Eastline Marketing S.A.L.

By Marc Dfouni

In October 2006, an article titled “Troubled Times for SEO” described the shocking statistics of a study published by Marketing Sherpa. The article ignited a lot of interest and debate about the online marketing industry’s growth and its eventual viability. Having been deeply involved and living the daily evolution of the online marketing industry for the last five years, it lead me to believe that anyone who has a mere knowledge in statistics can realize the intrinsic unreliability in the ones presented in the article. It represents a ridiculous simplification and an exploitation of statistics. In fact, the contrary appears to be true as companies offering online marketing seem to be on the rise at a persistent speed!

Since our inception in 2006, Eastline Marketing had mainly acquired clients from North America and Europe. A couple months ago, we have been focusing our efforts to reach clients in the Middle East, mainly in Lebanon, Dubai, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia. To be honest, it hasn’t been easy. Many of the clients we have approached in the region have a “low to no” understanding about the benefits of online marketing and they are not to blame. Some companies are still reluctant towards online marketing and are usually afraid of spending because they fear it’s a waste of budget.

Internet Users Growth in the MENA Region between 2000 and 2008

Internet investments in the MENA region have begun gradually a couple years ago and are increasing at an incredible rate. The Middle-East and Africa have the leading user growth since 2000, an astonishing 1176% and 1030% respectively, compared to the world growth average of 290%! There is a regional awareness about the importance of the Internet and the market opportunities that it has created and our main goal is to provide our clients with the most efficient tools for maximal user reach.

Internet Users Growth in the MENA Region (2000-2008)
Source: Internet Worldstats - 2008

When we first established ourselves in Lebanon in 2006, the most popular Internet speed bundle from local ISPs was a 256k download / 64k upload. Currently in 2008, Internet access offerings have doubled, tripled, and even quadrupled, reaching speeds of 2Mb down/512k upload. The price has even dropped by more than half, and DSL has become affordable to the average income Lebanese. Consequently, average speed Internet access has become widely available and middle-eastern companies’ willingness to take advantage of the more than 800 million monthly page views from the top 20 sites in the 9 countries charted in the figure below and 93 million Internet users in the MENA region has increased. Good for us! A new online marketing era is beginning in the Middle East!

Total Monthly Page Views in the MENA Region 2008
Source: Eastline Marketing S.A.L.

Signs of the New Era

The first sign of the new era in online marketing in the region is the initiative of Google to open a regional office in Egypt. Also, online marketing specialists are increasingly being assigned to local and international brands. In the last month we have approached media agencies that have informed us of their newly online media division creation. In addition, according to Madar Research, online media budgets have been increasing steadily (above 50% annually). Finally, there have been a growing number of conferences and workshops focusing on the use of online marketing in the Middle-East. On June 25, 2008, Lebanon Opportunities offered a conference titled “Advertising using the Internet”.

Current State of Regional Websites

Most small to medium companies that have allocated a certain budget (on average between $500 and $1000) for their website production have done so with the basic and nowadays obsolete conception of solely creating an online corporate presence. Is it a mistake? Maybe it wasn’t a couple of years ago but it certainly is today. The never ending increase of the number of websites on the Internet is astonishing. As of June 2008, A Netcraft report suggests that the total count of websites is around 172 million, growing by about 4 million new sites per month!

The Solution

Are we in “Troubled times for SEO”? Not really since online marketing is the most measurable type of media. Consequently, given the increased web competition, an online presence should no longer include the aspect of only creating a website but should also include the aspect of planning a complete online marketing strategy using search engine optimization, paid search marketing, and online advertising.

Since its commencement, Eastline has planned, executed, and successfully reached the objectives of many clients concerning their online marketing needs. Since the beginning, our team’s philosophy has been to treat our clients as if they were our partners and bringing to them concrete solutions to complex online problems.

So what are you waiting for? Contact us for more details! 

1. Online Marketing: Key to Global Ambitions for Muslim World based Corporations (April 2007).

2. Internet Usage in the Middle East (Internet World Stats, 2008).

3. Madar Research.