Cyprus is home to the majority of retail brokers offering services in Europe. In addition, it has led the firms providing services to this brokerage industry to move their base to the Mediterranean island. Buzz Dealer, a public relations company offering services to brokers, recently established a new office in Limassol, Cyprus.

Buzz Dealer's New Cyprus Office

The PR company started to operate from the new Cyprus office in January, but it will be fully functional in March. It came as an addition to Buzz Dealer's existing office in Tel Aviv, Israel, and a few other branches. The move came as a part of the company's global outreach expansion program. Buzz Dealer offers online reputation management (ORM), search engine optimization (SEO), app store optimization (ASO), and performance marketing.

The new Cypriot office of Buzz Dealer will focus on offering services around sales and customer support to clients in Europe. However, it will also handle clients outside the continent. The company will relocate a portion of its staff to the new Limassol office and will add new talent.

Besides Buzz Dealer, several other brokerage industry service providers moved to Cyprus. Match-Trade Technologies opened a new Limassol office in 2021 to enhance its regional dominance. Further, several well-known brokers, including Swissquote and Equiti, have gained Cyprus regulatory licenses to improve European operations.

Interview with the CEO of Buzz Dealer

Buzz Dealer's Chief Executive, Uri Samet, sat with Finance Magnates to discuss the company's new Cyprus establishment and other marketing trends in the brokerage industry.

FM: You have recently opened a new office in Cyprus. So, why Cyprus? And, why now?

US: Thanks to the access it offers across the EU, Cyprus has long been recognized as a hub for fintech companies, and it has continued to develop over the past few years.

The nation is in a great position to draw on other fintech companies because it is a member of the European Union (EU), the European Economic Area (EEA), and is governed by the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID), which permits businesses in any EEA country to provide their services to clients in another.

The fintech industry has been one of our leading sectors for many years, and this includes brokers, crypto exchanges, PSPs, banks, blockchain projects, financial education institutes, and more. We have attended numerous local expos of this industry, many of our clients are based here, and we see great potential in this market.

FM: You have a lot of financial services clients. How important do you think organic traffic/SEO is for brokers?

US: I believe that organic traffic is one of the most stable channels, mainly because it does not rely solely on 3rd party platforms with rules that can change overnight without any prior notice, as has happened many times in the past. While Google's algorithm does get updated frequently, and it is important to be on top of the latest changes, it is much more stable and predictable than the volatile ad policies of different platforms.

The financial industry, as a heavily regulated sector, suffers from these types of changes more than other sectors, which is why the organic channels are one of the only marketing channels that can be relied on in terms of stability, long-term planning, and strategy.

Additionally, online trust and presence are some of the top fundamentals for any brand, and they have a direct and undeniable effect on all types of traffic. Brands with excellent search visibility and a well-maintained online reputation see higher returns on their investments on paid channels as well.

FM: Should brokers rely more on organic traffic for new onboards or approach other paid marketing channels?

US: Organic and paid channels should be utilized together as part of a strategic plan that aims both for the short term and long term. Organic marketing takes time to be effective, it doesn't respond quickly to changes, and, therefore, it takes some patience to achieve results.

Paid channels should be used in the short and medium terms, in order to examine changes more effectively, and also to cover for the time it takes for organic marketing to show results.

In many cases, paid channels can strengthen the organic channels as well, for example, in the case of ASO, where acquisition campaigns on paid channels tend to result in ASO improvements.

FM: In your opinion, in which way do brokers often go wrong with marketing and SEO?

US: I think that the main area where many brokers fail is in their tendency to try to measure paid and organic channels in the same way. Paid channels are always easier to work with in terms of measuring performance, calculating ROI, etc. They are more flexible; the feedback is quick, and so on, while organic marketing strategy requires a much longer time period to show results- sometimes 2 or 3 quarters. The time it takes the results to respond to changes in strategy is also much longer. Therefore, it's a completely different game, and the organic game requires way more patience. The silver lining is that organic marketing is highly rewarding to those who have patience and less potential for surprises that may arise from policy changes (like the restriction of crypto ads on Facebook, forex ads on Google, etc.).

On the SEO side, where we can often see things go wrong, other than clients losing patience, is usually in aspects of competitor research and/or keyword research, which can cause several different issues. For example, the selection of phrases that are too informative and don't tend to convert over ones that do (such as 'gold price' vs. 'gold trading'), choosing keywords that seem right but don't have sufficient search volume in the target market, or choosing keywords that aren't exclusive to the market they're operating in. A good example of the last point is the term 'CFD'. It has a different meaning in computer sciences, and a big portion of the search volume is, therefore, not relevant, while 'CFDs' can be attributed mainly to the financial industry. Try looking both of these keywords up in Google and see the difference).

Another thing that we often see brokers fail with is the proper selection of target markets and languages for SEO, and the wrong budget allocation for them. An attempt to cover too many markets and languages with too small a budget might result in insufficient results in any of the markets, and when keeping in mind the time it takes to understand that you made mistakes with your SEO strategy, makes it even more important to do it accurately.

FM: Do you think an in-house team is better for all marketing tasks or is hiring an agency more reasonable?

US: Depends on the size of the broker, the target markets, etc. You can't be an expert on everything. In SEO for example, if it's a main channel, then you probably shouldn't outsource the strategy and technical side of things, but outsourcing the link-building activities is usually a smarter approach than doing it in-house.

On the performance marketing side of things, it is easier to outsource, as once again it might be hard to find and retain in-house campaign managers who are experts on all relevant platforms, and the learning process could end up being very expensive. I think that the main advantage of outsourcing performance marketing is the ability to test new platforms quickly, test a lot more, scale up faster and do cross-platform optimization. So to sum it up, I do think that main paid channels should be handled in-house, while experimental ones should be outsourced, and that SEO on-page work and strategic planning should be done in-house while off-page SEO and online reputation management should be outsourced.

FM: There are dozens of clones of legitimate brokers, and these scammers are running rampant ads. How should brokers tackle this?

US: There are many different cases for this, and that also determines the right action plan. If these ads can be considered as spam, then there's an option to file spam reports on search engines. If it's a clear violation of rules and there are enough details of the scammers, then legal action should be taken. In other cases, it is advised to advertise warnings on relevant forums such as Reddit or Quora, and in severe cases even publish a PR announcement.

FM: Lastly, where do you think marketing is going with the advancement of technology (specifically AI advancements)? Should brokers invest more in AI-based marketing techniques, or will human intervention be a necessity?

US: While generative AI is solving many challenges in digital marketing, it's still in its infancy stages, and we learn something new about it every day. The use of AI-based art has already become pretty heavy in banner ads and campaigns creatives, ChatGPT is already being used for keyword research, micro-copy and other content-based SEO tasks, and I believe that AI advancement will be used more and more for digital marketing. With that being said, human intervention is still a necessity, especially when trying to understand user behavior online, analyzing qualitative variables and taking strategic decisions.