Imagine: you’ve just hired a marketer, took a deep breath, and thought,
"Great—now they’ll set everything up and I’ll focus on the business."

Spoiler: they won’t. Not because the marketer is lazy or talentless, but because they aren’t a mind reader.

No newcomer—no matter how experienced—knows your business like you do.

Which means that without your help, the first ad launch in the UAE turns into a long, expensive, and stressful experiment.

A real case from Dubai

A business owner I know decided to enter the UAE market and, for the first time, hired a marketer to promote an online store.

It seemed simple: give access, fund the ads, and wait for orders. But it went differently.

The marketer never asked the key questions.

And the owner didn’t think he needed to voice them.

Result:

• The launch dragged on for 3 weeks.
• Every banner and text took half a day to approve.
• Half the creatives turned out to be wrong for the local audience.
• Edits came in batches, and the owner spent hours of personal time on them.

The launch cost 40% more than planned, and profits were—put mildly—underwhelming.

Why this happens almost every time

Business in the UAE, especially in Dubai, isn’t just pretty storefronts and a high average order value.

It’s fierce competition, expensive traffic, and a very demanding audience.

If a marketer starts from zero, with no clear picture of your product and market, the first weeks go to guesses, tests, and reworks.

It’s like buying tickets to a triathlon championship in a Finnish sauna: costly, hot, and not much fun.

The solution: a structured brief

Over 6 years of running Instagram ads in the UAE I built a launch checklist that saves weeks at the start and delivers results in the very first month.

This document is not a formality. It’s a step-by-step guide where you neatly lay out:

1. Product — what you sell and how it differs from competitors.
2. Audience — who these people are, their interests, and tone of communication.
3. Goals — sales, leads, growth of the customer base.
4. Metrics — which numbers count as success.
5. Competitive advantages — why customers should choose you.

What filling out the checklist gives you:

• You yourself understand your product and strengths more deeply.
• You start seeing the key indicators you previously ignored.
• You hand the marketer the full picture, and they dive into the project immediately.

As a result the ads start quickly, hit the target, and bring customers—not headaches.

This is the main secret of American experts

In the USA they’ve long understood that any launch is not "marketing magic" but a precise system.

They spend minimal time on warm-ups, stories, and pointless tests, and the maximum on getting the start right.

They begin with clear positioning and a strong offer, not with "let's launch something and figure it out later."

That’s why their ads pay back in the first month, not "sometime later."

An example from my Dubai practice

A UAE online-store owner came to me.

He had tried ads three times with different freelancers, and each time the ads didn’t pay off—there were inquiries, but almost no sales.

When we started, the first thing I sent him was the checklist.

Two days later I received detailed answers—with product photos, prices, customer profile, and the brand story.

What we did next:

1. Based on the data we shaped a strong offer that the target audience would feel silly turning down.
2. We launched Instagram ads in the UAE with visuals and copy that "spoke" the customer’s language.
3. We connected a CRM for the store so no lead was lost.
4. We implemented repeat-purchase automation: emails and messages with add-on offers.

Results in the first month:

The ads went positive by day 10.
Average order value grew by 22% thanks to upsells.
Repeat orders added +30% to revenue.
The owner spent 5x less time on approvals than in previous campaigns.

Why this works

1. The marketer gets everything at once. No guessing or weeks of "research."
2. Fast start. First tests and first sales within 1−10 days.
3. Lower costs. Fewer reworks = less budget burned on "empty" ads.
4. Control. You understand what the marketer is doing and where the money goes.
5. System. Brief + CRM + automation = predictable profit growth.

How to increase profit in a small UAE business from the first launch

If you remove the extra emotions and buzzwords, the formula is simple:

Brief → Strong offer → Clear sales system.

Without a brief you risk the classic trap: "months of approvals first, then months waiting for payback."

With Dubai’s expensive traffic, that’s a dead end.

Your next step

If you want your marketer to launch Instagram ads in the UAE and have them pay back in the first month, start with the proper project handover.

📥 Download my UAE e-commerce launch checklist in my Telegram channel.

Give it to your marketer and get a fast start without long and costly experiments.

Or message me on WhatsApp — I'll help you fill out the brief and show how to adapt it to your business.