How Saudi’s Leading E-commerce Marketplace Mazeed is Personalizing Customer Engagement During Ramadan

For consumer brands in Saudi, Ramadan is nothing short of a retail phenomenon. Rising disposable incomes and the accompanying spending, which have increased the GDP contribution of the retail industry to over 10% in Saudi, become more evident during the holy month of Ramadan. Much like the disciplined self-reflection associated with Ramadan, the marketing playbooks should accompany a deep understanding of customers and an alignment with their values. 

If approached thoughtfully, Ramadan presents ample opportunities for brands to create value and resonate with customers, as evidenced by a leading e-commerce marketplace, Mazeed. A subsidiary of Saudi-based holding company Zid, Mazeed gives customers seamless access to over two million local products from 8,000 merchants. Cultural familiarity, data-driven insights on customer behaviour — before, during, and after Ramadan — and tech-driven personalization have enabled Mazeed to craft an actionable marketing strategy. 

Understanding customer behaviors

Ramadan consumerism trends are quite distinctive, requiring retailers to understand them at a granular level, especially in the Middle East. Mazeed acknowledges and understands how such trends change between the pre-Ramadan phase, during the holy month, and around Eid al-Fitr. Similarly, shopping behaviours and expectations from the brand vary between the daytime fasting hours and post-iftar evenings. Mazeed is harnessing such insights provided by leading marketing automation company WebEngage to optimize its marketing efforts. 

Shahad AlMedlej, Founder & Director, Mazeed, said: “We aspire for Mazeed to be the first shopping platform in GCC, making it the go-to choice for smart shopping and Saudi local brands. Aiming to help both our customers and merchants find the ultimate marketplace that offers real ‘retailtainment’ and joyfulness during Ramadan, we look forward to seeing the trends of this season and how they will affect the business.”

For example, in the run-up to Ramadan, customers actively seek kitchen supplies and new furniture to transform their living spaces into sanctuaries for prayer and reflection. Similarly, as customers gear up for iftar gatherings at dusk, they seek products that elevate the guest experience. WebEngage helps Mazeed segment its audience according to shopping behaviours and preferences, orchestrate personalized campaigns, inform loyalty programs, and optimize notification send-times. 

Mazeed’s gratitude campaign thanks customers for choosing the brand to secure their festival needs, thus creating a post-iftar engagement and going beyond just mere transactions. Similarly, through their iftar stories, Mazeed encouraged customers to share their iftar moments and related celebratory messages, fostering a sense of community. Those meaningful campaigns wouldn’t be possible without Mazeed’s sizeable data pool and WebEngage’s ML and Customer Data Platform (CDP)-powered solutions stack. 

Unleashing the power of data and personalization

Mazeed is utilizing WebEngage’s dashboard to understand user behaviour. Data-driven insights help identify trends, add more and better products, and inform marketing strategies. WebEngage’s automation capabilities allow marketing teams to communicate one-on-one with the customer and offer personalized support. Due to automation, marketing efforts characterize unprecedented efficiency and scale.  

Some of the streamlined marketing aspects are as follows:

Campaign timing: Mazeed emphasizes the importance of timing in its Ramadan campaigns. It sends communications, such as push notifications or emails, based on a granular-level understanding of when users are most receptive and responsive, particularly before and after iftar.

Frequency adjustment during Ramadan: Mazeed adjusts the frequency of its campaigns during Ramadan, sending more notifications before and after iftar. Frequent campaigns help Mazeed capitalize on the increased volume and value of purchases during Ramadan. 

Strategic pop-up campaigns: Mazeed's Ramadan campaigns are not just promotions but carefully curated experiences tailored to specific user segments. In Saudi Arabia, where customers exhibit good awareness, personalized experiences are imperative for retail, especially during high-purchase-intent phases like Ramadan. 

Loyalty point system: Mazeed rewards repeat customers for their purchases through a tech-driven loyalty program. This tested-and-proven strategy encourages repeat purchases and fosters a sense of community, rewarding non-transactional behaviours and making shopping an all-around gratifying experience.

Multi-channel accessibility: As a digital-first e-commerce marketplace, Mazeed understands the importance of meeting users where they are. So, in addition to intuitive Android and iOS apps, Mazeed maintains a user-friendly website to cater to a broader audience. The emphasis is on providing consistent and integrated customer experiences across channels. 

Ramadan-specific marketing playbooks aimed at personalizing customer engagement from an e-commerce marketplace like Mazeed, which promotes local products and merchants, is a welcome development in the Kingdom. It helps customers connect with products that are closely aligned with their unique festival needs while empowering the local merchant community to maximize their reach. Such best practices, with innovators like WebEngage as enablers, could propel the retail industry to greater heights and increase its contribution to Saudi GDP exponentially in the years to come. 

To access Mazeed’s detailed Ramadan marketing playbook, click here.