From automotive and luxury watches to hotels, tourism and sports, and from restaurants and retail to healthcare, across Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Europe.
Luxury automotive
Luxury watches
Restaurants
Automotive
Three ways to work together, depending on where your company stands. Pricing depends on each client’s needs, and you get a written proposal before we start.
A mobility solution for the elderly and people with disabilities during Hajj and Umrah. My role: I developed the concept and secured the sponsor.
SAR 1.3M in marketing spend and one consistent campaign across every branch. My role: marketing leadership.
A campaign budget of about USD 2.7M. My role: campaign consultant and performance review.
We fixed response, qualification and site visits. My role: rebuilding the customer journey with sales.
Three ways to work together. Pick the one that sounds like you:
You have a marketing team or agency at work, but they lack clear direction and someone accountable for the numbers.
Request a proposalYou have a team or agency executing and they need experienced leadership.
You have no one to execute. In that case, my team is the better fit.
You need an experienced marketing manager as part of your management, but the workload does not yet call for a full-time hire.
Request a proposalYour company has grown and needs a marketing manager, but it is too early for a full-time hire.
You need someone present every day of the week.
You have no marketing team, or you want to hand all the work to one party accountable for the result.
Request a proposalYou want results without building a marketing department in-house.
You have a strong team and only need leadership.
No fixed packages. Pricing is set around each client's needs, and you get a written proposal before we start.
Every engagement starts with a diagnostic: a review of the numbers, the accounts and the team, so the plan is built on what's actually there.
Free. I learn the business and the problem, and tell you honestly whether I can help.
Scope, deliverables, timeline and price on one page. Pricing depends on what you need.
In the first two weeks we review the numbers, the accounts and the team. Then comes the plan and execution.
From a store that advertises regularly to a group with branches. What matters is that there are numbers to work with and a decision-maker to talk to.
I've worked in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Europe. Every market has its own prices and customer behaviour, and I work with each client on the market they sell in.
View access to the ad accounts and the store or CRM, and sales figures for the last 3 months.
Your choice. If you have a team or agency, I lead them and review their work. If you don't, my own team executes under my leadership.
No fixed packages. Every client needs something different, so pricing is set around your needs, and you get a written proposal after the intro call.
A selection from 15 years of work. Open any case for the full story: the problem, the decision, what was done, and the number.
A mobility solution for elderly and disabled pilgrims, in a place where traditional advertising is restricted. The outcome: a single sponsor worth SAR 180M.
During Hajj and Umrah, elderly and disabled pilgrims need a safe, comfortable way to move through very large crowds. This service was built specifically for them.
The environment is tightly regulated and traditional advertising is restricted. No billboards, no campaigns in the form any brand is used to.
So the question was: how do you build a brand and bring in a sponsor where there is no advertising space?
Instead of looking for ad space, we made the service itself the platform: it is the brand, the sponsorship space and the visitor experience.
Visitors meet the brand while actually using the service, and the sponsor appears inside something that matters to people, not inside an ad.
One sponsor came in at SAR 180M.
One consistent seasonal campaign across every branch. SAR 48M in sales for the period on SAR 1.3M of marketing spend.
Ramadan is the most important buying season in fashion. The group runs many branches, each with its own audience and demand.
Capture the buying season with one brand and offer experience across all branches, without each branch going out with a different look and message.
One seasonal positioning for the brand, broad reach through social and influencers, and a campaign tied to demand at each branch rather than a generic one.
Sales for the period reached SAR 48M, with marketing spend of SAR 1.3M.
Real demand for a new model without the brand stepping down from its level. Return on ad spend: 32.8×.
The launch of a new model for a luxury brand. In this category, how the campaign looks is part of the product’s value.
Support the launch with clear luxury positioning and, at the same time, generate demand that can be measured. Both together, not one at the expense of the other.
We tied the brand story to the audience’s purchase intent in one launch campaign with clear priorities.
A 32.8× return on roughly USD 2.7M of ad spend.
Linking the brand message to commercial performance in a fiercely competitive market. SAR 73M in sales for the period on a SAR 900K campaign budget.
Quick-service restaurants are among the most competitive markets in Saudi Arabia, and a customer meets the brand in many places in a single day.
An integrated campaign that reaches the customer at every touchpoint, without each channel saying something different.
One message and one commercial measure, instead of each channel working and being measured on its own.
Business sales for the period reached SAR 73M, on a campaign budget of SAR 900K.
Marketing said the numbers looked good while sales kept missing target. In under 60 days the conversion rate doubled on the same budget.
Plenty of leads, very few site visits. Marketing believed its job was done, and sales believed the leads were weak.
The easy answer was to buy more traffic. That would only have made the same problem bigger.
So the problem was not the number of leads. It was what happened after a lead came in.
Leave the ad budget exactly as it was, and fix the journey from first message to site visit to close.
SAR 1.28M in sales from SAR 100K in ads, and no net profit to show for it. In two months net profit rose 180%.
On paper everything looked excellent: SAR 100K in ads brought SAR 1.28M in sales. A ROAS of 12.8.
Yet the owner was not seeing money at the end of it.
Once we calculated net profit after every cost, each riyal of advertising was returning only half a riyal of profit. A POAS of 0.5.
Sales were high, but a large share came from low-margin products, with shipping, returns and payment fees on top.
Stop measuring by sales and measure by profit. Campaigns get built around margin, not around the ROAS figure.
In two months ROAS came down from 12.8 to 8.2, profit per riyal of ads went from 0.5 to 2.4, and net profit rose 180%.
The ROAS number went down, and the company started making money.
A 22-product brand spending USD 15K a month with returns that would not move. The budget was not the problem. How it was split was.
A skincare brand with 22 products selling in Egypt, the UAE and Saudi Arabia. A crowded market with similar prices, and a budget of USD 15K a month.
We found three problems, each with its own fix:
1. We re-split the budget: 40% bottom of funnel, 35% middle, 25% top. Conversion rate reached 2.3× and cost per purchase fell 37%.
2. We added Google alongside Meta: Performance Max and Search. Search click-through reached 7.9%, bounce rate fell 45%, and Google’s return overtook Meta’s.
3. We built a creative matrix per segment: customer content and educational videos. Click-through rose 66%, CPM fell 23%, and purchases tripled.
A residential project in East Cairo with an ad budget of about EGP 3.8M, and a CFO who wanted the campaigns stopped. We decided the opposite.
A week before Ramadan, cost per lead had reached EGP 420. Lead-to-visit conversion stood at 18% and the close rate at 11%.
The whole market cuts spend in Ramadan, and the question in the meeting was: do we stop the campaigns or cut them in half?
Before deciding, we went back to the data from the previous Ramadan:
So fewer people enquire during Ramadan, but the ones who do are more serious.
We raised the budget by 30% instead of cutting it, and changed the whole way of working to fit the month.
After 30 days:
A plastic packaging factory spent about EGP 90K in three months, received around 600 enquiries and won just two customers. Management believed sales could not close.
Figures are approximate, recalled from memory; the client’s name is withheld.
The factory makes packaging for cosmetics and detergents. Cost per enquiry was EGP 150, which looked like good performance in the report.
But out of 600 enquiries, only two became customers.
We went through the enquiries and calls one by one:
So the problem was the kind of demand marketing was generating, and how fast a good request got a clear quote.
Over the following three months, on the same ad spend (approximate figures):
Cost per enquiry rose from EGP 150 to EGP 375, while the cost to acquire a customer fell 75%.
A building operations and maintenance company entered 12 government tenders in a year and won one contract. Management wanted more exhibitions and advertising.
Figures are approximate, recalled from memory; the client’s name is withheld.
One contract worth SAR 900K from 12 tenders. The ready explanation was that the company was “not known enough”.
We reviewed the opportunities with the tendering and operations teams:
The whole programme and proposal preparation cost SAR 240K.
In the following year (approximate figures):
Signed contract value is not collected revenue. Of these contracts, SAR 1.2M of work was delivered within the year studied.
An over-the-counter medicine. Shipments to the distributor were rising, pharmacy reorders were weak and branches had begun asking to return stock. Management saw a bigger discount as the answer.
Figures are approximate, recalled from memory; the client’s name is withheld.
Sales to the distributor were growing on paper, but the product was piling up in pharmacies and not selling through to consumers.
We reviewed sell-out data and visited branches:
Over six months (approximate figures):
The programme group grew 40%, but the control group grew 10% on its own. That is why we do not credit the whole increase to marketing.
A Dubai experiences company spent about AED 120K in three months and got around 240 bookings. The report looked excellent, until finance found that roughly a quarter of them had been cancelled.
Figures are approximate, recalled from memory; the client’s name is withheld.
A quarter of bookings were cancelled, and the average value of a completed booking was lower than expected. The ads were selling, but not everything sold was delivered.
Over the following three months, on the same ad spend (approximate figures):
A dealership spent about SAR 120K in three months, collected around 600 leads and sold only about 12 cars. Management said the audience was not serious and asked for new targeting.
Figures are approximate, recalled from memory; the client’s name is withheld.
The data was sitting in the CRM, but the showroom was not using it. 600 people registered and only 12 bought.
We reviewed the CRM and the calls:
Over the following three months, on the same ad spend (approximate figures):
A clinic management software company spent about EGP 180K in a quarter, collected around 1,200 leads and won only about 20 subscriptions. Management was celebrating a falling cost per lead.
Figures are approximate, recalled from memory; the client’s name is withheld.
Marketing was measured by the number of forms submitted. Cost per lead was EGP 150 and falling, while sales were going backwards.
In the following quarter, on the same campaign cost (approximate figures):
Cost per lead doubled to EGP 300, while the cost to acquire a subscriber fell by about 58%. That figure covers marketing only, excluding sales and onboarding cost.
A private hospital advertised every department in one campaign. In three months it spent about EGP 150K and received around 1,500 enquiries, and only about 180 people came in.
Figures are approximate, recalled from memory; the client’s name is withheld.
The campaign was succeeding in messages and failing in attendance. Management asked for more ads for the best-known doctors.
We traced a sample of calls:
Over the following three months, on the same ad spend (approximate figures):
An aesthetic clinic spent about AED 90K in three months on a “40% off” ad. It received around 900 enquiries, and only about 30 cases went on to a medically suitable procedure.
Figures are approximate, recalled from memory; the client’s name is withheld.
The discount attracted people comparing prices, some of them expecting unrealistic results. Average revenue per case was falling.
Over the following three months, on the same ad spend (approximate figures):
A skincare brand spent about SAR 3M on an influencer campaign and made about SAR 8.4M in sales. Views were high and the return was below target. The next campaign made about SAR 17.6M on the same budget.
Figures are approximate, recalled from memory; the client’s name is withheld.
The budget covered influencer fees, content production and paid amplification. Management was happy with the views, but the return was not convincing.
We analysed each influencer’s results separately:
In three months, on the same campaign cost (approximate figures):
These are sales attributed to the campaign. The exact causal uplift would need a controlled test.
A regional travel company hosted influencers at high cost, and the content only showed how beautiful the place was. People engaged and asked, then stopped at the price and the transfer details.
Figures are approximate, recalled from memory; the client’s name is withheld.
The company sells family packages and experiences, with hotel and operator contracts able to serve thousands of bookings. Engagement was high and bookings were weak.
We reviewed customer conversations. The main reasons bookings were lost:
A 60-branch restaurant chain. Food blogger codes were being used a lot, but management could not tell: was this new demand, or existing customers using the discount?
Figures are approximate, recalled from memory; the client’s name is withheld.
The code report said the campaigns were working. But that report cannot tell a new customer from one who was coming anyway.
Over six weeks (approximate figures):
The estimate holds as long as the branches are comparable and nothing else significant changed in the period.
A store and inventory software company worked with entrepreneurship celebrities and collected thousands of enquiries. Most were still planning to start a business, while the product is built for stores already running.
Figures are approximate, recalled from memory; the client’s name is withheld.
The audience watching was not the one making the buying decision. And a submitted form was being counted as final success.
Over six months (approximate figures):
This is a monthly run-rate after activation, equal to about SAR 13M a year if customers stay. It is not revenue collected during the campaign.
A regional fashion store spent about AED 3M a month on ads and received around 1.2M visits, yet completed sales were only about AED 4.2M. Management wanted new creative and bigger discounts.
Figures are approximate, recalled from memory; the client’s name is withheld.
The traffic was there. The problem was that a visit did not turn into an order that arrives and stays with the customer.
We analysed the journey step by step and found a leak at every stage:
Over eight weeks we fixed the journey in three stages:
Approximate monthly figures once the changes settled, on the same spend and the same traffic:
Development and setup cost AED 300K, once.
A personal care brand was winning tens of thousands of customers, with a thin margin on the first order after advertising. Growth depended on constant acquisition spend, and many customers bought only once.
Figures are approximate, recalled from memory; the client’s name is withheld.
Management tracked total sales without following the value of each customer cohort over time. And the products are naturally repurchased.
We analysed the customer cohorts:
To measure it properly, we split 200,000 new customers at random into two equal groups, one on the usual communication and one in the programme, and followed them for 12 months.
After 12 months, with about 100,000 customers in each group (approximate figures):
The programme’s additional cost was about SAR 2M. The SAR 480 is the customer’s value over 12 months only, not full lifetime value.
To me, marketing isn't a cost. It's an investment, and it has to pay back.
I'm Youssef Khalil. I started in 2010, hands-on in execution, asking myself one question after every campaign: what did the company actually gain from this?
That question is what made me grow. It moved me away from chasing likes and toward the numbers business owners really care about: sales, margin and cost per customer.
Fifteen years on, I've led marketing for brands and entire groups across Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Europe, in industries that have nothing to do with each other: from automotive and luxury watches to hotels, sports, restaurants and healthcare.
What I took from all of it: the rules are the same in every market and every industry, but the details are what win or lose. My job is to get those details right.
A social media specialist, writing, designing and launching campaigns myself. That's where I learned what works on the ground and what only gets said in meetings.
I became responsible for more than one market at once: brands being built, integrated campaigns, and teams covering every discipline.
I led marketing for one of the largest groups in Saudi Arabia, with very different companies under one roof: retail and fashion, healthcare, technology, real estate, mobility services and media production.
I've worked as a consultant with brands like Mercedes-Benz, and with companies entering new markets or rebuilding their marketing from scratch.
I've trained business owners and marketing students at events and major companies across the Gulf, passing on what I learned from the work itself, not from books.
I lead the client's marketing team, or my team delivers all the work under my leadership. Either way, I'm accountable for the result.
I don't ask what ad you want. I ask where you want to get to, and work back from that goal to the plan.
Twenty industries and several markets mean I've already met most of what you're facing, and I know what worked and what wasted money.
I've led teams of up to 35. Strategy becomes weekly priorities with a clear owner for everything.
The campaign isn't the finish line. What happens to the customer and the business after the campaign is what counts.
That's why I handle the whole journey: from the moment the customer first sees you, to when they pay, to when they come back and buy again.
And I work on:
Three series. Pick the one you want and open its videos.
The idea: Intro videos about me: who I am, where I started, and how I work.
The goal: Get to know me and how I think before we talk. I'll add new intro videos here as they're finished.
The idea: A series of short videos drawn on notebook paper with a stick figure. Each video explains one marketing idea in about a minute.
The goal: A business owner understands their numbers and decisions without jargon. Each video answers one question, such as: is this discount making me money? Is this ROAS good? When do I scale the ad?
Do the maths on the offer before you launch it: maximum discount, returns and real profit.
When sales drop, the problem is usually somewhere other than the ad.
Earn from the same customer more than once, whether you sell a product or a service.
The four stages that make an ad win: from the first test to scaling.
The idea: Each episode takes a historic event people know, puts me in it as a marketer, and asks: what if someone had applied one marketing concept before the decision was made?
The goal: A marketing concept is understood and remembered through a story, not a lecture. Each film leaves you with one lesson you can apply in your company.
Each film comes with a carousel explaining the marketing ideas in it. Swipe through. The slides are in Arabic.
Youssef’s dictionary for the Pasha: 10 marketing terms from the film, with the real lesson on the last slide.
Youssef’s advice to the Emperor: 10 marketing tips, each with a mistake in it and the right version beside it.
Episode 4: Ramses II and the Battle of Kadesh. Coming soon.
The first intro call is free. If I can't add value, I'll tell you from the start.