Guide · 7 min read
How to choose a marketing agency in Egypt
Most bad agency relationships are decided before the contract is signed — in what was promised, and in what was never defined.
Published
Start from your bottleneck, not from a service list
Agencies sell packages; businesses have bottlenecks. Before you compare proposals, name the actual constraint: nobody knows the brand, people know it but do not trust it, enquiries arrive but do not convert, or the sales team is fine and there is simply no traffic. Each of those points to a different first purchase — positioning, identity, content, or media. An agency that recommends the same retainer regardless of your answer is selling capacity, not judgement.
Ask what happens in month one, in writing
A serious scope names deliverables, quantities, review points and who approves what. Vague monthly language — 'content creation, community management, ad management' — is where disputes live. Ask for the number of shoot days, the number of assets, the reporting cadence and the escalation path. If those cannot be written down before you pay, they will not appear after.
Separate the media budget from the fee
In Egypt it is common to see one number quoted that silently bundles the agency fee with the ad spend. Insist on two lines. You should know exactly what the agency earns and exactly what reaches the platform, and you should be able to see the ad account yourself.
Distrust guaranteed results
No agency controls the auction, the competition or the season. Guaranteed leads, guaranteed positions and guaranteed follower counts are either padded with low-quality volume or quietly unenforceable. What can be promised is process: a stated hypothesis, a defined test, an agreed review date and an honest report when something did not work.
Look at work in the categories you compete in
A portfolio of glossy showreels for unrelated sectors tells you the agency can edit. Work inside a category close to yours tells you they understand the objection the buyer actually raises. Ask which parts of a case study the agency produced themselves — strategy, shooting, editing, media — and which were subcontracted.
Check that they can produce, not only plan
In visual categories, the constraint is almost always production. If the agency cannot shoot your product properly, the strategy deck will not save the campaign. Ask to see raw-to-final examples and find out whether the team shooting is the team you met.
Agree what a report must answer
A useful report answers four questions: what changed, what it cost, what we learned and what happens next. Screenshots of reach are not reporting. Set the review rhythm before the work starts, and make sure the numbers are read against your enquiries — comments, direct messages, calls and showroom visits.
Language is a real evaluation criterion
If your audience is Egyptian, the Arabic has to read as Arabic. Ask to see Arabic captions and ad copy the agency wrote — not translated — and read them out loud. Awkward, literally-translated Arabic quietly costs credibility in exactly the audience you are paying to reach.
Frequently asked questions
- How much should a marketing agency cost in Egypt?
- There is no honest single figure — scope, production volume and media management all move the number, and anyone quoting a market rate without seeing your scope is guessing. What you can insist on is a written scope with the fee and the ad budget listed separately, so you can compare proposals on the same basis.
- Should we hire in-house or use an agency?
- In-house works when the volume is steady and the skill set is narrow. An agency makes more sense when you need strategy, production, editing and media buying at once and cannot justify four salaries. Many brands run both: an in-house coordinator with an agency handling production and media.
- What is a reasonable first commitment?
- Long enough for paid campaigns to leave the learning phase and for a considered purchase cycle to run, with a defined review point where either side can adjust. Beware both one-month trials that cannot show anything and year-long lock-ins with no review clause.
Next step
Start a project
Small senior teams, direct communication, and clear reporting on what moved and why.