Are you looking to expand your business in 2025? A key moment for international growth is coming up soon.
In March, about 2 billion people worldwide will be celebrating Ramadan, making it the biggest retail window of the year in many markets. It’s estimated that Ramadan drove $144 billion in retail sales recently across Southeast Asia and the Middle East and North Africa.
About 2 billion people worldwide celebrate Ramadan, including people in these markets:
Globally, 72% of shoppers during Ramadan think it’s the ideal time to find the best deals,1 and 78% of them are open to trying new brands while shopping.2 App usage also typically jumps during Ramadan. So the season presents an unmissable opportunity for businesses to grow revenues and win new customers.
To effectively connect with Ramadan shoppers wherever they are in the world and across their purchasing journeys, here are two strategies that can help you unlock international growth.
1. Win shoppers’ trust so they choose you
To win Ramadan shoppers who are new to your brand, help them feel confident about choosing you.
Our research shows that highly confident consumers are 10X more likely to be very satisfied after making their purchase and 6X more likely to say they would “definitely buy again.”3 And the platforms where consumers feel confident while researching purchases are Google and YouTube.
Users say Google is the No. 1 most trusted platform for delivering the right information at the right time.4 And the “trust transference” effect of YouTube is seen, for instance, among Indonesian viewers, with 96% of them agreeing that because of the information found on YouTube, they felt confident about the purchase they made.5 In Saudi Arabia and Turkey, 86%6 and 81%7 of viewers respectively, agree YouTube helps them decide what to purchase.
You can further build customer confidence in your brand by demonstrating trustworthiness on your website or app. For example, you can show customer reviews, display verification and certification badges, and provide localised payment methods. You can also help customers complete their purchase with confidence by offering free or expedited shipping and hassle-free returns.
2. Be highly relevant in your campaigns to drive sales
To have your brand stand out for Ramadan shoppers, it’s important to connect deeply with them during the season. You can achieve that with your ad campaigns by being highly relevant in your message, the audience you reach, and through the ads solutions used.
Create relevant messages
In your ad campaigns, highlight themes relevant to Ramadan, such as family, community, and giving. These timeless shared values make your campaign easily scalable across the many markets where Ramadan is celebrated.
To increase the relevance of your message, tailor them to different moments in the season. For example, when Ramadan begins and people are fasting for one month, experienced retailers will go beyond highlighting their competitive prices and spotlight the value and convenience they offer, such as fast delivery. And as Eid approaches, which is when shopping activity increases, they focus more on highlighting deals in their ads.
Another way to maximise the impact of your messages is to apply the ABCDs of effective video ads, which can deliver as much as a 30% lift in short-term sales likelihood and a 17% lift in long-term brand contribution.8
A key recommendation of the ABCDs of effective video ads is to enhance the audio component of your campaign and you can make your audio message relevant to different markets using the Google Video Ads Dubbing solution. The AI-powered solution can develop high-quality dubs of your videos in languages like Bahasa Indonesia and French, so your brand can connect deeply with Ramadan shoppers in their local language.
Reach highly relevant audiences
It’s also important to deliver your ads to audiences who are most interested in them to maximise your ROI. You can do that with custom audience segments. It lets your brand connect with audiences during Ramadan on topics and interests relevant to the season.
Tap into relevant AI-powered ads solutions
To win customers in new markets over Ramadan, you’ll also need to engage them with speed and scale. Google’s AI-powered ads solutions make this possible efficiently.
For example, Video reach campaigns let you maximise your reach to relevant audiences and optimise for ROI in the process. With Video view campaigns, you can optimise views across all video formats for your budget and build brand consideration by serving your ads to the most receptive audiences.
If you’re already leveraging Google’s App campaigns in markets where Ramadan is observed, you can create a seasonality adjustment to your target return on ad spend bid strategy for App campaigns. This will help you capture momentum from seasonal conversions like Ramadan without having to create new marketing campaigns.
How Garena won new customers overseas during Ramadan
Garena, a Singapore-based game developer, wanted to grow the presence of its game, Free Fire, among audiences in Indonesia during Ramadan 2024.
So it developed an ad campaign with a seasonally-relevant message that encouraged users in Indonesia to observe key Ramadan moments through mindful gaming. For example, it issued in-game rewards for users who are up for the Suhoor pre-dawn meal, and gave them the option to convert game coins into charitable donations. Also, users could win chances to go on Umroh with paid-for pilgrimage trips for their family.
Garena’s YouTube video marketing campaign for Free Fire during Ramadan 2024 scored these results:
To further raise awareness of the game among relevant audiences like gaming enthusiasts, Garena created a long-format video ad and five short-format video ads featuring YouTube creators such as Muhammad Fauzi Filawan, whose Frontal Gaming channel has over 12 million subscribers.
Garena then used Video reach campaigns to maximise the reach of its ad, and Video view campaigns to optimise for views. Additionally, it used First Position Moments so that its ads were the first ones to be seen by engaged audiences in front of key content during Ramadan’s key moments.
The results were impressive: Garena’s ad campaign for Free Fire during Ramadan 2024 reached a record view-through rate of 52% and ranked No. 7 among YouTube long-format videos trending nationwide. That helped Free Fire become the top free game on Indonesia’s Google Play Store during Ramadan.
As you look for new ways to scale business growth in 2025, Ramadan presents an opportunity for you to connect with some 2 billion people who mark the occasion worldwide. Start by being on the platforms that build customer trust in your offerings, and use AI-powered ads solutions to create resonant campaigns that reach and drive sales with your most relevant audience.
