showing. The women in the image should wear long high-necked clothes.
   
   
6. Your creatives don’t need to contain any text. In case you decide to use it, make sure that it states the advantages of the product you are promoting;
   
   
7. Design prelanders that are user-friendly and engrossing. Remember: prelanders with pictures have more chances to succeed with users. 
    

Sum up

I loved working with AdCombo. Its interface is extremely user-friendly providing a fine experience. I was delighted with the localized prelanders and landing pages available in many languages; this made my promotion much easier. I could easily select the needed option from the multiple ones that were all well-made.

With minimal time spent, around 15 mins a day, I launched, ran, and monitored the performance of my campaigns.

Overall, I am thrilled with the results of my campaigns.

The good combination of two networks – Speakol and AdCombo, allowed me to get such a nice outcome. AdCombo did provide the offers with high-quality and trendy products, while Speakol gave me the useful options to targeted needed cities, devices, and operating systems as well as adding a pixel code to a landing page to follow the users’ journeys on the page step by step. The latter gave me the great hints on what exactly needed to be tweaked. In general, I deem Speakol the best platform to use when targeting the GCC and MENA regions. 

Why don’t you try them out yourselves?

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Need another little push to get started? Read up on the Arabian market here: Nutra Is the New Oil: How to Make Great Profits With Saudi Arabia. 

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Postscript

These campaigns were run in March 2020 after COVID-19 had hit the world greatly. At that time the prices we relatively lower since the supply exceeded the demand.

For the sake of transparency, all the numbers indicated in the case study are real. The traffic cost of that period made it possible to get such a traffic volume with the network then.

We suggest today’s advertisers bid higher to achieve the same results in November 2020. Especially now since our network hosts more premium websites of the GCC and MENA regions.

Therefore, we offer the bonus to encourage all advertisers to launch their campaigns and have enough budget to experiment, optimize, and achieve their marketing goals.