How to Choose a Medical Marketing Company in KSA and Egypt

To choose a medical marketing company in Saudi Arabia or Egypt, ask for four kinds of written evidence first: that it knows your country's health advertising rules, that it protects patient data, that it measures bookings, attendance and cost per booking, and that its contract is clear on account ownership and exit. The twelve questions below test all four.

This guide is for any clinic, centre, medical group or doctor in either country. IVF centres in Saudi Arabia have their own guide with criteria suited to their work: how an IVF centre chooses a marketing partner.

What does "medical marketing" mean in Saudi Arabia and Egypt?

Here it means marketing for clinics, centres, medical groups and doctors: advertising, content, search visibility, replies to patients and measurement of bookings.

In Egypt, the Arabic phrase for "medical marketing companies" mostly brings up pharmaceutical companies and jobs for medical sales representatives. If you are looking for someone to market your clinic in Egypt, search for clinic marketing or marketing for clinics and medical centres instead.

The two markets also differ in channels. According to DataReportal's Digital 2026 reports, published on 8 November 2025 with October 2025 data:

In Saudi Arabia, ads can reach 27.5 million users on YouTube, 25.3 million on Snapchat, 18.2 million on Instagram and 17.7 million on Facebook.
In Egypt, ads can reach 51.6 million users on Facebook, 49.3 million on YouTube and 21.7 million on Instagram.

These figures measure who could see an ad, which is a different thing from patients. They are enough to make one point: a company working in both countries should show you a different channel plan for each. If it offers the same plan for Riyadh and Cairo, ask why.

What should you prepare before the first meeting?

A first meeting is more useful when it centres on your numbers. Prepare one page with:

Attended bookings in each of the last three months.
What you spent on ads and content over the same period.
The specialties or services you want to grow, and the spare capacity in those doctors' schedules.
The channels you use now, who replies to messages and during which hours.

Then ask the company to spend its first 20 minutes asking about that page. A company that asks about attendance and reply time before it shows its portfolio is thinking about the result you need. Our guide to the marketing company vs growth company difference helps you decide which model you are looking for before the interviews.

Regulation: three questions

1. What do you know about health advertising rules in our country?

Ask it as an open question and listen for the details the team gives without reaching for notes.

In Saudi Arabia, expect them to mention the Ministry of Health's health advertising controls. According to the summary published by Al Watan on 29 January 2025, the controls require ads to be in Arabic, to show the advertiser's name and contact details, and to state fees and risks. They require ministry approval for any discount and ban patient images, data and testimonials. A good answer mentions discounts specifically, because that is where advertisers most often go wrong.

In Egypt, expect them to mention Law 206 of 2017 on advertising health products and services, which requires a licence for health ads from a committee at the Ministry of Health. They should also know that the Medical Syndicate's general assembly approved the general principles for regulating doctors' media appearances on 23 October 2026, according to Youm7, and that the published draft bans discounts, bundles and instalment offers for medical services. The final text has not been issued yet, and a well-informed company says so precisely.

Evidence to ask for: a past ad with an explanation of the regulatory points it was checked against. Our article on medical advertising in Saudi Arabia and Egypt summarises the principles, and Egypt's draft code for doctors explains the draft.

2. Who reviews medical claims before publication, and under whose name?

The answer you want is the name of a doctor from your facility, written steps, and a dated record of each approval. The marketing company's writer knows the wording, the doctor knows what is medically sound, and an ad needs both.

Ask too about content on doctors' personal accounts. In June 2026 the Saudi Ministry of Health acted against coordinated promotion of facilities through practitioners' personal accounts, as our article on doctors' personal accounts explains. A company that plans to post clinic content on a doctor's account should explain how it takes that into account.

Evidence to ask for: the approval log template the company uses with its clients, with names removed.

3. How do you handle patient images, stories and consent?

This question matters most to the doctor, because the image carries the doctor's name and reputation.

In Saudi Arabia the health advertising controls ban patient images and testimonials in ads, according to the published summary. In Egypt, the draft whose principles the Syndicate approved requires explicit written consent before any patient image or data is published. Reviews written by patients belong on Google, and asking for them has its own rules, as our article on Google review rules explains.

A good answer separates the two countries, and says where consent forms are kept, who can withdraw consent and what happens to the content if a patient does.

Before signing, ask for the written consent form the company proposes and its list of what must stay out of frame during filming.

Data and patient protection: two questions

4. Where is enquiry data stored, and who can see it?

Every message a patient sends a clinic may carry a name, a number and a reason for getting in touch, and in a clinic that reason is often health information.

In Saudi Arabia, health data is sensitive data under the Personal Data Protection Law. SDAIA has put draft amendments to the implementing regulations out for public consultation until 5 November 2026, with stricter proof of consent before marketing. It is a draft that has not been adopted, and a serious company knows that and prepares for it.

In Egypt, the compliance period under the executive regulations of the Personal Data Protection Law ended on 31 October 2026, according to a Baker McKenzie update published on 7 October 2026. Our article on data protection in Egypt after the deadline explains what a facility needs to do now.

Evidence to ask for: a draft data processing agreement that sets out where data is stored, who can access enquiries, how long data is kept and how it is deleted at the end of the contract.

5. What patient data is sent to ad platforms?

Some companies upload patient lists to ad platforms to build lookalike audiences, or pass booking details to tracking code. In a medical facility that needs great care.

Meta itself is narrowing that route. According to documentation published by LiveRamp in July 2025, from 2 September 2025 Meta began restricting custom audiences and custom conversions whose names or rules suggest a health condition, and those stop receiving data. Details are in our article on Meta's limits on health advertising.

The answer that should reassure you: patient names and diagnoses stay out of ad platforms, and bookings are counted from the clinic's own booking system.

Evidence to ask for: a written list of every tracking tool that will be added to your website and what each one sends.

Agency, freelancer or in-house team?

This question comes before choosing a company. Each option has a case where it fits:

A freelancer suits one clear task, such as running a small ad account or designing templates. One person struggles to cover medical review, systems and measurement alone.
An in-house team knows the patients and doctors closely, but needs time to hire and train, and pays full price for its tools.
A company brings several roles under one contract, and needs you to follow up and ask questions like these.

Many facilities combine a small in-house team with an outside company. Our tool comparing an in-house team with medical marketing companies works out both costs from salaries in your market.

Measurement: three questions

6. Which numbers will appear in the monthly report?

Ask for a real report with the client's name removed, and read its first page.

A report that supports your decisions opens with these numbers: enquiries per channel, time to first reply, the share of enquirers who booked, the share of those who attended, cost per booking and returning patients. Views, followers and engagement come after them, to explain what happened.

Ask for the template with a line next to each number explaining where it comes from.

7. How do you calculate cost per booking?

Ask about the top and bottom of the fraction. The top should include ad spend, the company's fee and production costs. The bottom should be attended bookings from the clinic's own records. Some reports divide ad spend alone by the number of messages and call the result cost per booking.

Our guide to cost per booking from each channel walks through the calculation, and healthcare marketing ROI in a CFO's terms links it to patient value and payback.

8. What do you do when the platform's number differs from the appointment book?

They will differ, because every platform counts conversions its own way and claims bookings that several channels contributed to. A good answer names one reference for decisions, the clinic's booking records, explains how the source of each booking is recorded there, and says what happens when a patient reports finding the clinic in a way no platform shows.

Evidence to ask for: a written description of how bookings will be linked to their source in the booking system you use.

Contract and ownership: two questions

9. How is the fee kept separate from the ad budget?

Ask for the fee on one invoice and the ad budget on the platforms' own invoices. The clearest arrangement is for the budget to be paid straight to the platform from a payment method in your facility's name. You then see what was actually spent on each channel, and your finance director reads the numbers without a middleman.

Put it in writing: a contract clause separating fee from budget, and the right to see platform invoices every month.

10. Who owns the accounts, website, content and data if we stop?

This question tends to be forgotten until the day the contract ends. The answer that protects you is that every asset sits in your facility's name from day one:

Ad accounts on Google, Meta, Snapchat and TikTok, with access granted to the company for its work.
Tracking code, the website domain and hosting.
Raw footage, editable design files and copy.
Enquiry and booking data.

On Google Ads, for example, the help page About access levels in your Google Ads account explains that a user with Admin access can give account access to others, change access levels and remove access. Keep that level with someone from your facility, and give the company a lower level that is enough for its work.

Evidence to ask for: an explicit ownership clause, and a handover list of every asset at exit.

Team and review: two questions

11. Does the company need to be in my city or country?

Most of the work happens remotely: ads, content, systems and reports. What needs people on site is shoot days and some early meetings with doctors and reception.

What matters more than the address: the company knows your country's rules, writes in the dialect your patients understand, has someone who answers you during your working hours, and can organise filming in your city.

Evidence to ask for: the name of the person who will manage your account, their working hours and the city where they organise filming.

12. How can I check past results when they are confidential?

Medical results are sensitive, and many clients forbid publishing their numbers. So a serious company may tell you it cannot share figures.

What you can still ask for:

A monthly report with name and specialty removed, showing what the numbers look like and when they date from.
A call with a current client who agrees to speak to you.
An account of a campaign that did not work and what the company learned from it. The answer to that question shows how a team thinks more clearly than any success story.

At Naqar we publish a client's numbers only with the client's written approval and with their date, and we present everything else as clearly labelled illustrations.

The minimum to ask for: an anonymised report and one reference you call yourself.

Signs that call for a pause

If any of these appears in a proposal or a meeting, ask for a written explanation before you continue:

A specific number of patients per month described as guaranteed. Results depend on your doctors, prices and replies, which sit outside any company's control.
A sample report whose first page is followers and views.
A plan that never asks about your booking system or asks to see it.
An ad account the company creates in its own name and runs from its own business account.
Discount or instalment offers proposed for a clinic in Egypt, or a discount in Saudi Arabia with no mention of ministry approval.
Before-and-after patient photos in sample ads aimed at Saudi Arabia.
A content plan that does not say who reviews it medically.

A scorecard to apply to three companies

Turn the questions into one card and put them in the same order to every company.

First, deciding questions. Questions 1, 2, 4 and 10. If any of these gets a vague answer or no written evidence, stop with that company, however good the other answers are. These questions cover regulation, patient data and ownership, and a mistake in any of them lands on you.

Second, weighting questions. The remaining eight, each scored:

0: a general answer with no evidence.
1: a clear answer with partial evidence.
2: a clear answer with full written evidence.

The total is out of 16. An example for question 6: a company that says "we send a comprehensive report" scores 0. One that shows a template with enquiries and bookings but no attendance scores 1. One that shows a template opening with attendance and cost per booking, and explains the source of every number, scores 2.

Compare the three companies on the total, then read the notes written next to each score. The gap between 11 and 13 matters less than the reason for it.

In practice

Ask for written evidence on every answer, and start with the four deciding questions. If Naqar is on your list, put the same questions to us. Growth Strategy & Management starts with diagnosis and measurement, and our list of services as a medical marketing company covers the other layers.

Common questions

What matters most when choosing a medical marketing company?

Four things matter most: the company's knowledge of health advertising rules in your country, how it stores patient data, how it calculates cost per booking from the clinic's own records, and who owns the ad accounts, website and content at exit. Ask for written evidence on each, such as a sample report, a draft data agreement or a contract clause.

Do medical ads in Egypt need a licence?

Yes. Egypt's Law 206 of 2017 on advertising health products and services requires a licence for health ads from a committee at the Ministry of Health. On 23 October 2026 the Medical Syndicate approved principles for regulating doctors' media appearances, and its draft bans discount and instalment offers for medical services. The final text is still being drafted.

Should ad accounts be opened in the clinic's name or the marketing company's?

The safer arrangement is for the clinic to own its ad accounts in its own name and give the marketing company enough access to do its work, keeping the highest access level with someone at the clinic. Campaign history and data then stay with the clinic if the contract ends, and the work can move to another provider without starting from zero.

Should I ask a medical marketing company for a trial period?

A short first term, such as three months, with a clear exit clause protects both sides. Agree before starting what will be measured in that period, such as reply time, attendance rate and cost per booking, because the booking number itself takes longer to settle in most specialties.

Is choosing a medical marketing company in Egypt different from Saudi Arabia?

The rules and the channels differ. In Saudi Arabia the Ministry of Health controls require ministry approval for discounts and ban patient testimonials. In Egypt, Law 206 of 2017 requires a licence for health ads, and the Medical Syndicate's draft bans discount and instalment offers. The channels with the widest reach also differ, so ask for a channel plan for each country.

Sources

Google: About access levels in your Google Ads account (read on 30 October 2026)
DataReportal: Digital 2026, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, 8 November 2025 (no link)
Al Watan: summary of Article 7 of the health advertising controls, 29 January 2025 (newspaper report, no link)
Egypt Law 206 of 2017 on advertising health products and services
Youm7: decisions of the Medical Syndicate general assembly, 23 October 2026 (newspaper report, no link)
Vetogate: Medical Syndicate general assembly programme and the draft on doctors' media appearances, 22 October 2026 (newspaper report, no link)
Istitlaa: draft amendments to the PDPL implementing regulations
Baker McKenzie: Egypt Personal Data Protection Law update, 7 October 2026 (law-firm update, no link)
LiveRamp: upcoming Meta restrictions on certain custom audiences and custom conversions, 17 July 2025 (company documentation, no link)