{
  "id": 6770080,
  "title": "Meydan Free Zone wins two awards at the Marquee Awards 2026 for Performance Marketing and SEO",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/11/meydan-free-zone-wins-two-awards-at-the-marquee-awards-2026-for",
  "topic": "culture",
  "section": "Culture",
  "published": "2026-09-11T14:28:07.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Gulf News",
    "slug": "gulf-news",
    "url": "https://gulfnews.com/gn-focus/company-news/meydan-free-zone-wins-two-awards-at-the-marquee-awards-2026-for-performance-marketing-and-seo-1.500671358"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Meydan Free Zone has been honored with two awards at the Marquee Awards 2026, recognized for their excellence in Performance Marketing and SEO. The awards were bestowed upon the organization during a ceremony held at Hilton Dubai Palm Jumeirah on September 10, 2026, where 24 companies received accolades in 20 different categories. Meydan Free Zone was among the exclusive three organizations to clinch awards in both categories. The campaigns that secured these accolades were spearheaded and executed by the in-house marketing team of Meydan Free Zone.\n\nThe Performance Marketing category was won for the organization's transformative approach to paid media. Instead of relying on raw lead volume, the team rebuilt its strategy around CRM-verified opportunity and closed-sale signals, ensuring that investment was optimized against outcomes recorded in the sales pipeline. This strategic shift resulted in a significant boost in blended sales conversion, rising from 13% to 23% between January and June 2026. Concurrently, the cost per sale decreased by 63%, and media spend dropped by 71%, with paid return on ad spend peaking at an impressive 13.49 times.\n\nThe SEO award was granted for the organization's comprehensive approach to organic search and AI-driven discovery. By restructuring site architecture, scaling long-tail business activity pages, and optimizing entity data, Meydan Free Zone ensured its propositions were prominently featured in AI-generated answers. This effort led to a remarkable increase in organic sessions and impressions, reaching approximately 166% to 169%. Additionally, the Domain Authority improved from 23 to 47, with organic channels generating 3,812 licenses and AED 82.5 million in revenue over a 14-month period.\n\nAnisha Sagar, Head of Marketing and Communications at Meydan Free Zone, highlighted the significance of the awards, stating that they reflect the team's discipline and commitment to treating marketing channels as revenue infrastructure directly linked to license sales. The dual awards underscore the organization's digital-first model, which offers 24/7 access to licensing, payments, and member services through its platform, providing direct visibility into the journey from initial search or ad impression to license issuance.\n\nJay Shaholia, Chief Operating Officer at Meydan Free Zone, emphasized the global competition faced by startups, with entrepreneurs comparing jurisdictions from various locations and forming opinions before even reaching out to potential partners. Meydan Free Zone's strategic positioning as the UAE's only 24/7 digital free zone enabled the marketing team to have direct visibility into the path from the first search or ad impression to a license issuance, a fact that underpinned their award-winning campaigns.\n\nThe recognition received is seen as a testament to the organization's efforts to be easily found, understood, and acted upon, especially in an increasingly globalized environment where decision-making often occurs before any direct interaction. The real measure of success, however, lies in the growth of companies operating in Dubai, many of which might not have been established otherwise.",
  "summary": "Meydan Free Zone has won two awards at the Marquee Awards 2026, presented by Martechvibe, taking top honours for Technical Excellence in Performance Marketing and Technical Excellence in SEO. The winners were announced at a ceremony held at Hilton Dubai Palm Jumeirah on 10 September 2026, where 24 organisations were recognised across 20 categories. Meydan Free Zone was one of only three…",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}