Saudi Arabia is a prime market for digital marketing for 2010-2011, revealed a recent survey conducted by the International Quality & Productivity Centre.

In a country of almost 30 million where 40 per cent of the population are Arabic speaking digital natives - there has been a rapid increase in global media and consultancies competing to do business with local companies and brands in their native language, said the report.

The acquisition of Maktoob by Yahoo! in 2009 along with Google's recent announcement to launch its Buzz feature in Arabic predicts a robust and sustained future for the digital marketing industry in the region.

At the recent partnership launch between Facebook and Connect Ads it was revealed that 9.7 million people in the region are part of the social networking platform, providing a great opportunity for brands to actively engage directly with this as-yet untapped consumer base.

Click 4.0, a digital marketing conference being held in Dubai from June 20 to 24,commissioned this survey to gauge what marketers across all industries in the region felt about critical subjects like social media, integration of digital marketing into the traditional campaign mix and tackling transparency issues. The survey aims to provide an accurate reflection of the most pressing issues marketers face in order to help the developers of Click 4.0 feature the strategies and solutions needed to tackle them.

51 per cent of respondents also mentioned that their biggest dilemma in the region was marketing in Arabic, with one marketer wondering how to 'create remarkable, relevant content... which sticks or resonates' with the target market.

'There is a great potential in this market where the spending on online advertising is expected to grow by 35-40 per cent this year in the region, according to Madar Research,' said Abdulla Al-Dabbagh, marketing manager of Yahoo! Middle East, Lead Sponsor for Click 4.0.-TradeArabia News Service