AGENCY BIO

Google’s mission is to organise the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.

What is the primary media on your platform?
All media: search queries are performed with text, images, video and more. Google’s ad platforms and services help advertisers connect with people based on what they want (intent), what matters to them (identity) and what they’ll find useful (context) at any moment.

What do people know you as?
Search provides relevant and helpful results for people around the world.

Biggest misconception about the platform
There is a misconception that the majority of users in MENA search in English. In fact, most users in MENA search for information in Arabic and prefer to communicate in the same language.

What can you do best for brands?
Help advertisers and businesses drive awareness and conversions for their products and services.

What social media story do people in the region best know
the platform for?
An ad campaign named ‘Ask Google’, designed to raise awareness about the helpfulness of Google search in a local/relevant context.

What are the KPIs brands look for on your platform?
Many KPIs depending on each brand’s objectives, including impressions, CTR, conversion rate, etc.

What features for marketers have you launched recently?
Posts on Google: This feature allows verified public figures, teams, TV shows, musicians and organisations to post directly on Search, keeping people up to date with the latest information.
Google Trends: Marketers can use this site, which is based on Google Search results, to understand what is top-of-mind and how people are searching for certain topics or events.
Shopping ads: Shopping ads include rich product information such as product image and price. Advertisers can use these visual ads to reach people who are already searching for products, so they are more likely to take action.

What features can we look forward to in the next year? Google will continue to bring the latest AI innovation to improve language understanding in Search, making results more relevant and helpful for people around the world. In the future, Google Assistant will not only understand and speak Arabic better, but will be able to do further third-party actions on your device.

Do you have anything special planned for Ramadan?
Google is planning to launch some product features designed to help people experience more of Ramadan.

Viewpoint

Charbel Sarkis

Head of travel and hospitality, retail and e-commerce at Google MENA

What would you like to see brands doing more of on your platform?

Every search query is unique with its own intent and signals. Understanding context and being there at the right time with the right message requires brands to take advantage of the latest machine-learning-based Search automation tools so they are most helpful in driving actions on their websites or apps.