How programmatic curation is reshaping MENA's advertising challenges
MENA's digital advertising landscape has reached a pivotal moment. Marketers and buyers must navigate an ecosystem of platforms and channels while contending with evolving privacy regulations, heightened brand safety concerns, and demands for more precise audience engagement. As traditional programmatic approaches show their limitations, programmatic curation is emerging as a strategic solution.
One that aligns perfectly with regional regulatory developments like Saudi Arabia's Personal Data Protection Law (PDPL) and the region's rapidly expanding Connected TV (CTV) market.
Why programmatic curation has become essential in the MENA region
Programmatic curation is reshaping how advertisers in MENA manage their digital inventory, offering greater control over premium placements while seamlessly integrating audience data for more effective targeting.
As regional brands prioritise quality and brand safety, curation delivers the transparency and fraud protection essential for building consumer trust, complementing existing programmatic strategies through enhanced precision and relevance.
When combined with supply path optimisation and contextual targeting – particularly with emphasis on Arabic-language content and cultural sensitivity – programmatic curation creates a stronger foundation for digital advertising success in the MENA region.
Finally, curation is the most effective way to run a programmatic campaign across multiple countries, ensuring both quality and efficiency. For instance, tourism brands in MENA looking to target European and Asian markets can leverage curation to build high-quality, brand-safe marketplaces tailored to each region.
By selecting premium publishers, vetted inventory, and relevant audience segments, they can ensure their ads appear in the most impactful environments while maintaining control over transparency and performance.
Unlike open-market buying, which can be fragmented and riskier for a brand with stringent guidelines, curation allows them to streamline their strategy, access top-tier inventory with ease, and launch campaigns in new markets quickly maximising reach, relevance, and return on investment.
Enhancing addressability in a privacy-first world
Curation's most valuable contribution is how it enhances addressability in an increasingly privacy-conscious marketplace. While global markets have transitioned to first-party data strategies, many MENA publishers are still in the early stages of adoption.
Curation bridges this gap through collaborative partnerships where publishers and advertisers can create tailored audience segments within premium environments without relying on third-party identifiers.
This approach benefits both sides. Publishers see stronger revenue through fair CPMs and guaranteed deals, while advertisers gain access to high-quality inventory with precise targeting. In a multilingual market where audiences engage with content in Arabic, English, and increasingly South Asian languages, curation ensures advertisements maintain contextual relevance to target audiences.
The result is dynamic pricing models that reflect true audience value, building a more efficient ecosystem focused on quality rather than volume.
The potential of CTV in MENA
Curation solutions play a key role in CTV, which is rapidly emerging as the next frontier in programmatic advertising. While CTV offers unique inventory opportunities and access to rich audience segments, its diversity across multiple platforms and publishers adds a layer of complexity. Curation helps bring clarity to this fragmented space by refining inventory selection and ensuring precise audience targeting.
With centralised data activation and consistent measurement, curation streamlines cross-platform campaign execution, preserving inventory quality while enabling seamless scaling across markets. This ensures campaign effectiveness at every level of activation.
For example, a luxury automotive brand looking to engage high-net-worth consumers in MENA can leverage curation to access premium CTV inventory across different local Video on Demand services, focusing on drama and documentary genres where affluent, culturally engaged viewers are most active. This approach ensures ads appear in high-quality, brand-suitable environments that resonate with the target audience.
Maximising success through implementation
Successful curation strategies strike a balance between revenue optimisation and performance management. In MENA, where many premium publishers still rely heavily on direct deals, curation presents an opportunity to shift more revenue into programmatic without sacrificing pricing control.
Publishers can protect inventory value while driving optimal yield by layering curated marketplaces with high-CPM direct deals, PMPs, programmatic guaranteed campaigns, and strategic preferred deals backed by supply path optimisation (SPO).
With SPO gaining traction in MENA, advertisers are increasingly focused on cost efficiency and reducing unnecessary ad tech fees. Strategic sell-side technology integrations and secure data partnerships enhance programmatic capabilities, ensuring precise audience targeting at scale while maintaining control over media quality.
For buyers, tracking key performance metrics – such as viewability, brand safety, return on ad spend (ROAS), and cross-platform attribution – is essential to maximising curation's effectiveness.
These insights enable continuous optimisation, helping publishers refine their approach and unlock stronger results. A combination of strategic implementation and rigorous measurement ensures that curation delivers both performance and protection while preserving the value of premium inventory.
The future of programmatic curation in MENA
As programmatic advertising matures, curation provides the structure needed to navigate MENA's shifting regulatory landscape while adapting to new channels. With data privacy laws tightening across the region – though at different speeds in each market – curation offers a way to maintain targeting precision without compromising compliance.
Looking ahead, AI-driven optimisation, deeper integration with first-party data, and enhanced cross-channel capabilities will further elevate curation's role in programmatic strategy. As these innovations take shape, curation will remain essential for balancing performance with control, ensuring advertisers and publishers can drive meaningful outcomes in an evolving digital ecosystem.
For marketers navigating MENA's rapidly evolving digital landscape, the time to act is now. Curation aligns the interests of advertisers, publishers, and audiences by prioritising quality, relevance, and brand safety – critical factors in a region where premium inventory and audience trust are key.
Businesses that embrace curation's strategic potential will be better positioned to run privacy-compliant, highly targeted campaigns that drive meaningful engagement and measurable results in MENA.
By Amélie Grenier-Bolay, Country Manager, Italy and MENA, PubMatic
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