It's official! In mid-August, Keyade joined global firm WPP, the world leader in media acquisition, as part of its GroupM subsidiary (including, agencies like Mindshare, Mediacom or Mec).

Pierre Conte, GroupM France CEO, answered a few questions.

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Why was your company interested in buying Keyade?

WPP has tasked me with the growth of the GroupM company in France. With the acqisition of KEYADE, we are "acquiring" growth, we are increasing the share of digital in our overall revenue stream, and most importantly, we are bringing new talent into our organization.

What is the signal that you wish to send with this acquisition?

We are sending the market two messages. First is WPP's demonstrated willingness to invest in France despite the somewhat dire predictions being bandied about regarding the market overall. The second is to stand on its head the misperception of GroupM having "fallen behind" in the digital arena. The fact is, we were already more competitive in this area than our fellow agencies would care to admit. For example, we were already #1 in Mobile. With Keyade, we are now no doubt also #1 on Google.

What is the key to a successful integration of an agency such as Keyade within a corporate group as large as WPP/GroupM?

We are going to be very pragmatic. The number one objective remains the growth of Keyade itself. As far as integration goes, Keyade's managers together with the heads at GMI (GroupM's digital division) will tackle the issues one at a time. There won't be a single major integrative event but rather a series of practical collaborative processes which build on each other.

You have been heading up GroupM for a year now. What are your priorities and strategic key points going forward?

We are one of — if not the – leading companies in our industry, and we must be perceived as such. Over the past year we have made great strides of progress in strengthening our collective abilities, and we are now entering a second stage, starting with the acquisition of Keyade, which focuses on consolidating our talents and breaking new ground.

In a few words, GroupM in France is ...?

With Keyade on board, GroupM is 750 people eager and able to service the best clients on the market. We are a group of media agencies with a human touch and outstanding individuals who are particularly well positioned to assist and earn the trust of companies expanding into the digital arena. We share a common conviction that our value lies as much in the integration of marketing vectors as in the specific expertise of each individual.

And Keyade?

A diamond ... that is destined to be the catalyst for something much, much bigger.

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After some months of testing in France, Keyade is now expanding its auditing services to advertisers in the Middle East.

The Keyade audit allows advertisers who handle their media purchases in-house or contract a third party to do so, to assess the effectiveness of their SEM campaign management.

Keyade offers an outside, expert opinion on your accounts, applying its own proprietary auditing methodology which it has developed over the course of 8 years of conducting SEM campaigns for advertisers across a wide range of industries. Our audit covers more than 150 points across 14 areas—including brand strategy, tracking and attribution, account structure, etc.—as well as analysis of your brand within its competitive landscape. Using Keyade's weighted scoring system, our audit provides you with an easy-to-use visual representation of your account's strengths and weaknesses.

Performing an operational audit with Keyade Middle East allows you to:
- discover areas needing improvement which will increase your profitability
- identify opportunities for growth
- discover and implement the latest search engine techniques and technologies
- perform a competitive benchmark

For further information about all of our services (one time audits and ongoing quarterly assessments), please contact Hicham Auajjar by email or by phone at +971-43-675926.

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A Yahoo! study examines the efficiency of a display campaign on the number of search requests and conversions.

In the example studied of Air France, users exposed to the display campaign were 5 times more likely to make related searches through a search engine.

Read the case study

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3 questions for Sara Awwad, SEM & Display Consultant at Keyade Middle East

At Keyade Middle East, what is the proportion of advertisers implementing an online advertising strategy for mobile, and what are their objectives?

All of our clients advertise on mobile, with various objectives (mainly ROI, brand awareness, sales and leads), because they clearly understand how important it is to be present on mobile devices. As you may know, users in the Middle East are more likely to use their mobile phones than desktops when surfing the Internet or making a purchase. In fact, mobile usage in the MENA region has grown from 7% (93% for desktops) in June 2012 to 31% (69% for desktops) in June 2014 (source: Google). This tremendous growth explains why it is crucial for all advertisers to ensure they are always on mobile regardless of their industry.

One year ago, Google released its enhanced campaigns to encourage ad visibility on mobile devices. What have you learned from your experience with mobile performance and measuring its effectiveness?

Since the launch of the enhanced campaigns, we have noticed that the platform has become more mobile-focused at many levels. Some of main advantages are the increased ability to manage mobile ad bids, and being able to create customized ads and extensions which exclusively target mobile phones. We can even track calls with advanced call metrics and mobile app downloads! All of these features allow us to monitor the various performance metrics of our mobile campaigns in order to optimize and expand them accordingly. Having said that, Keyade's methodology has always rested on running separate desktop and mobile campaigns—we never mix them. We understand how user behavior, and the way users search for services or information, is different between desktop and mobile, which is why we cannot optimize the same way for both.

If you were to sum up Keyade Middle East in one word, it would be …

Growing. Keyade team is always eager to test new products and learn more in order to grow. Digital Marketing is a growing industry and so is Keyade—in terms of our company, clients, team and as individuals!