Charlotte McEleny meets Tom Cogan, programmatic associate director at Assembly Global, to discuss the future of programmatic and how different channels excel in the MENA region...

The MENA digital ad market is growing fast, but most brands are still fishing in the same two ponds. Tom Cogan, programmatic associate director at Assembly Global in Dubai, makes the case for going wider, across CTV, audio, DOOH, and even AI-powered search, and explains why last-click attribution is the biggest obstacle standing in the way.

How does the CTV opportunity actually look in MENA right now?

Access to CTV in MENA is still developing, with ad-supported VOD options from major global players (like Prime Video, Netflix, and Disney+) lagging behind and fragmented across platforms.

For now, YouTube remains the dominant video entry point for advertisers, including on the big screen, where 30–60% of viewers watch via a connected TV. When planned smartly with programmatic tools, its scale can deliver real audience precision.

Meanwhile, local platforms like Shahid and Starzplay are expanding the ecosystem with strong CTV offerings. There’s still ground to cover on scale and targeting compared to North America, but MENA is catching up fast.

One key difference is audience behaviour: less than 10% of viewers in MENA have paid for ad-free streaming, versus over 80% in North America. That gap is a major opportunity for brands to reach audiences through ad-supported content.

Combined with the region’s appetite for flexibility and transparency, the building blocks are in place for a premium programmatic market where every dirham works harder.

What other emerging channels are making it onto MENA media plans?

Aside from CTV, several other opportunities are becoming staples in our media plans.

For starters, digital audio; with podcast listening in MENA being 39% higher than the global average. Podcast ads are already a no-brainer for MENA advertisers and a surefire way to capitalise on an audience of highly engaged listeners via a contextually relevant medium, proven to deliver brand messages with instant trust established from a user’s favourite content.

A personal favourite of mine is the growth of programmatic DOOH we’ve seen in this last year and JCDecaux’s launch of programmatically available screens in what is the world’s busiest international airport, DXB.

The power of DOOH, paired with the agility and flexibility of programmatic buying, presents an opportunity for established advertisers to maximise value and for smaller advertisers to access a channel that commands remarkable reach, trust, and exposure.

The emerging channel making the most noise right now is paid advertising within LLMs, and rightly so. The level of intent a consumer displays when querying an AI assistant goes beyond anything we’ve seen in any channel before. Someone asking an AI what car to buy, where to travel, or which bank to switch to isn’t browsing; they’re deciding. That makes the development of ads within AI conversations one of the most significant opportunities in the history of performance marketing.

What’s the case for going omnichannel in MENA specifically?

In today’s fragmented digital landscape, each person’s media consumption looks vastly different. Relying on just one or two channels is wishful thinking if your goal is sustainable growth. Advertisers who test and scale new formats and inventory unlock incremental reach and find new customers in unexpected places.

Sticking to the same big platforms means competing with everyone, driving up costs and leaving all the heavy lifting to creative. A broader omnichannel approach finds untapped opportunities your competitors ignore, lowering costs and filling your funnel more cost-effectively.

Multiple touchpoints matter. Research shows omnichannel strategies strengthen brand salience and boost ROI. In a study from The Trade Desk, adding each new channel dropped CPA by an average of 22%, which is hard to ignore.

If the case is that strong, why are brands still concentrating spend on Google and Meta?

There’s a stat from GWI that earns its place at the start of most of our decks. The average adult in MENA spends 75% of their digital time outside of social media (including YouTube). With an average screen time of 8 hours a day, that’s 6 hours where brands could be reaching potential customers across the open web and emerging channels, and most aren’t.

Most brands in the region are set up to assign credit to the last click and right now, that’s almost always Google Search or Meta. Google benefits from its position at the bottom of the funnel, where purchase intent is at its highest. Meta benefits from its retargeting capabilities, which keep it present close to the point of conversion, allowing it to capture the final credit.

The result is that clients have no simple, reliable way to quantify what emerging channels are actually contributing to the bottom line and without that, it’s nearly impossible to justify shifting budget toward them.

The practical answer, for now, is to start small and measure deliberately. Incrementality testing and multi-touch attribution are all imperfect tools but they’re available, and they’re far better than defaulting to last-click logic.

But the measurement landscape is changing. The technological advancements happening right now- cleaner supply chains, better data collaboration, and more sophisticated attribution modelling, suggest we’re not far from a world where the full journey starts to get the credit it deserves.

Supply chain transparency has been a topic of industry conversation for years. Where does MENA sit on that?

One clear priority in the market today is transparency and a cleaner supply chain.

Globally, brands and agencies are getting closer than ever to inventory sources, with deal desks and innovations like OpenSincera rewriting the rules.

Locally, this resonates deeply with MENA advertisers, many of whom still remember less transparent buying practices of the past. Today, the focus is on cleaner supply paths, less wastage, and fewer unnecessary add-on costs, all of which are driving impressive YoY growth as advertisers lean into full-funnel, omnichannel programmatic strategies.

What’s your outlook for the next 12 months?

With significant strides happening globally and locally, MENA advertisers stand to gain significantly by adopting omnichannel programmatic strategies, including emerging channels like CTV. The supply chain is stronger than ever, and capabilities are improving daily to deliver even greater precision.

The momentum is here and now’s the time for brands to rethink their media mix, test boldly, and make sure no ad spend goes to waste. This is how we shape the next chapter of programmatic growth in a prospering MENA market. It’s an exciting time to be part of it.

Charlotte Mceleny is our APAC and MENA columnist. Check out all her ExchangeWire features here.