Speakol’s Ad Review Process
Below are the 4 phases an ad goes through before being approved by our Speakol team.
Step 1: Compliance Check.
Speakol’s account manager checks and approves ads to ensure that policy compliance is upheld before publishing. This process usually takes place within 48 working hours.
Step 2: Content Review.
The reviewer checks the content, image, text, target, and landing page of any given ad.
Step 3: Status Notification.
Once the review is completed, the advertiser receives a status notification indicating the result and outlining the required changes.
Step 4: Revision.
In non-compliance, the advertiser can edit and revise the content, targeting options, or landing pages. Then, he can resubmit for approval.
Speakol Glossary
1. A/B Testing
A/B Testing is a process of comparing two versions of one different element while maintaining all other variables. This variable can include a title, thumbnail, or landing page. A/B testing aims to increase user engagement, leading to the ad campaign’s success.
2. Actions
These are activities that take place on the advertisers’ website; they may vary but are not limited to pageviews, sign-ups, or purchases. These Speakol Pixel tracks these actions and records them on the advertisers’ tracking page.
3. Account ID
This is the Speakol account unique identifier.
4. Account
Advertisers have particular accounts associated with their unique email addresses, passwords, and billing details. An advertiser’s account can consist of one or more campaigns.
5. Automatic Billing
It is a form of scheduled billing. Advertisers are charged an amount that has been previously settled on with Speakol. This amount is the budget that the ad campaign can spend before advertisers have to pay again. Typically, the billing fee is around $100.
6. Average CPC
The Average Cost Per Click represents the average amount of money advertisers are charged every time one of their campaign ads is clicked. You can calculate the average by dividing the total cost of clicks by the total number of clicks the campaign ads receive.
7. Brand Name
The text appears under the advertisers’ campaign ad titles or thumbnails within the Speakol Widget. The branding text informs users of the brand behind the article, which gives the product or website a sense of credibility.
8. Campaign
It is the advertisers’ ad campaigns. It is where advertisers can set their branding text, budget, and CPC, specify their target audience, and add campaign ads. The advertiser can have more than one running campaign at a time.
9. Campaign Ads
Campaign Ads are displayed within the Speakol Widget to be viewed by users.
10. Clicks
They are the total number of user clicks that the advertiser’s campaign ads have received.
11. Contextual Targeting
This feature allows advertisers to target particular publishers or websites interested in specific fields that their ad campaigns aim to promote. If advertisers settle on a particular content-type to target, their campaign ads will only appear on websites that present the same content. So for instance, if the advertiser has a beauty product, the campaign ads for this campaign will only appear on beauty and skincare websites.
12. Conversion
Conversion takes place once a user takes action on your landing page. This conversion can be a pageview, an email sign-up, or a product purchase, among other measures that may be relevant to you and your line of business.
13. CVR
Conversion Rate indicates the percentage of users who have clicked on your Speakol campaign ads and successfully completed a conversion. This conversion may include but is not limited to purchasing of a product, a pageview, or email sign-up. You can calculate the Conversion Rate by dividing the number of users, who completed a an action, by the number of users who clicked on your campaign ads.
14. Conversion Tracking
By installing the Speakol Pixel, advertisers can track conversions that take place on landing pages after users click on their Speakol campaign ads.
15. Conversion Tracking Code
Advertisers need to place a code on their website to track the conversions that occur after users click on their Speakol campaign ads.
16. CPA
Cost Per Action indicates the amount of money advertisers pay when users become new customers. By completing an action on the advertiser’s website such as filling in a form, signing up, or adding a product to cart, the reader becomes a lead. You can calculate a campaign’s average CPA by dividing the total amount of money spent by the number of actions.
17. CPC
Cost Per Click indicates the amount of money the advertiser pays for each click one of his campaign ads receives.
18. CPV
Cost per Video Click indicates the amount of money the advertiser pays every time a user clicks or views his videos to completion.
19. CPM
Cost per One Thousand Impressions is the amount of money the advertiser pays per one thousand impressions of the campaign ads.
20. CTR
Clickthrough Rate is a metric that determines the percentage of user clicks that your campaign ads receive. You can calculate your CTR by dividing the number of user clicks obtained by the number of impressions of your campaign ads.
21. Destination URL
Advertisers add URLs to directly lead readers, who click on their campaign ads, to their landing pages. The landing page can be a web page, a gallery, a blog, an article, or a video.
22. Impressions
It is the total number of times users have seen the advertiser’s campaign ads. Every time the advertiser’s campaign ads are displayed, Speakol counts it as one impression.
23. Landing Pages
When readers click on advertisers’ campaign ads, they are directly led to other pages, known as landing pages. There is no doubt that the more engaging the landing page is, the easier it will be for users to navigate it. Readers, who like advertisers’ landing pages, are more likely to turn into potential leads.
24. Pageviews
This metric, known as Pages Per Vist, indicates the number of pages a reader surfaces after they click on advertisers’ campaign ads.
25. Prepayment Billing
This type of billing necessitates that advertisers pay a certain amount before Speakol can run their ad campaigns. For instance, if an advertiser pays $100, he will be able to run his campaigns with $100 worth of services before making another payment to keep his campaigns operating.
36. ROI
Return on Investment is a performance measure used to evaluate the efficiency of an investment. You can calculate the ROI by dividing the net profit with the total investment multiplied by 100.
31. Spending Limit
It indicates the budget advertisers set for their campaigns. It is the maximum amount advertisers are willing to spend over a selected period of time monthly or otherwise for their campaigns.
32. Spent
It is the total budget spent on advertisers’ ad campaigns over a selected period of time.
33. Thumbnail
It is the image that appears above a title within the Speakol widget.
34. Title
It is the text that appears under a thumbnail within the Speakol widget.
35. URL Parameters
Speakol Pixel offers an advanced tracking tool that helps monitor users’ activity after they have clicked on advertisers’ campaign ads. These URL parameters demonstrate valuable information that reflects users’ behavior once they have clicked on Speakol campaign ads.
36. Video Views
This indicates the number of videos a user watches after he/she clicks on your campaign ad.
37. Viewable Impressions
This indicates the total number of times the users view the advertisers’ campaign ads. Each time a campaign ad is on the screen for 1 sec (per MRC standards), it is calculated as one impression.
38. vCPM
Viewable Cost per Thousand Impressions indicates the amount of money advertisers pay per one thousand viewable impressions of their campaign ads. For instance, if your vCPM is $0.25, you have paid $0.25 for every 1,000 viewable impressions of your campaign ads.
39. vCTR
Viewable Click-through Rate indicates the percentage of users who actively clicked on the advertisers’ campaign ads that were displayed. You can calculate the Viewable CTR by dividing the number of clicks of your campaign ads by the number of viewable impressions of your campaign ads.
Native Advertising, Simply Put.
A simple & 5 min read into what native advertising is and why it’s the latest trend for those looking to sell more and grow their business.
This article has three main parts to describing native advertising:
What it is. How it Works. The Money part.
What is it?
To jump right into it, native advertising is a “non-disruptive” way to sell your products or services by reaching people who are more likely interested in engaging with your advertisement. You have a business idea, a product or service, you’re a small firm or a large well-established business, in any case, you want to sell more, strengthen your market position, increase your brand awareness and ultimately, grow.
Historically, advertising was probably the most efficient way to do that. You want your business to reach as many people as possible, but more accurately, as many interested people as possible, and that’s what we call a qualified lead. Someone who has an interest in buying your product or signing up for your service, as well as the ability to. Even after reaching as many qualified leads as you can, you now face the harder step of converting those leads into customers, and that percentage is what we call conversion rates.
So how do you stand out? Yes, the internet has given way for advertising to reach billions of people around the globe, but the excitement of this advantage has also lead to “disruptive advertisements”. When you’re trying to watch a video on YouTube, or clicking on content you want to view, or even scrolling through an article, you’re bombarded with pop up advertisements that ‘disrupt’ your feed and dis-engages you with what you originally are trying to watch. As a result, more often than not, you probably feel annoyed and just skip the ad or try to get it out of your face as soon as you can without really giving it a chance, even if in reality, this could be a product or service you would be interested in investing it. So there’s a lot of lost opportunities for advertisers because of this.
Hence, the newest adaptation and advertising solution, native advertising.
To put it simply, instead of popping up in your face, the native method is to place ads on widgets, located somewhere on the page you’re viewing in a way that doesn’t disrupt you, on the contrary, it’s listed under “recommended for you”, or “more like this”, or even “more articles you might be interested in”. The point is, your product is now given a fair chance to actually be viewed. Then comes the targeting bonus. If you’re selling a beauty product or service for example, advertising it on a fashion or cosmetics website would usually mean that the millions of viewers going to that website on their own, are probably people who already have an interest towards your content, apply this to anything. At the core of it, native advertising is a way of advertising your product so that it looks like a part of the page you’re viewing it on. Yes, it’s a paid advertisement, but it doesn’t look like that because the widgets and the content advertised in those widgets are both relevant to the platform, as well as designed to blend in with the look and feel of it.
With this, you:
1) Reach millions of viewers every month.
2) Know they are potentially interested since your product is placed on a relevant platform that they are visiting from their own accord.
3) Give your product a chance to be considered because it does not disrupt them, knowing that they freely chose to learn more about you.
Great, so now you know what it is, here’s how it works.
First off, you have to define your target audience, the more accurate the better. Then you need to start creating attractive visuals (picture of video) and come up with engaging captions and titles that also blend in with your product and the platform. After that, its important to link your ad to an aesthetically pleasing and engaging landing page that has all the information a qualified customer needs, as well as a Call to Action (CTA) or submission form to fill out, and a way to reach you. Try to keep it short, sweet and effective.
But how is all this financed? This is the money part.
Basically, publishers agree to have a third party (such as a native ad agency like Speakol) include widgets on their platform, be it a website or application. These widgets contain the ads that you create, whenever a viewer clicks on an ad for example, the publisher receives a certain fee. We’re talking cents, but imagine the thousands of clicks that happen, these cents add up pretty quick and pretty fast to very large numbers. This is what we call Cost per Click (CPC) and is more relevant when you’re goal is to drive conversion rates by having people directed to your linked landing page.
There are other metrics and ways of financing it, such as Cost per Impression (CPM), charged based on how many times your ad was viewed, if your goal is brand awareness. Cost per View (CPV), is you’re launching a video ad and have a goal of wanting your video ad viewed by as many people as possible. As well as Cost per Lead (CPL). Of course, your money comes from your increased sales (and hence, revenue) when these qualified leads are converted into customers, helping you increase your return on investment (ROI) from paying money to launch these ad campaigns.
Account Managers at Speakol are always available to help guide you on best practices, from how to make your ads more engaging, to how to optimize your spending and budget, as well as how to target your ads to the right people, making sure you’re return, is always higher than your investment.
In a new age of advertising, companies all over the world are realizing the value of native advertising, you’ve already been subjected to it by companies such as Facebook or Google, and you might not even be aware of it, & that’s the beauty in it.
So, does all this sound interesting to you? If so, then jump onto the latest advertising solution and join Speakol, the leading AdTech company in the MENA region for native advertising and content recommendation. With the most extensive and premium publishers network in the region, expanding to over 400 websites and applications, we’ll make sure your business starts seeing the growth it deserves, targeting any country or industry you need. With partners and advertisers from every country, industry and background there is.
What are you waiting for? Don’t believe it?
Note from the CEO: Speakol in 2020!
As 2020 draws to an end, we look back at the year’s challenges to learn from our setbacks and plan for the future. The COVID-19 pandemic has taken the world by storm, devastating many companies and affecting many industries, which led to many people losing their jobs, companies, and businesses. To them, our hearts go out. Despite the pandemic’s catastrophic effect, Speakol was able to rise and grow.
As more people started to work remotely and spend more time online, whether reading the news or socializing on various social platforms, businesses had to pivot and address customers on the digital platforms they were using. Nothing could serve marketers better than native advertising; it enables them to promote their products and services in a non-disruptive manner to interested customers who are more likely to engage with the ads. In 2020 alone, Speakol had more than 5500 active campaigns with more than 12 billion impressions securing over 81.5 million clicks and an astounding 0.7% CTR.
Believing in the power of native advertising and the importance of performance-based marketing, we are committed to serving advertisers, publishers, and users alike. We have noticed the importance of optimization and quality performance to advertisers and their need for specialized products during the last year. In response, we are constantly working on broadening our portfolio to acquire more specialized content websites to diversify our network and cater to various industries to serve the ever-increasing number of different advertisers. To sharpen our targeting, we will employ AI to better relate Arabic content and enhance content discovery to improve the user experience and address the gap in the Arabic content market. The precise targeting options will further enable advertisers to pinpoint their desired target audiences, allocate their resources more efficiently, and continuously optimize towards achieving higher ROI.
The MENA region has only witnessed the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the full potential of native advertising. The more technology permeates our lives, the more native advertising will boom. Users will continue to engage less and less with disruptive ads, especially as their attention spans continue to decrease; they will be more inclined to interact with video ads and non-disruptive ads that fit well with the look and feel of the content they are viewing and relevant to their interests and preferences. Native ads will continue to develop to adapt with the ever-evolving media outlets and mediums; for instance, as mobile phones have taken over our lives, we will develop integrated means to provide relevant content and ads that would be sent directly to their phones, based on their chosen preferences and relevancy. The biggest goal will be to provide the most personalized user experience that caters to individual preferences and interests, where content and ads co-exist.
Mahmoud Talaat
CEO of Speakol
Speakol DMCC, the Egyptian Tech Giant, Joins the Global Initiatives to Stop Cyber Crimes and Increase Transparency and Trust in the Digital Advertising Industry
Speakol cements its position as the leading native advertising and content recommendation platform in the GCC and MENA region by joining IAB Europe and TAG. – June 2021.
(Dubai, UAE) – Speakol DMCC, the region’s leading native advertising and content recommendation platform, is proud to announce its approved status as a Native Advertising Platform to join IAB Europe’s Transparency and Consent Framework and Trustworthy Accountability Group. This is a testament to the company’s longstanding commitment to increasing transparency, building trust in the native advertising industry, and providing the best global standards, strengthening Speakol’s aim of expanding its trusted global publisher’s network and solidifying its leading role in the industry.
Speakol DMCC proudly announced its approved status by IAB Europe’s Transparency and Consent Framework. Launched in April 2018, IAB is designed to help all parties in the digital advertising chain comply with the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and ePrivacy Directive when processing personal data. The Framework collaborates with other organizations and professions to provide transparency to consumers about how, and by whom, their personal data is processed enabling users to express choices. The TCF also notifies advertisers ahead of time whether their own or their partners’ transparency and consent status and allows them to lawfully process personal data for online advertising and related purposes. In addition, the TCF guarantees that publishers can continue to monetize through native advertising while maintaining and protecting consumer privacy.
Speakol DMCC also announced completing the “Verified by TAG” process. Trustworthy Accountability Group is the leading global certification program fighting criminal activity and increasing trust in the digital advertising industry. It aims to eliminate fraudulent traffic, combat malware, prevent Internet piracy, promote greater transparency in digital advertising, and ensure brand safety. It connects industry leaders, analyzing threat intelligence, and sharing best practices.
As a company, Speakol DMCC is invested in ensuring brand safety and considers the IAB and TAG certifications as crucial milestones to guarantee transparency and build trust. Speakol is a 100% Egyptian company established in 2016. The company prides itself on being a homegrown company thriving on its leaders’ vision and its dedicated team’s hard work. In a record time, the company transformed from a local native advertising platform to an industry giant earning the trust and recognition of regional and global advertisers and publishers. Currently 5 years after its foundation, Speakol proved an impressive increase in revenues of 180% YTD in 2021.
Speakol’s in-house built technology parallels and exceeds that of all its competitors; it sets the pace for the industry, acquiring the largest portion of the market share of 46.6% of all monthly unique internet users in the MENA region. Employing the latest technological standards, Speakol earned the international community’s recognition, growing its scope and expanding all over the globe. Its extensive network includes more than 500 premium websites and thousands of advertisers serving more than 150 million unique monthly users and generating a massive 1.5 billion monthly ad impressions.
Mahmoud Talaat, Speakol’s founder and current CEO, expands that “ever since the company’s inception, we have strived to carve a place for ourselves in this industry believing that content recommendation and native advertising offer the best solutions to marketers, publishers, and end-users. We offer the highest eCPM in the region. We are proud of the expansion of our network and confident that these new and formidable partnerships are major steps in maximizing our market share and cementing our position. We are committed to offering the best service to all our partners”.
About Speakol:
Speakol prides itself on being a native advertising and content recommendation platform. Our in-house built technology and the AI implementation allow marketers and publishers to thrive and grant users access to the most personalized content and non-disruptive ads that correspond to their interests. Our network includes more than 500 premium publishers across the globe. Advertisers use Speakol to access our top-notch targeting options, advanced ad customization preferences, detailed reports, and campaign insights to better promote their services and products. While publishers collaborate with us to monetize the traffic and inventory of their websites or applications and drive engagement to their platforms. We collaborate with the region’s top publishers, including AlMasrsry ElYoum, Masrawy, YallaKora, Elconsolto, Sabq, Ajel, Okaz, Times of Oman, Khaleej Times, MSN Arabia, and CNN Arabia.
Learn more about us at www.speakol.com.
Understanding Speakol
Overview:
Speakol is the largest content discovery platform in the MENA region. The Platform enables publishers to boost users’ engagement and monetize their online presence. At the same time, Speakol aims to enable advertisers to engage and reach out to various audiences in the region. We offer our services at a very cost-effective and scalable level. What Speakol excels at is displaying personalized recommendations to potential customers as they actively explore online content that reflects their interest in various stories or products. Speakol allows advertisers to reach out to potential customers as they surf the region’s most popular websites, including, Sabq., Al Masry Al Youm, Yalla Kora, Masrawy, and Al Ahram among many others.
Speakol offers you:
- Precise Targeting Options:
Speakol allows you to target your audience using different criteria such as location, operating system, or platforms/ devices. - Flexibility in Setting your Goals:
Speakol grants you the freedom to define your own goals that aim to enhance your business and marketing plans, including raising brand awareness, attracting new users, driving more traffic, generating leads, increasing online purchases, and more. - Full control of your campaigns:
Speakol enables you to start, pause, resume, and end your campaigns and control your campaign settings, including CPC and budget, as well as your pace in addition to many more features and perks. - Detailed Reports:
Speakol presents you with comprehensive, transparent reports that document and evaluate all your decisions and helps you modify and enhance your strategies for the campaigns to realize their full potential.
The Speakol Predictive Engine:
Speakol has a highly advanced predictive engine that analyzes tons of real-time information gathered from millions of users as they browse and explore publishers’ websites. Information includes location, context, platforms/ devices, operating systems, and social media trends, to name a few. The engine discerns the subtle nuances and offers you clear, precise information that allows them to create and manage successful campaigns.
Our personalized recommendations appear to users browsing the most popular websites in the region. They are displayed within a customized widget typically placed at the bottom of the articles.
Speakol’s Auction: How Does It Operate?
Speakol’s highly advanced predictive engine grants our advertisers real-time information gathered from millions of users across hundreds of websites. Information, including location, platforms/devices, and operating systems, allows our advertisers to create and manage successful campaigns. Our advertisers can also choose their preferred platforms from a variety of top-notch publisher websites to feature their campaign ads.
Campaign Ads Placement Considerations:
Campaign targeting goals and publisher’s consent are two primary factors that determine where your campaign ads can be displayed.
Campaign Targeting Goals:
Advertisers have full reign when it comes to setting and prioritizing the goals of their ad campaigns. Based on these priorities, campaign ads will be displayed where there is a high probability of them meeting their target. So, for instance, if an advertiser wants to target Real Estate buyers in KSA, the campaign ads will only be displayed to these particular users.
Consent:
After advertisers settle on their desired publishers, Speakol reviews the ads and ensures that they are compatible with the policies of these particular websites before it can approve their launch. So, for instance, some publishers may not want any political ads or adult material to be displayed on their websites; in these cases, Speakol will refuse to launch these ads and will suggest advertisers consider other publishers.
How to Keep your Campaign Ads Competitive:
Speakol’s predictive engine’s advanced algorithm is continuously regulated to present users with the most relevant campaign ads while taking into consideration advertisers’ competition. In addition to the criteria mentioned above, the algorithm examines two more elements, which are CTR (clickthrough rate), and CPC (cost per click).
- CTR indicates the extent of users’ interest in the advertisers’ campaign ads. Therefore, the higher the CTR, the more the advertiser’s campaign ads will be recommended to users.
- CPC indicates the amount of money you are willing to pay per click. Therefore, the higher the CPC, the more likely your campaign ads will be promoted across the Speakol publishers’ network, which renders them more trendy. Once you increase your CPC, you are more likely to garner more clicks to your campaign ads.
* Important Note:
You, as an advertiser, may bid a lower CPC than your competition, but your campaign ads may still be able to compete if they have a higher CTR. Competition, therefore, does not entirely rest on which advertiser has the highest CPC; both CPC and CTR are of equal value, especially since one factor can compensate for the other.
