A media buyer running the same budget across a static feed post and a short-form video for an audience under 35 in Egypt isn't running a fair test anymore — industry trackers have reported CPMs for short-form video running 40 to 60 percent lower than static for that segment, which means the video isn't just performing better creatively, it's structurally cheaper to deliver before a single view is even counted.
This isn't a platform giving video a temporary boost to encourage adoption, which is how some marketers still explain it. It's a demand-side effect: Egypt's under-35 audience, which makes up the majority of the country's enormous social media base, spends its attention on short-form video by default, and the platforms' delivery systems price inventory according to where attention actually goes — a static post is competing for space the algorithm has already decided is less valuable.
The practical mistake this exposes is treating video as an occasional format inside a mostly-static content plan, produced when there's budget left over. If the CPM gap is real and persistent, the correct default is the reverse — video first, with static reserved for the specific placements and audiences where it genuinely still performs, like older demographics or formats where a product shot needs to be read carefully rather than watched quickly.
The quality bar for that video is lower than most brands assume, which is the good news buried in this. The cost advantage isn't coming from expensively produced content — a phone-shot, native-feeling clip frequently outperforms a polished studio edit for cost per result, because it doesn't read as an ad in a feed built on unpolished content, and production budget spent chasing a cinematic look is often working against the format rather than for it.
Where this breaks down is duration and hook strength, not production value. The first one to two seconds decide whether the video gets watched at all, and a beautifully shot fifteen-second video with a slow opening loses to a rougher seven-second one that states the offer immediately — the format rewards a fast, honest hook over craft, which is an uncomfortable trade for teams used to being judged on how polished the output looks.
The budget implication is straightforward even if the production shift isn't: a media plan still allocating spend to static creative by habit, in a market where the audience and the delivery system have both already moved to video, isn't being cautious — it's paying a 40 to 60 percent premium to reach the same person with a format they're less likely to watch.