Today we are going to talk about these classic ads on Russian Internet. According to the freely available statistic information about development of Internet advertisement market in Russia, the contextual ads market is twice as big and growing faster than media advertising market, and it makes sense: contextual ads are much easier to post, cheaper, do not require a media banner and does not make us decide which website to choose, because, when talking about Russia, that choice is obvious – Yandex.
Either way the media ads segment develops and again, talking about Russian market, it seems like it could be a good tool to use, so let’s try to find out how that instrument of promotion works in Russia.
There are just a few ways to promote your business on the Internet. You can use SEO techniques, contextual ads on search engines, social media or use the Internet like you’d use classic offline advertisement: choose the platform and post your ad.
First of all, let’s take a look at the chart created by TNS Russia that reflects top-20 visited websites in Russia during the May 2013.
The graphic reflect the average number of unique users. If we look through the statistics presented by another Russian Internet analytics we’ll discover some changes in the top websites, but in general it will still be the same: in Russia there are a few websites on .ru domain that are more popular than the others. Those websites are: Mail.ru, Yandex.ru, Vk.com, Avito.ru, Rambler.ru, etc. In that article we will explain what kind of websites they are and how you can use them for your own marketing goals in Russia.
1. Mail.ru
Mail.ru is one of the oldest Russian websites. It offers e-mail and search services, it has its own social media called Moi Mir which means My World, it also has its partner – popular among 35+ years-old Russians social media called Odnoklassniki, that is also one of the most visited websites in Russia. Moreover, mail.ru is one of the most popular information websites, where users can easily find the news and information for buying and selling cars and real estate, the latest reviews of any high-tech gadgets. Mail.ru even offers the articles about children and health written by doctors or other experienced specialists, horoscopes and Q/A services. Mail.ru tries to satisfy all users’ possible needs, and it seems to do it well if we look at the website’s statistics. So, obviously, mail.ru tends to use its popularity and offer advertising space. Working with mail.ru you can chose one of the many website’s sections, targeting the audience you need. It could be the mail.ru main page or news or weather or, for example, the section called “Lady” about beauty, health and relationships. You can also target the regions of Russia or the whole country, choose the demographic you need or even regulate the number of your ads each unique user will see. Working with mail.ru you can also post banners on Odnoklassniki.
2. Yandex.ru
Yandex.ru is the number one search engine in Russia, and we already posted about how to optimize the website for Yandex. But for the average user Yandex is much more than just a search service. It offers e-mail services, map service that works just like Google Maps, but much better in terms of Russia. Jobs, real estate and cars ads, news, weather, translations, music, video, do we need to say any more? And almost all that sections are available for media ads that can even be displayed on a mobile apps if needed. So if you start working with Yandex, which is inevitable, when you start online-marketing campaign in Russia, you should think about all the possibilities Yandex offers. Yandex also has a huge network of partners and can display your banner on, for example, Gismeteo.ru – one of the most popular websites about weather.
3. Vk.com
Vk.com, or vkontakte.ru as it used to be called, is the number one social media in Russia. Condemned because it just copies the famous Facebook services, Vkontakte nevertheless has its huge audience and social power in Russia. Obviously, the best way of using Vkontakte for your online-marketing campaign is creating a nice and interesting page the users will share with friends, but if you don’t have enough time you can simply use the ads targeting the people, regions or even schools or companies you need. You can use the ads to promote your public page on Vkontakte as well.
4. Avito.ru
Avito is a huge website where everyone can post their own ad for free. Therefore attracts lots of people willing to sell or to buy something. Real estate, cars, and useful stuff for hobbies, everything that can be sold and bought. So, you can either post your ad on the website or a “VIP-ad” which will be much more visible, or you can just buy ‘space’ for your media banner.
5. Rambler.ru
Rambler is another old player on the Russian Internet market who began as a search engine and e-mail service, but slowly transformed to an information website. It still has its own search and e-mail service, but they do not attract a huge audience. The media ads on Rambler are used by huge Russian companies (like mobile operators) and world-known companies operating in Russia. Working with Rambler, you can also post your ads on other popular “ru-domain” websites, like Lenta.ru (news), Ferra.ru (info about high-tech), Price.ru (price comparison website) etc. you can also chose to post the ad on a main page or on other pages of the website.
Example of the ad on Lenta.ru, one of the Rambler partners:
That’s how the Top-5 Russian websites function. Of course, it’s just a short list of the websites you can work with to increase your online presence in Russia, and if you are interested in some specific topics you probably should search for more specific Russian websites, (for example, Kinopoisk.ru – the website about film industry), but those five are probably the most well-known ones among all Russian people and used by potentially loyal customers. Moreover, working with those websites and their partners, you can always target the people you need, regarding the marketing goals of your business.