Programmatic in Saudi Arabia

The digital advertising market in Saudi Arabia is booming, driven by several factors, such as high internet proliferation, the growing popularity of social media, and online shopping. 

With technological evolution, there is a rapidly growing demand for various advertising technologies in Saudi Arabia. In addition, there is a massive increase in investment in digital advertising. So, Saudi Arabia is a land with a huge potential for digital advertising. 

This article reveals the digital market in Saudi Arabia, the top ad formats on the market, its peculiarities, and more.

Digital Advertising Market in Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia is one of the greatest economies in the Middle East. Moreover, the most technologically-educated citizens are moving toward digitalization. No wonder the growing businesses in the country are shifting to digital as well, leading to increasing investments in digital advertising and its market share. According to Statista, ad spending in the digital advertising market is expected to reach $1,796.0m in 2024, which is a 10.8% growth.

Source: Statista

Programmatic advertising in Saudi Arabia

With the country’s rapidly rising internet proliferation, the demand for digital marketing tools that provide brands with flexibility and efficiency is expected to continue growing. One of these tools is programmatic advertising. Based on Statista’s report, 81% of the digital advertising revenue will be generated through programmatic ads in 2028.

Source: Statista

Why Programmatic Advertising?

The high level of digitization and internet proliferation require highly efficient digital marketing tools. Programmatic provides brands with a high level of efficiency, flexibility, and—what’s more important—opportunity to achieve any marketing goal. Programmatic advertising, in a simple world, is an automatic way of purchasing ad impressions for a brand’s target audience. The technology works based on artificial intelligence algorithms and users’ data—algorithms analyze users’ behavior in real time and, based on the users’ interests, choose the relevant advertisement for the current users. As a result, a brand’s ad campaign resonates strongly with the audience and delivers great results. 

However, there are even more benefits for brands, including:

• Real-time optimization: Brands can adjust campaigns instantly, improving engagement and ROI.
• Scalability: It enables brands to run campaigns across multiple platforms and devices, enhancing reach and exposure.
• Enhanced Transparency: Brands gain visibility into where their ads are placed, who sees them, and how they perform. This helps optimize campaigns and ensure brand safety by avoiding placements in low-quality or inappropriate environments.
• Cost Efficiency: By automating the ad buying process and utilizing real-time bidding, programmatic marketing helps brands get the best value for their ad spend. Brands only pay for impressions that reach the intended audience, reducing wasted spend on irrelevant views.

Available Audience & Consumer Behavior in Saudi Arabia

There were 36.84 million internet users, including 35.10 million active social media users, in Saudi Arabia in January 2024. The number of internet users accounted for 99% of the total population. What about social network users? The percent is a bit less—94.3% of the total population. Scrolling social media, watching linear & broadcast TV, and watching streaming & on-demand TV are the top activities on the internet.

Source: Data Reportal, Saudi Arabia’s Economy

In terms of why users are accessing the internet, users want to be in touch with relatives, find information, and watch videos and online TV shows.

Source: Data Reportal

Social media takes a great place in the daily lives of Saudis—they spend 3H 06M a day using social media platforms. They open social media apps to keep in touch with friends, fill their spare time, and find products to purchase. The top social media platforms used the most in Saudi Arabia include WhatsApp, Instagram, and TikTok.

Source: Data Reportal

If you want to work hardly, not harder, then it is worth considering users’ behavior and preferences. Users use the internet not only to spend free time but also to discover and research brands. Knowing where a target audience is looking for a brand, marketers can adjust their advertising strategies and interact with users where they are. That’s way more often to discover new brands through search engines, social media ads, and social media comments. Regarding brand research, the top channels include social media, search engines, and mobile apps.

Source: Data Reportal

Ad Formats & Ad Channels

The market’s largest segment is Search Advertising, with a market volume of $851.8 million in 2024. The second largest market segment is Banner Advertising. Investments in this ad format grow by 7.9% in 2024.

Source: Statista

As Saudis are active social media users, advertising through social media has a great potential for brands. The potential of a certain social network might be evaluated by how many users brands can reach. The highest reach in Saudi Arabia is in TikTok.

Source: Data Reportal

Therefore, it is no wonder that ad spending on this channel is growing year by year. According to Statista’s research, it’s expected that ad investment in social media advertising will reach $430.3 million, growing by 7.6%.

Source: Statista

Ad Inventory

Top website ranking

youtube.com, google.com, twitter.com, stocktwits.com, wikipedia.org, kooora.com, google.com.sa, madrasati.sa, facebook.com, samplicio.us

Top 3 Ad Networks in Saudi Arabia

• MediaFem 
• OutBrain
• PropellerAds

Top DSP Platforms in Saudi Arabia

• Google Ads
• ADxAD
• Mediasmart
• NT DSP
• Adobe advertising cloud

How to Start Programmatic Advertising: How NT Technology Can Help You?

In today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape, brands face the challenge of reaching the right audience at the right time, all while maximizing ROI. NT Technology, as a programmatic DSP platform, specializes in delivering programmatic advertising that not only drives measurable results but also gives brands a competitive edge. Here’s why partnering with us can transform your advertising strategy and elevate your brand to new heights.

Why NT’s programmatic service?

Programmatic advertising buying has revolutionized the way brands connect with consumers. By automating the buying and placement of ads, programmatic ensures that your message reaches highly targeted audiences across the web in real time. By partnering with us, you get: 

Precision Targeting and Scalability

With NT DSP, you gain access to unparalleled targeting capabilities, allowing you to define audiences based on demographics, interests, behaviors, and even contextual factors. This ensures that your ads are seen by the consumers who are most likely to engage and convert.

Whether you’re looking to launch a niche campaign or scale your efforts to reach millions, our platform offers scalability without compromising precision. By leveraging real-time data and machine learning, our DSP optimizes ad placements dynamically to deliver the best results, no matter the size of your campaign.

Full Transparency and Control

We provide full transparency into every aspect of your campaign—from ad placements to cost breakdowns—so you always know where your investment is going. Our programmatic advertising agency’s team in Saudi Arabia also provides you with reports on key campaign metrics and adjusts strategies in real time. Whether it’s adjusting bids, targeting parameters, or creative variations, you have the flexibility to pivot quickly based on performance insights.

Advanced Brand Safety and Fraud Prevention

The safety of your brand is our priority. We’ve invested heavily in industry-leading brand safety measures, ensuring that your ads are displayed only on premium, vetted sites. Additionally, our advanced fraud detection solution safeguards your budget from invalid traffic, protecting you from wasted spend. In daily practice, we apply traditional protection ways such as Black & White lists as well as automatic suspicious activity monitoring in real time.  

Personalized Support and Strategic Insights

While automation is a key benefit of a programmatic advertising platform, we know the importance of human insight and expertise. Our team works closely with you, offering personalized support and strategic guidance throughout your campaign. We don’t just provide a platform; we partner with you to help you achieve your business goals.

From the moment you start working with us, you’ll have a dedicated point of contact who understands your brand and objectives. We offer regular performance reports and optimization recommendations, develop ad creatives, and provide ongoing strategic input to ensure your campaigns deliver maximum impact.

Data-Driven Results with ROI at the Core

The ultimate goal of any advertising campaign is to drive results, and NT DSP is designed to maximize ROI. Through real-time bidding, audience segmentation, and continual optimization, we ensure that your ad spend is used efficiently, delivering higher engagement and conversions at a lower cost. We follow a data-driven approach that allows us to fine-tune campaigns, ensuring every dollar is well spent and tied to measurable outcomes.

Seamless Integration with Your Marketing Stack

We understand that no marketing strategy exists in a silo. Our DSP seamlessly integrates with other tools and platforms in your tech stack, from customer relationship management (CRM) systems to data management platforms (DMPs) and analytics software. This integration enables a holistic approach to your advertising strategy, ensuring consistent messaging and cohesive customer experiences across all touchpoints. 

Below you can find an example of a programmatic advertising campaign run by NT Technology for our client.

How drive leads for test drives with programmatic ads

Our client was one of the biggest auto dealers in Saudi Arabia, providing a wide range of automotive-related products and services and operating Kenya’s biggest network of dealerships. Like many dealership leaders over the last year, the client’s team faced ever-changing consumer needs and preferences, the challenge of customer defection, and a lack of advertising efficiency. The auto dealer came to us to drive quality traffic to a site and generate leads for test drives. 

The ad campaign included a mix of different banners, stories, and lead-generation forms on social networks. Despite limitations in ad formats, we still needed to attract the attention of the target audience. So our design team developed not only static banners but also interactive ones—cube ads. This interactive advertisement allows advertisers to showcase up to four images on its four sides. A cube can spin automatically or by swiping, engaging users to interact with one of the ad messages. Besides, we left the most profitable advertisements after the A/B testing.

As consumers often look for offers from auto dealers on search networks, we set up search ads. Also, we use retargeting to re-engage with users who visited the client’s site but didn’t complete the target action and who showed a high rate of interest in the client’s offer. Audience segments for retargeting include the following groups of users:

• who visited more than 2 pages of the site;
• who spent on the site more than 1-5 minutes;
• who visited the “Contact Us” page, and so on.

Additionally, we set up competitor targeting. Ad creatives were shown to the audience that viewed the websites of the competitors or looked for them as well.

The results of the ad campaign exceeded the planned numbers:

• 124 applications for test-drives
• 2.3% CR
• 27.9% bounce rate
• 3.54 pages per visit
• 2 min 6 seс average visit duration

Contact us right now to increase profit from your ad campaigns. We’d like to help you!

Conclusion

Saudi Arabia is the market with the largest programmatic advertising potential in the region. Essential ingredients to any successful ad campaign in the country are ad creatives in Arabic, knowledge of censorship, and what online channels are the most effective at reaching Saudis.