Established in May 2019, The Interactive Advertising Bureau MENA (IAB MENA) is the regional voice and thought leader of the region’s interactive marketing and advertising industry, committed to building a sustainable future for digital advertising.

We are the only trade association exclusively dedicated to the development and promotion of the digital marketing and advertising sector in the region.

As a not-for-profit association, IAB MENA represents the region’s most respected media agencies, publishers, tech platforms and measurement companies. Our members come from a diverse range of stakeholders in the rapidly growing digital marketing and advertising sector in the MENA region, and include numerous small and medium sized enterprises.

We promote industry collaboration among our members to develop standards, best practices, critical research and providing the educational resources businesses need to grow their brands both successfully and sustainably.

If you’re interested in becoming a member visit www.iabmena.com/membership

For 2024, we focused on three objectives: Go Deep, Go Local, Member-led with a definite increase in cross-MENA engagement, increased member input and leadership of our taskforces and more insights across a range of areas. This led to more members than ever, more outputs, more local involvement, more diversity of companies and people, more collaborations.

Our membership eclipsed 70 members for the first time, driven in part by new entrants to the market as interest in MENA as a region has taken centre stage. This was clearly evident at the Adspend event in June which saw record attendance (again) and yet again saw MENA in the top growing markets, reaching $6,4B in digital adspend. One of the ways we responded to this interest in MENA was by producing a number of ECOScapes which allow for visual, easy to follow representation of the key players in MENA, including for pDOOH, Adtech and Retail Media.

As always, our taskforces collaborated on a number of locally written and relevant market guides covering Attention, pDOOH and Data Privacy, which were supported by local research to provide market sentiment, such as for Privacy and attitudes to programmatic.

To expand our contributors we resurrected the MENAVoices series, which now included written perspectives and commentary alongside videos. Giving more voice to more people, we published 58 contributions from our members covering a range of topics, including Retail Media, Women’s Day, CTV, Audio and 2025 Predictions. New initiatives such as ‘In conversation with…’ our in-person personal development networking coffee mornings gave members a moment to pause, and network over personal development topics such as the role of Empathy and Mentorships. To provide a platform for members to share expertise, insights and learning we launched a Masterclass webinar series.

2024 really was the year that members took centre stage!

2023 marked our busiest year to date at IAB MENA. Our membership continued to grow with a 13% increase year-over-year. Task force participation rose to over 135 people representing 65 different companies. We conducted more webinars, more events and released more content than in any previous year.

The year kicked off with an event in January supporting the UN Women Empowerment Principles, resulting in many of our members signing up for the WEP’s, a framework for companies to implement effective DEI strategies.

On a steady release schedule through the year, the seven task forces delivered a series of whitepapers guides and videos on topics such as DOOH, CTV, Attribution and Mixed Reality, complemented by webinars, events and podcasts. To house this new content, our website was enhanced to feature a Knowledge Centre which with the addition of certifications, online training and company profiles, becoming a hub for anyone looking for MENA Digital insights and information. To bring daily life in digital to life, 15 of our young stars across the membership recorded a “Day in the Life” video series, which highlights their job functions, challenges and provides advice, in their own words, to inspire those interested in a career in digital advertising.

Of course, building on previous years, our annual Adspend Survey was our most detailed yet, and attracted record crowds at its release in June 2023. With a market estimated at $5,5B, it was again one of the largest and the fastest growing markets in EMEA.

A new board is appointed representing a cross section of Industry players from Media Agencies, Publishers and Technology platforms. Soon after, a Business Planning and Governance Committee alongside six committees and a series of member sub-committees are launched. The Board appoints an acting Executive Director and an Operations Director to accelerate the Association’s activities and commits to a Diversity target of at least 20% of Board members being female. The IAB GCC reaches a milestone of 40 members including an Advertiser for the first time, despite the pressures of the Global Covid-19 pandemic.

The IAB GCC is officially launched after receiving the go head from the Dubai Chamber of Commerce and the Dubai Association Centre to operate as a non-profit industry association.  The Memorandum of Association and Articles of Association with various governance modules are created. The first research project measuring the video streaming market in KSA and UAE is conducted in collaboration with IAB globally.

The first IAB GCC branded industry event is held to discuss the value of a potential industry funded Adex Study measuring the digital marketing industry in the region for the first time.

A collection of digital industry leaders meet to discuss the formation of an industry body to represent the digital industry in MENA.  After numerous previous attempts were thwarted due to regulatory and other challenges, the industry is determined to make it happen.  An interim board is appointed with 7 companies stepping up to prepare the legal framework, liaise with regulators, establish a business plan to obtain a licence to operate and to begin gaining industry support to join as members.