Ask Riyadh business owners where their marketing budget goes and you’ll often hear the same answers: Instagram, a Google Ads account, perhaps an SEO retainer. In many cases, though, the money leaks in the gaps between them: how Arabic searches are researched, what happens after someone messages on WhatsApp, and whether the ad platforms ever learn which leads became customers.
The market is crowded. Ministry of Commerce data shows Riyadh Province held 19,062 of the Kingdom’s 43,854 e-commerce registrations at the end of 2025, before counting the clinics, schools, developers and B2B firms competing for the same attention. Here are nine places where online marketing in Riyadh tends to underperform, and what to do about each.
- Research Arabic searches separately from English ones
Many Saudi websites build their Arabic pages by translating the English ones. Translation keeps the meaning but misses how people actually search: their word choices, spellings and questions. Someone looking for an apartment in Arabic may use quite different terms from an expat searching in English.
Run separate keyword research for each language, build Arabic pages around Arabic search terms, and report Arabic organic enquiries as their own line so you can see whether the work pays off.
- Treat your Google Business Profile as a sales channel
For clinics, schools, showrooms and real estate offices, the Google Business Profile can be the first thing a nearby customer sees. Yet profiles are often left with outdated hours, few photos and unanswered reviews.
Complete categories and services in Arabic and English, reply to reviews, and keep posting updates. If you have several branches, give each its own profile and location page rather than one generic “Riyadh” page. The numbers that matter are calls, direction requests and bookings, not views.
- Make your content easy for AI search to use
Google rolled out AI Mode in Modern Standard Arabic in October 2025, after AI Overviews reached the region earlier that year. The Communications, Space and Technology Commission’s (CST) Saudi Internet Report 2025 found that 45.2% of internet users in the Kingdom use AI tools.
Generative engine optimisation (GEO) means structuring content so AI systems can understand and cite it. Put clear answers near the top of pages, state concrete details such as services, locations and eligibility, and keep business information consistent everywhere. Since AI Mode launched in Modern Standard Arabic, it’s worth having key informational pages in it, even if your social ads use Saudi dialect.
- Track WhatsApp leads like any other conversion
Click-to-WhatsApp ads let customers start a conversation instead of filling in a form. The overlooked part is measurement. When a conversation starts, is it logged in your CRM? Does anyone know how long the reply took?
Connect the WhatsApp Business Platform to your CRM so each conversation is tied to the campaign that produced it, and set a response-time target. If you plan to send follow-up promotions, capture and record the customer’s consent.
- Tell Google and Meta which leads became customers
Many ad accounts optimise for form submissions, so the algorithms find more form-fillers, including people who never buy.
Google Ads offline conversion imports and Meta’s Conversions API can send a lead’s status (“qualified” or “closed”) from your CRM back to the platforms. With enough conversion data, bidding can then favour the kind of leads that turn into revenue. This matters most in real estate, education and B2B, where the sale can come weeks after the click. Judge campaigns on cost per qualified lead and customer acquisition cost (CAC), not cost per form.
- Fix the Arabic mobile landing page
Check your analytics: most of your ad traffic probably arrives on a phone. Arabic pages built by mirroring English templates can break on mobile, with misaligned right-to-left layouts, fallback fonts, forms that reject Arabic numerals, and calls to action pushed below the fold.
Test the Arabic version on a real phone, shorten forms, and offer WhatsApp or click-to-call beside the form. Compare Arabic and English conversion rates separately; a blended average hides the weaker one.
- Test Snapchat for considered purchases
According to DataReportal, Snapchat’s ad tools showed a potential ad reach equivalent to 89% of Saudi adults in late 2025. It’s easy to dismiss Snapchat as a youth channel for property, healthcare or education, but that reach makes it worth testing.
Give it a fixed budget and the same lead-quality tracking you use elsewhere, then compare cost per qualified lead.
- Market to the people who already know you
Acquisition usually gets the attention and the budget, while past enquirers, students and customers often hear nothing further. An education provider can follow up with applicants from the last intake; an online store can send timely replenishment offers.
Under Saudi Arabia’s Personal Data Protection Law (PDPL), direct marketing requires consent, so build these programmes on consented first-party data. Track repeat purchases and customer lifetime value.
- Build compliance into campaign setup
Some sectors have their own advertising rules. The Real Estate General Authority (REGA) requires a licence for each property advertisement, with the licence number shown on the ad, including on social media. Health advertising must follow Ministry of Health regulations, including restrictions on practitioners promoting themselves. Paid influencer content requires a Mawthooq licence.
Make licence and claims checks part of campaign setup; an ad that gets pulled wastes its budget.
What to ask a marketing agency
Lists of top marketing agencies in Riyadh are easy to find, but a ranking won’t show whether an agency can do any of the above. Ask instead:
- Will you report cost per qualified lead and revenue, not just clicks and impressions?
- How will you connect our CRM to Google and Meta?
- Who researches and writes our Arabic content?
- How do you handle PDPL consent and sector advertising rules?
Frequently asked questions
What online marketing opportunities do Riyadh businesses often overlook?
The nine covered here are separate Arabic keyword research, Google Business Profile management, visibility in AI search, WhatsApp lead tracking, sending CRM results back to ad platforms, Arabic mobile landing pages, testing Snapchat, marketing to existing customers, and building advertising compliance into campaigns.
Which should a Riyadh business fix first?
Start with tracking: log WhatsApp leads and send CRM outcomes back to Google and Meta. Without that, it’s hard to tell which other changes are working. Then prioritise by business model: local businesses should look at their Google Business Profile, online stores at landing pages and retention, and long-cycle sectors such as real estate, education and B2B at CRM feedback.
Is online marketing in Riyadh different from the rest of Saudi Arabia?
The channels are the same, but the competition differs. Riyadh Province has more e-commerce registrations than any other region, and for location-based businesses, district-level local search often matters more than city-wide targeting.
Do we need consent to send marketing messages on WhatsApp?
Under the PDPL, consent is required for direct marketing. Replying to a customer’s own enquiry is different from sending promotions, so take legal advice on how you capture and record consent.
