Digital marketing in Middle East and North Africa? Don't forget email

There’s no doubt that the revolutionary Zeitgeist is having an effect in The Middle East and North Africa. What started off with a Tunisian street trader setting himself on fire has now spread across the Arab world.


At the same time, there is a social media revolution going on, fuelled by the proliferation of social networks such as Facebook and their availability by mobile devices such as mobile phones.

It is therefore very timely that eConsultancy have just released their latest report on “The State of Digital in the Middle East and North Africa”. This report looks at the relative levels of spending across the range of marketing channels in the region this year. It then compares online with offline budgets and looks at the planned investment on different types of marketing technology.

I’ll not go into too much detail here (as you should buy the report if you want to read it), but for me the most interesting information was not the adoption and use of social media as a channel for marketing…. But that

email is the most popular activity online for consumers in the Middle East

Sure, marketers are using external social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter, plus on-site functionality such as forums, ratings & reviews and blogs…. But more surprisingly for me is the news that a thirty year old technology is still cutting it in the MENA digital landscape. That's definitely something to consider if you have (or are planning on having) clients in this part of the World!