Where does the Egyptian customer spend their time?
Facebook and Instagram are still the widest-reaching platforms in Egypt and work for most products, from personal care to home furnishing. TikTok has become an important source of sales, especially for products that can be shown in a short video and appeal to a younger audience. Google matters when customers search for the product themselves, such as furniture or specialist products.
We don't recommend starting on every platform at once. Start with one or two that suit your product, collect enough data, then expand. That is how we worked with a healthy food brand: we started with direct-response campaigns on Meta, then added TikTok once we knew which angles convinced the customer.
Cash on delivery: how do you protect your margin?
A large share of orders in Egypt is paid on delivery. That raises the number of orders, but it also opens the door to non-serious orders and returns. So the order count in Ads Manager is not enough; what matters is how many orders were confirmed and delivered.
- Confirm each order by call or WhatsApp within hours
- A product page that is clear on price, sizes and exchange policy
- An offer that rewards prepayment, like a small discount or free shipping
- Track couriers and the delivery rate in each region
We track the confirmation and delivery rates for every campaign with the store team, and calculate cost per order and return on delivered orders only. When returns come from one campaign, we review its message and audience. This is a core part of our paid ads management, not a side detail.
Trust before price
Egyptian customers compare a lot and ask before they buy: is it original? Will it arrive as it looks in the photo? What if I don't like it? Content that answers these questions sells more than content that only looks good.
That is why we rely heavily on UGC videos of real people using the product, on customer reviews, and on packaging and delivery shots. This is what our ad creative team delivers, alongside social media management that answers comments and messages quickly, because an unanswered question is a lost order.
The store: a website or messages?
Many brands in Egypt sell through messages only. That works at the start, but it makes measurement hard and eats the team's time. When we moved a handmade cushions brand from selling in messages to a website, the return rose from 3 to 5 and monthly sales passed 250K EGP.
The store does not need to be complicated. It needs to be fast on mobile, have few checkout steps, and have tracking set up correctly. See what we build on the e-commerce stores page, and read about Shopify in particular in our Shopify store marketing guide.
Sales seasons in Egypt
Ramadan and the two Eids are the biggest seasons of the year for most categories, White Friday in November has become an important season, and back-to-school and late summer matter for some categories. Spending power also shifts within the month, and is usually higher at the start, after salaries are paid.
Preparing for a season starts weeks before it: getting creative ready, testing offers, and building retargeting audiences. Whoever waits for the first day of the season pays more in the ad auction and gets less back.
How much budget do you need?
The minimum we start with in Egypt is 30K EGP a month in ad spend, paid directly from your card to the platforms, with our service fee kept separate. That is enough to collect real data and test a reasonable number of ads, and once results hold steady we raise the budget gradually.
For comparison: the hair care brand we worked with made more than 20M EGP in sales within one year, at a 6.8x return, after we started by understanding the market and defining 3 real customer segments.