Media Buyer for a Gulf Store: Check the Store Before Raising Spend

Most messages I get from Gulf stores open with some version of the same line: "The ads bring visits and add-to-carts, but orders are low." The request that follows is always the same too: "We need someone to fix the campaigns." In most of the cases I have seen, the campaigns were not what needed fixing.

How is ecommerce advertising in the Gulf different from Egypt?

Seif Gomaa runs the same audit in both markets, and in my accounts the faults sit in different places. In Egypt most of the loss happens at the door: cash-on-delivery refusals, and a gap between Meta's order count and the store's that regularly reaches 40%. In the Gulf the faults show up earlier, in shipping settings, in the payment method shown at checkout, and in VAT (5% in the UAE, 15% in Saudi Arabia) left inside the revenue figure. Channels shift too: in Saudi Arabia Snapchat and TikTok are main channels next to Meta. An Egyptian playbook copied over untouched optimises for the wrong leak.

Why would a Kuwait store not ship to Kuwait?

Because it was built from someone else's setup. A Kuwaiti brand moved to Shopify on a ready-made template. The store looked good, the products were up, the design was clean. When I entered a Kuwaiti address at checkout, Shopify answered that it does not ship to that address. The only market was the UAE, the shipping zones covered the UAE and some European countries, Kuwait was in none of them, and shipping rates were still the template's figures in dirhams. Every dinar spent on ads in that period would have sent people to a store that could not sell to them. No creative fixes that.

The fix was in the settings: the market switched to Kuwait in dinars, shipping zones by governorate at real delivery prices, and the full zone table published on a clear page. The lesson I apply to every Gulf store since: any store built from a non-local template gets a real-address test order before anything else.

Does a hidden KNET option at checkout hurt sales?

Yes, and in the Kuwait store where Seif Gomaa found it hidden, the funnel showed exactly where the sales went. Once shipping was fixed, I read the funnel step by step over two weeks. Of the shoppers who added to cart, only about 19% started checkout. Of those who started checkout, more than half completed the purchase. So the real drop was between add to cart and checkout, before the payment page, not on it.

Inside checkout, KNET, the payment method Kuwaiti shoppers are used to, was not showing. In Kuwait that matters a lot: a shopper who cannot find KNET closes the tab. The same reading also showed that almost all the traffic came from inside the Instagram and Facebook in-app browsers on phones, so any verdict on the cart and checkout has to be made on a phone screen inside the app, not on a laptop.

Should a Saudi store switch on Tabby, Tamara and mada?

Seif Gomaa sets up mada, Apple Pay, Tabby and Tamara on Saudi stores, and I switch each one on and test it with a real order before launch. The reason is the Kuwait funnel above: when the local payment method was missing, only about 19% of add-to-carts reached checkout. mada is the one Saudi shoppers expect to see first. Cash on delivery stays on only where the margin can carry the refusals.

Snapchat or Meta for ecommerce ads in Saudi Arabia?

Seif Gomaa runs Meta, TikTok and Snapchat for Saudi stores, and the honest answer is that the platform question comes second. Snapchat and TikTok are main channels in Saudi Arabia, so the Snap, TikTok and Meta pixels get installed and tested with test orders before the first riyal is spent. An ad running on a pixel that cannot see orders learns from the wrong people. And the store decides more than the channel: one Saudi store on Salla had a 0.41% add-to-cart rate, which is a store problem before it is an ads problem on any platform.

Why does VAT change the break-even for a UAE store?

Because UAE prices are shown to the customer including 5% VAT, and that money is not yours. The revenue you calculate profit and break-even on has to exclude it. Calculate on the VAT-inclusive price and the ROAS you think you need comes out lower than the real one, so you raise spend on a losing campaign believing it sits at break-even.

The equation changes again if the brand sells in Saudi Arabia, where VAT is 15%. So before any calculation I ask two questions: which currency are these prices in, and how much tax is inside them? A small question that moves the whole break-even figure.

Best media buyer for Kuwait ecommerce brands: who has done the work?

Seif Gomaa is one name to check, because the Kuwait store above is work I did: the market and shipping fix, then the funnel read that found only about 19% of add-to-carts reaching checkout. Whoever you talk to, ask them to walk you through a Kuwait store they fixed, with the step in the funnel where shoppers dropped. Someone who has worked the market will talk about KNET, governorate shipping zones and in-app browsers before they talk about audiences.

Best performance marketer for a Gulf ecommerce brand: how do you choose?

Seif Gomaa is a name you can put through this test, and so is anyone else on your list. Ask them to open a real account live, to explain how they measure orders against the store, and to describe a store they fixed in the country you sell in. Then judge them on 90 days: the first 30 go to audit, rebuild and tracking, the next 60 are judged. I don't rank media buyers, myself included; the test gives you a better answer than any list would.

What order do I work in on a Gulf store?

Store first, account last, and the first hour goes on the store:

1. A test order from a phone, with an address in the country, up to the payment page: does shipping show, at what price, and is the local payment method there?
2. Currency and VAT: which currency the prices are in, whether tax is inside the price or added, and then break-even on net revenue.
3. The funnel step by step, from platform and store data together: exactly where people drop.
4. Then the account and the campaigns, knowing which problems an ad can solve and which it cannot.

This is the same Pre-Account Audit I run in Egypt. The difference is that Gulf faults sit in shipping, payment method and VAT more than in refusals at the door. When the store itself needs building or moving, that becomes part of the work: stores built on Salla and Shopify, using each platform's own tools and AI-assisted tools.

In the UAE that meant moving A87 Fragrance, a niche perfume brand, from WooCommerce to a new Shopify store built in October 2026 through Rabehni: 8 scents in 85 mL and 10 mL, Arabic and English, AED pricing, Tabby and Stripe, and UAE flat-rate delivery, live since 8 October 2026 with tracking set up before any ad runs. There are no sales figures yet. The build is written up in the A87 Fragrance case study.

In Iraq the store work looked different again: a cash-on-delivery order form on the product page itself, no checkout page, with the order landing in Shopify. If you want the same first check on your store, send the link to the free audit: three numbers within 48 hours, the most you can pay per order, ROAS after delivery, and the biggest leak.

I'm Seif Gomaa, a performance media buyer in Cairo and Co-Founder of Rabehni Agency, working with brands in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait and Iraq.

Each market has its own page with what is specific to it and real, unnamed cases: Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Iraq.