How Much Does a Facebook Fan Cost in the Arab World?

January 2013
Presented by The Online Project

Presented by The Online Project 2

Introduction
Why read this report?

The use of social media by brands to engage with
customers and prospects continues to grow in the Arab
world. Brands are using platforms like Facebook to convert
daily interactions with audiences into lasting relationships
that will ultimately drive business objectives. Statistics
indicate that the average user spends 6 hours and half
on Facebook every month*, giving brands ample time to
connect with audiences.

After setting up a brand page and creating engaging
content, you need to recruit relevant fans to your brand, a
process usually done through advertising, so you have an
audience to engage with. But how can you measure whether
your Facebook ads are successful or not? Because scarce
resources exist in the Arab world on the cost associated
with recruiting fans through the platform, we set out to
benchmark this. We also explain how the platform works
and what factors influence the costs associated with fan
recruitment, so you can be able to benchmark and optimize
the performance of your ads.

In this report, we shed light on the average cost per fan in
11 countries in the Arab world across eight industries. We
picked these broad industries based on their popularity on

* Source: https://www.facebook.com/business/power-of-advertising

How Much Does a Facebook Fan Cost in the Arab World?


Facebook. If you cannot find your industry in our report,
then you can benchmark against the one that is most
relevant.

For example, the average cost per fan for a travel agency
might be close to that in the airlines industry. For this
report, we selected the following industries:

1. Telecom
2. Consumer Goods
3. Automotives
4. Airlines
5. Electronics
6. Fashion (designers, retailers, apparel)
7. Banking and Finance
8. Public Figures

Why use the Facebook advertising platform?

According to statistics in December 2012, over 44 million
Arabs are using Facebook, making the platform the ideal
choice for brands to use when it comes to utilizing social
media for business goals. For advertisers, this becomes
even more relevant, especially because its social targeting
options are most credible and accurate. According to a
Nielsen study, when targeting niche and bored groups,
Facebook reaches its intended audience 90% and 95%
of the time, versus online industry averages of 35% and
72%*, respectively. When you couple this with the fact that

* Source: https://www.facebook.com/business/fmc/guides/measurement



the cost of advertising on Facebook is subject to a bidding
process based on supply and demand, this makes the
platform both cost-efficient and effective.

What does ‘Fan Acquisition’ mean?

Acquiring fans on Facebook does not mean that you are
‘paying’ audiences to like your page, a misconception
often referred to as ‘buying fans’. The difference between
the two definitions, besides the fact that fan-buying is
unethical (and short-sighted), is that fan acquisition
targets relevant audience groups that are likely to engage
with your page content. The goal is to acquire the right
fans, people who represent your target audience, and who
might buy your product or service, spread the word about
your brand, thus attracting more potential customers.
Inflating fan base numbers will only jeopardize your
credibility and deter you from achieving your business
objectives. So the goal is to focus on quality likes, not
fans by the dozen. Another important point to consider
is that fan-buying is simply for the sake of acquiring fan
count; whereas the point of fan acquisition is to build a
community that you can engage and build a relationship
with.



Data
& Findings
The visualized data demonstrate important metrics, such
as reach and performance – which we shall elaborate
on in this report – alongside the average cost per fan by
industry in 11 countries in the Arab world.

Bahrain



Egypt

Iraq



Jordan

Kuwait



Lebanon

Oman



Palestine

Qatar



KSA

UAE



How does Facebook
Advertising work?
Factors Affecting the Cost

The Facebook advertising platform is based on an automatic
bidding system; which means there is no fixed cost per
click, per impression or per fan. What happens is that
you set a bid amount either per click or per one thousand
impressions and that would be the maximum price you are
willing to pay. Then, the cost will be determined according
to that amount along with other factors that include reach,
performance, and competitors’ ads.

1. Reach: this estimates the number of users you
are targeting using Facebook advertising targeting
parameters. The more users you are able to reach,
the higher your chances of getting a lower cost.

2. Performance: to measure how good your ad is to
the target audience, pay close attention to the Click
through Rate (CTR), which is the percentage of users
who clicked on your ad relative to how many times
your ad appeared. A higher CTR means that your costs
will be significantly lower.

To improve your CTR, your ad must be relevant to
your target audience. For example, when you target
users who are using the Arabic interface, your ad



should be in Arabic to increase your chance of
achieving a high CTR.

3. Competitors’ ads: this factor refers to other
advertisers who are targeting the same audience.
Their bid amount and the performance of their ads
can have a significant effect on your ad’s cost. A
crucial factor here is that the number of competing
ads affects your cost; this is directly proportional
with the cost of your ads.

It is very important to understand that you can’t
control this factor, since it is not possible for anyone
to access your competitors’ bidding information.
However, the suggested bid amount provided by
Facebook can be a good indicator here. Competitors’
CTRs are also not accessible. Yet, you can have a
general idea about that after your campaign starts.
For instance, if you set the same bid amount for two
campaigns with the same CTR, and your second
campaign is more expensive, this means your
competitors’ performance is better than in the first
one. In this case, you have the choice of lowering
your bid amount. But then your ad will appear less to
your audience, giving the chance to the advertisers
who have better CTRs and higher bids to appear
more.

What insights can we conclude from this report?

To make more sense of the data and graphs in this report,
we shared a few findings from the hundreds of campaigns
we have worked on at The Online Project. While some
of the insights can be generalized to some countries
or industries, we still encourage that you observe what



trends may rise in your communities, as each audience
differs from the next.

1. Qatar has the highest average cost per fan, while
Egypt has the lowest average cost. We believe that
this is due to the fact that ads in Egypt have higher
reach, because it has over 11 million Facebook
users.

2. For some reason, ads for banking and financial
institutions are more expensive than in other
industries in most countries in the Arab world.

3. In most of the countries, the public figures category
has a low average cost per fan. We can assume
that most people like to click on ads that contain a
picture of a person, and if the face is recognizable,
then it is more likely to get clicks.

4. The airlines, telecom and consumer goods industries
have a relatively low cost per fan in all countries.
While the electronics and fashion industries have a
higher average cost per fan in most countries.

5. The automotives industry doesn’t have the same
cost pattern in all countries. The cost of acquiring
fans in this industry fluctuates from one country to
the other.

6. The UAE has the lowest engagement rate with
ads (CTR). This explains the high average cost per
fan compared to other countries that have similar
number of Facebook users (Reach) such as Jordan
and Iraq. This means that people in the UAE are less
inclined to click on ads.

7. Saudi Arabia has the lowest average cost per fan
among the GCC countries. Obviously, this is due to
the high number of Facebook users in comparison
to the other GCC countries.



Methodology
The numbers above are compiled from campaigns run by
the Online Project over the past year. We determined the
number of Facebook users per country by extracting the
number of potential users we can reach upon designing
an ad targeting all users in that country.

It is important to understand that these numbers are
average numbers. They provide a general idea on the main
differences among countries and industries. Providing
exact numbers will be difficult, since as explained earlier
in “Factors Affecting the Cost”, the factors affecting
these numbers are ever-changing. It is worth noting that
the data above is drawn from advertising for top pages
with a solid fan base, so the cost of acquiring fans are
likely to be significantly less if you have just launched
your Facebook presence.

In conclusion, what the data reveals is that the cost of
acquiring fans on Facebook fluctuates according to the
industry you operate in. If you optimize your ad content
and make it relevant to your audience, then you can
reduce the cost per acquiring one fan below the average
in your industry and or country.



About TOP
As the Middle East’s leading social media agency,
The Online Project develops and executes social media
strategies for Fortune 500 companies and high profile
organizations operating in the region.



Contact Us
For general inquiries please email info@theonlineproject.me

Dubai Riyadh Amman
Tel: +971 4 428 0731 Tel: +966 1 463 4462 Tel: +962 6 465 8209
Fax: +971 4 429 3236 Fax: +966 1 462 Fax: +962 6 465 8206
7th Floor, Thuraya 2 6413 P.O. Box 840616
Dubai Media City Al Rabiah Building Amman 11184
P.O. Box 500717 Olaya Riyadh, KSA Jordan
Dubai, UAE


How Much Does a Facebook Fan Cost in the Arab World?

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