Programmatic in Iran
- Author: Lizaveta Zhuk
Digital advertising in Iran has faced great changes in the past few years. Despite the negative impact of the COVID-19 on the advertising market, Iranian digital advertising market is recovering step by step. It’s expected that the digital advertising market will significantly develop over the next few years.
Digital Ads Market
The advertising market is quite different in Iran, especially when it comes to digital ads. Across the MENA region, Iran has a slower growing advertising market due to devaluation of Iran’s national currency and the unilateral US sanctions. However, ad spending in the Digital Advertising Market is projected to reach $1,054.00 million in 2022, and growing. It is expected to reach $1,712.60 million by 2027.
Source: Statista
It is remarkable that programmatic advertising takes a large part of the digital advertising market. Nowadays, 75% of Digital Advertising revenue is generated through programmatic advertising.
Source: Statista
Available audience
The internet penetration rate in Iran has reached 84.1% of the total population at the start of 2022, growing 1.2% compared to the previous year. There is a high demand for mobile connections in Iran. According to DataReportal, there were 119.0 million cellular mobile connections at the start of 2022. That was equivalent to 139.1% of the total population.
The growing number of internet connections and mobile users have created the popularity of social networks. 47.70 million of Iranians used social media in January 2022. The most popular social network is Instagram.
Source: Statcounter
Also, there is more traffic share from mobile devices. Brands should consider that to promote their products and services to the right users on the right device.
Source: DataReportal
Ad Formats
The market’s largest segment is Banner Advertising with a market volume of $392.90 million in 2022.
The growing number of mobile users and their interest in social media has created a boom in mobile advertising. When in-app and web mobile ads increase their reach then brands invest more in these types of ads. In the Digital Advertising market, 47% of total ad spending will be generated through mobile in 2023.
Source: Statista
Mobile advertising allows brands to promote a wide range of products to target audiences on each point of entire customer journeys. So it makes sense for brands to consider mobile users in their advertising strategy.
Inventory
Top websites ranking
digikala.com, instagram.com, whatsapp.com, shaparak.ir, namnak.com, rokna.net, delgarm.com, telewebion.com, agah.com, wikipedia.org, mofidonline.com, divar.ir, filimo.com, yahoo.com
Top Ad Network
- Tapsell
- Adnegah
- Yektanet
- Adsensor
E-commerce market in Iran
Iran has significant potential for e-commerce development. However, the market is still small in the country. Iranian e-commerce revenue is accounted for $16.06 billion in 2022. It is expected to grow annually by 28.86% between 2022 and 2025 to reach a market volume of $34.36 billion by 2025. While Iranian e-commerce market is low competitively, there is a good opportunity for brands to take a part of this sphere.
Especially since about 25% of Iranians are shopping online at least once a month, 16% at least once a week, and 5% are doing so on a daily basis. The harder online shoppers are women 18–34 years old.The main reason why Iranians prefer online shopping is saving time, skipping traffic jams and air pollution.
As users in Iran can’t make purchases from foreign online shopping websites, such as Amazon and Ebay, national e-commerce sites are getting more famous and regular. Customers make online purchases in different types of goods, especially of electronics, clothing and footwear, and home appliances.
The E-commerce market in Iran is still developing. So there are chances for all brands to successfully provide their services and products to e-commerce users. Digital and programmatic advertising can help them to interact with the audiences and increase profit more effectively.
Market peculiarities
Until a recent time, advertising in Iran took mainly traditional forms such as TV ads, newspaper and out-of-home advertising. Digital advertising wasn’t an essential part of the market to consider. However, due to the developments of technology in the country and increasing internet proliferation, digital and programmatic ads have become a more preferred way to interact with users. Still, brands should consider government restrictions and limits before starting an advertising campaign.
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