By Mohamed Alaa El-Din
Electronic ads were affected by the negative impacts of the dollar price increase against the Egyptian pound. Facebook ads were among those affected by the recent dollar crisis, as well as the increase in advertising on Facebook in Egypt, whereby a number of companies recently noticed multiple increases in Facebook ads prices.
Facebook ad prices have increased over the past period by almost double, said Link-Egypt General Manager Yehia Tharwat. Facebook ads are divided in two types; one in the form of services, such as converting clients to the company’s Facebook page or to their website, which have fixed price.
The second type of Facebook ads, which witnessed a recent price increase, is sold through a bidding system. This system is controlled by a number of factors, the most prominent of which are advertisers’ turnout rate and the targeted segment of customers to be attracted, as well as the geographic areas targeted for advertisement.
This type of ad witnessed an increase in prices, due to the increase in a number of advertisers, in addition to its credit card payment in local currency, which then gets converted to Facebook management in dollars. This process led banks to impose 3% extra fees on payments through credit card, due to the devaluation of the Egyptian pound against the dollar.
Earlier in 2015, the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) imposed a number of regulations on the dollar deposit and a withdrawal limit of daily deposits for companies by $10,000, not exceeding $50,000 monthly.
Over the recent weeks, dollar exchange rates rose to EGP 8.3 in the official market, while they exceeded EGP 8.40 in the parallel markets.
DrBridge Company CEO Amir Barsoum recently witnessed multiple increases in Facebook ad prices, after the recent dollar price increases.
Jobzella CEO Nader Al-Batrawy agreed that the increase in popularity of Facebook ads contributed in the ads’ price hokes as well as an increase in dollar price compared to the Egyptian pound.
