The Inhouse's Rasha Hamzeh coins 'Podcast Engine Optimisation' for MENA audio discovery

September 6, 2026 · ExchangeWire

"We're heading into a real sea of sameness," Rasha Hamzeh told ExchangeWire, describing what AI-generated content volume is doing to MENA advertising. Hamzeh advises brands at The Inhouse and produces the podcast Luca's Insight Track, giving her a view from both the agency and creator sides of the audio market. She argues the region's podcast inventory remains too fragmented to price or trade in a standard way: thousands of shows span different languages, genres and platforms, with players like Thamanyah and Insat Media only beginning to build the infrastructure that connects brands with podcasters. Egypt, she says, is testing subscription models such as paid YouTube and Apple subscriptions ahead of higher-budget markets like Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Spotify, YouTube and Anghami each hold significant regional reach, yet none has established itself as the default marketplace for audio ads, and Deezer has little active presence in MENA.

Buying audio in MENA still means negotiating platform by platform and podcaster by podcaster, since no standard exists for packaging or valuing inventory across the fragmented market. Hamzeh's response is a concept she calls Podcast Engine Optimisation, applying search-style discoverability techniques to help listeners find relevant shows and help podcasters build audiences independent of any single platform's algorithm. She also argues podcasts need measurement built for an attention and influence medium: stronger brand-lift studies, consistent audience benchmarks and integration with first-party data, ahead of the performance-marketing metrics used for other digital channels. Agencies that test Egypt's subscription-first shows now get an early read on formats that haven't yet reached Saudi Arabia or the UAE.