DIGITAL MARKETING IN RUSSIA 2018 - FINDING YOUR CUSTOMERS ON THE INTERNET IN RUSSIA - RMAA Group
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DIGITAL MARKETING
IN RUSSIA 2018
FINDING YOUR CUSTOMERS
ON THE INTERNET IN RUSSIA
— HOW TO GO ABOUT IT?
by Vadim Tylik
FINDING YOUR CUSTOMERS ON THE INTERNET IN RUSSIA — HOW TO GO ABOUT IT?
Introduction
By the nature of our activities, my colleagues and I deal with many
European, American and Asian businesses. Although we find various
topics for discussion, in this White Paper I’ve decided to elaborate on a
topic that is particularly interesting for a foreign business in the Russian
market: how to find your customers in the internet in Russia? How to
promote your web project in Russia This White Paper has been written
specifically for foreign marketing specialists and entrepreneurs who
want to expand their sphere of influence, to bring online projects to the
Russian-speaking market and acquire new customers.
This White Paper is not only devoted to search marketing, you will
also find a complete description of the market and all the digital marketing
tools that can be applied to your business in Russia. If you want to seize
the Russian market a hundred percent, this White Paper will give you the
knowledge to make a successful digital marketing campaign in Russia.
About the Author:
Vadim Tylik – Russian entrepreneur, founder
and president of the RMAA Group – Russian full
service marketing and advertising agency. Vadim
helps foreign companies to develop and implement
marketing strategies in Russia and CIS region,
create performance based digital media campaigns
in order to expand more effectively on the Russian
market. With more than nine years of experience
in the advertising industry and marketing, Vadim
has worked with dozens of medium-sized and big
businesses, the most famous of which are – Merkle
(USA), BigPoint (Germany), and Dong Feng Motor
Corporation (China).
© Vadim Tylik • 2018 • RMAA Group • www.russia-promo.com 2
FINDING YOUR CUSTOMERS ON THE INTERNET IN RUSSIA — HOW TO GO ABOUT IT?
Are you involved in digital marketing? Do you have the task of promoting a web pro-
ject in Russia? Are you an entrepreneur or a digital marketing specialist familiar with a par-
ticular local market, but not sufficiently familiar with Russian digital marketing? This White
Paper has been written specifically for foreign marketing specialists and entrepreneurs who
want to expand their sphere of influence, to bring online projects to the Russian-speaking
market and acquire new customers.
Today, I am aware of the fact that more and more foreign online stores are adapting
their workflows for Russian customers. They translate content into Russian and advertise in
the Russian Internet. Why is this happening? Firstly, Russians have money and they love to
buy! A second reason is psychological and lies deep inside the Russian soul. It’s all about the
mentality of Russians. As it happens, Russians prefer to buy abroad more than at home, they
do not trust local brands. This situation is unpleasant for the Russian economy, but is good
for foreign companies, as foreign businesses get high profits from sales to Russian customers.
Russian consumer psychology can be formulated in a common saying: “No man is a prophet
in his own country.”
Despite all the prospects that foreign companies see in the Russian market, there are
a number of barriers that hinder a successful business process. Not all foreign online stores
and online projects are becoming popular in Russia. What is the reason for that? Lack of
knowledge regarding the peculiarities of web promotion, as well as marketing opportunities.
As a rule, the only promoting tool foreign marketing experts use is Google AdWords. This
tool is certainly effective, but not very popular in Russia, because Google covers only 33% of
all the Russian search market. This means that by confining yourself to only using the adver-
tising opportunities of Google, you are losing 67% of the search market!
This White Paper is not only devoted to search marketing, you will also find a com-
plete description of the market and all the digital marketing tools that can be applied to your
business in Russia. Or you probably only want to know how Google AdWords works in Rus-
sia? If that`s it, you can stop reading this article, but if you still want to seize the Russian
market a hundred percent, this White Paper will give you the knowledge to make a successful
digital marketing campaign in Russia.
© Vadim Tylik • 2018 • RMAA Group • www.russia-promo.com 3
FINDING YOUR CUSTOMERS ON THE INTERNET IN RUSSIA — HOW TO GO ABOUT IT?
RUSSIAN INTERNET TODAY
A summary of the main search engines
The most popular search engine in Russia since 1997 is Yandex. The second most
popular search engine in Russia is Google - the world’s leading search engine, entered the
Russian market in 2006.
In third place is Mail.Ru search engine. For a long time Mail.Ru was using third-party
search engines - Google and Yandex, developing its own search algorithm at the same time.
Mail.Ru switched to its own search engine in 2013.
In Russia, the audience is almost completely divided between two search engines:
Yandex and Google.
According to the Russian company Liveinternet, as of December 2017 the market
share between the search engines was distributed as follows:
0,74%
0,26 %
Others
0,98%
2,73 %
49,13 % 46,16 %
A summary of Russian social networks
Let’s see what social networks are popular among Russians in order to understand
how to approach the Russian Internet audience. Let`s have a look at them.
VKontakte is the most popular social network in Russia. More than 470 million users
are registered on it. More than 75% of site users are older than 25 years. More than 92 mil-
lion visitors come to the site every day.
Odnoklassniki is a social network that was set up to search for former classmates. To-
day it has more than 330 million users. 44% of the audience are people aged 25 to 44 years.
Every day this website is visited by 59 million users.
Facebook is a social network popular worldwide. Initially Facebook users from Rus-
© Vadim Tylik • 2018 • RMAA Group • www.russia-promo.com 4
FINDING YOUR CUSTOMERS ON THE INTERNET IN RUSSIA — HOW TO GO ABOUT IT?
sia were generally people with a higher education, speaking good English. Many of them are
businessmen and top managers at various levels. Today the audience of Russians in Face-
book is 27.7 million.
Moi Mir@Mail.ru (My World) is a social network of the largest Russian Internet
company Mail.ru. Followers of service – 9.1 million per month (according to TNS December
2017).
Instagram is becoming more and more popular. The Russian audience of this resource
is 14,4 million people, which is nearly five times as many as in April 2017. This social network
takes the second place according to the number of active writers (the first place takes VKon-
takte).
Short Message Service Twitter is not the most popular social network in Russia. The
Russian audience of this social network as of May 2017 was only 8.1 million users.
Below is a list of top 20 most popular sites on the Russian Internet according to audi-
ence choice. This data is presented by the research agency TNS Media Scope.
ANALYSIS OF ADVERTISING TRENDS AND AUDIENCE
of Russian social networks
according to TNS Web-Index Russia
December 2017
Monthly reach 12-64 years
www.facebook.com www.my.mail.ru
21,7 mln. 9,1 mln.
users users
percent of Russian percent of Russian
popularity 37,0% popularity 16,0%
www.ok.ru www.vk.com www.instagram.com
27,0 mln. 41,1 mln. 16,0 mln.
users users users
percent of Russian percent of Russian percent of Russian
popularity 47,6% popularity 72,4% popularity 25,5%
© Vadim Tylik • 2018 • RMAA Group • www.russia-promo.com 5
FINDING YOUR CUSTOMERS ON THE INTERNET IN RUSSIA — HOW TO GO ABOUT IT?
GENDER
according to Media Scope December 2017 Monthly reach
76,9%*
58,9%*
55,4% 51,7% 55,6%
48,3%
44,6% 44,4% 41,1%*
21,3%*
AGE
9,7% 0%* 8,9%*
Age 12-17 8,6%* Age 12-17
Age 18-24
14,1% Age 55-64
12,7% Age 18-24
Age 55-64
14,9%* 37,0%*
16,0% 26,1% Age 45-54
Age 25-34
Age 45-54 Age 25-34
21,3% 7,7% 8% 30,6%* 4,8% 6,5%
Age 12-17 Age 35-44 Age 12-17 Age 18-24
Age 35-44 Age 18-24
19,9% 25,0% 16,4%
Age 55-64 Age 55-64 Age 25-34
20,6%
Age 25-34
20,0%
Age 45-54 22,2% 25,1%
Age 45-54 Age 35-44
23,7%
Age 35-44
*according to Brand Analytics for May 2017
ACTIVITY OF AUDIENCE
the average number number of visits number of pages
of minutes per visit per user viewed
10,3* 41,2 475,7 millions
4,5* 6,9 170,7 millions
10,2* 9,8 8,1 millions
*according to Alexa for January 2018
© Vadim Tylik • 2018 • RMAA Group • www.russia-promo.com 6
FINDING YOUR CUSTOMERS ON THE INTERNET IN RUSSIA — HOW TO GO ABOUT IT?
Rating of the most popular Russian Internet resources
Top 20 Internet projects.
Russia 0+, 12-64 years
December 2017
The average times per day Name of The average times per month
in thousands of hours project in thousands of hours
26 530 Yandex (31 projects) 50 549
18 026 Vk.com | Mail.ru (23 projects) 44 483
17 413 Mail.ru (23 projects) | Youtube.com 42 340
14 057 Google (ru+com) 41 187
13 952 Youtube.com | Vk.com 41 071
8 949 Odnoklassniki.ru 27 037
3 425 Aliexpress.com | Wikipedia.org 23 425
3 382 Facebook.com | Aliexpress.com 20 178
2 875 Avito.ru 19 334
2 814 Wikipedia.org | Facebook.com 18 811
2 260 Instagram.com 15 682
2 206 Rambler.ru | Gosuslugi.ru 12 424
1 691 Gismeteo.ru | Rambler.ru 12 326
1 364 Rbc.ru 11 174
1 218 Gosuslugi.ru | Ria.ru 11 125
1 147 Pochta.ru | LiveJournal.com 11 085
1 129 Fotostrana.ru | Kinopoisk.ru 10 643
1 092 LiveJournal.com | Kp.ru 10 415
1 070 Pikabu.ru | Mts.ru 10 048
1 034 Ria.ru | Ozon.ru 9 181
© Vadim Tylik • 2018 • RMAA Group • www.russia-promo.com 7
FINDING YOUR CUSTOMERS ON THE INTERNET IN RUSSIA — HOW TO GO ABOUT IT?
WHAT IS NEEDED FOR SUCCESS
IN RUSSIAN DIGITAL MARKETING?
Understanding of local specifics
In addition to an understanding of market analysis and
market design, of which we spoke briefly above and will talk
about in more detail later, knowledge of the audience’s lan-
guage is very important. It is not just about the obvious need
for quality localization of advertising campaigns, which must
be carried out by native speakers.
In the Russian Internet environment the stratification of
users is huge, including age, wealth, education and ideol-
ogy. Therefore, individual people choose not only different
Internet platforms for communication and tracking news,
but even different search engines. Each social network has a
particular attitude to customers and dramatically contrasting
content, even if they have exactly the same functionality.
We should definitely consider Russian national character. There are examples of
campaigns that worked very well in the West, but even with high-quality localization did not
attract consumers in Russia, and even repulsed them. You will have to forget about certain
techniques. For example, the Russian audience will not tolerate aggressive pressure. You
want to incite consumers’ hatred? Push the consumer to believe that he simply has no other
choice but to use your product or service.
Does your product meet a ready market in Russia?
Before you start promoting your product or service
on the Russian market, it is necessary to know how
often it has been looked up in the web. In addition to
Google Trends, which you are already familiar with,
you should use the service provided by Yandex -
“Selection of words”: wordstat.yandex.ru. In the chart
below you can see that the keyword “Iphone X” was
requested 364653 times per month. It is important to
understand that this data is not stable; the demand is
changing every month.
© Vadim Tylik • 2018 • RMAA Group • www.russia-promo.com 8
FINDING YOUR CUSTOMERS ON THE INTERNET IN RUSSIA — HOW TO GO ABOUT IT?
A SURVEY OF RUSSIAN INTERNET
ADVERTISING SOLUTIONS
SEO-promotion
The principles of search engine promotion in Russia are the same as in the English
Internet. Yandex develops its search algorithms in the same manner as Google does.
Therefore, the principles of working with text content are the same today in Russia
and abroad and are designed for behavioral ranking. Today, the presence of keywords is still
important, but the texts written for search engines, as well as link-bombing are irrevocably
gone. Search engines track user behavior and, therefore, success belongs to those who can
keep visitors on site for longer, and achieve a high depth of viewings.
The cost of SEO-promotion can vary greatly depending on the level of a request’s com-
petiveness. This in turn depends on the number of competing sites and their level of invest-
ment in SEO-promotion. For example, competition will be significantly higher for the request
“deposits”, than for the request “ice cream manufacturer Novosibirsk.”
© Vadim Tylik • 2018 • RMAA Group • www.russia-promo.com 9
FINDING YOUR CUSTOMERS ON THE INTERNET IN RUSSIA — HOW TO GO ABOUT IT?
DIY or search for an executive?
You’ll need at least two experts. However, there are people who combine both roles:
SEO-experts to develop a semantic core and a copywriter to create content. If you choose not
to use the services of the agency, you will face the problem of the search and selection of spe-
cialists. Before you start looking, you need to know the following about the Russian advertis-
ing market.
Freelancers
Many freelancers who consider themselves SEO-special-
ists in Russia continue to work with outdated tools: trading
links, stuffing texts with keywords until they become complete-
ly unreadable.
Copywriting market in Russia is very much obstructed
by non-professionals. At least half of them are professionally
unsuitable. Using the incompetence in advertising of managers
of small and medium-sized businesses, “copywriting” in Rus-
sia is a way of making a living for students, women on mater-
nity leave and lots of other people who not only have zero idea
about advertising and marketing, but who also don’t even try to get this sort of knowledge.
They easily get positive reviews from uninformed customers; improve their positions in the
catalogs of freelance marketplaces buying rating for money. Therefore we do not recom-
mend seeking a specialist only according to his rating, which is highly likely to be hyped-up.
It is ideal to have a native speaker familiar with advertising at hand. They will give you use-
ful tips or will make a choice for you.
If you still intend to seek a specialist based on his reputation, choose those who have
experience of working with reputable brands.
Agencies
Agency services are likely to cost you more than hiring
freelancers, but agencies have a few more factors that allow
you to estimate their credibility and effectiveness. An agency is
also useful when you need to withstand competitors constantly
investing time and money into improving their content.
In this case, firstly the agency will give you the advantage
of an integrated approach to solving your problems. Secondly,
it will give you a large amount of good texts, which are not
likely to have been obtained from the freelancers - especially
given the problem of their search described above.
© Vadim Tylik • 2018 • RMAA Group • www.russia-promo.com 10FINDING YOUR CUSTOMERS ON THE INTERNET IN RUSSIA — HOW TO GO ABOUT IT?
Contextual advertising – advertisement
with payment per click
If in Russia there is a large number of competitors on the keywords that you`re inter-
ested in, and you need instant gratification, then the best solution is advertising with pay per
click, or contextual advertising. Ads are shown to users on the side or below the main search
results in the form of text ads.
Google is a worldwide leader in the field of contextual and search advertising, but in
Russia you will inevitably have to deal with at least one more player on this market - Yandex
and possibly with another - Begun. The difference between Google and Yandex at the audi-
ence level is as follows. Google is used by those who want to see fewer advertisements and are
interested in finding high-quality and informative texts. Also, a certain snobbery is resident
in the audience, and confidence in their own “advanced level”. Yandex is ideal for those look-
ing for Internet products, services and entertainment.
The contextual advertising system in Russia operates on the same principle: you pay
per click, i.e. for a potential client, jumping on your site. Cost per click can be from 1 cent and
up to several dollars, depending on the number of competitors in the industry, the CTR index
and your position among other ads.
«Yandex.Direct»
Contextual advertising on Yandex is necessary if you want
to push forward in the Russian Internet. The services of this
company mostly replicate the services of Google, but Yandex
works with the consumer market much more thoroughly. More
often than not it is with Yandex that consumers search for sell-
ers of goods and services. Even those who use Google as their
main tool for finding useful information or news, use Yandex
when it comes to shopping. Also site owners prefer to place ads on Yandex, as the company
provides the most convenient payment terms.
Google AdWords
You probably already know this operator. Compared to
Yandex.Direct it is not very popular in Russia. The price per
click is significantly higher. The payment system is incon-
venient for owners of advertising platforms, so Google avoids
hosting contextual advertising. However, when carrying inte-
grated campaigns Google AdWords is not _ avoided. In search
advertising Google has access to a secure, educated audience
that is ready to buy expensive and high-quality goods.
© Vadim Tylik • 2018 • RMAA Group • www.russia-promo.com 11FINDING YOUR CUSTOMERS ON THE INTERNET IN RUSSIA — HOW TO GO ABOUT IT?
Begun
Begun is an operator of contextual advertising, created by
Rambler. At one point it was one of the largest Russian Inter-
net companies, but eventually it lost ground. By June 2013 Be-
gun was almost dying. Outdated technology and low require-
ments for partner sites (attendance of two people per day) did
not add any popularity. In addition, professionals from online
advertising suspected their partners of “click fraud” of contex-
tual advertising by bots - the platform, apparently, did not allow the operator to monitor the
actions of fraudsters. In June 2013 the operator presented a new platform that meets modern
standards - “Begun Smart”.
Begun is the only Russian operator reseller. That is, it not only sells advertising on
partner sites, but also sells search and contextual advertising from Yandex and Google. If
you have a need to order all “in a single package”, perhaps partly sacrificing the efficiency of
campaigns, you can use this solution.
DIY or find an agency?
This issue should be approached carefully. If you order advertising from Yandex or
Begun, contacting the agency you spend exactly the same amount as for independent work.
Yandex provides significant discounts to partner agencies, which generates their income.
Google does not have such a program, so when referring to the agency be prepared for an
extra charge.
If you choose to work on your own, then you will also need a copywriter to produce ads.
Experience shows that managers, whose services are provided by the search and contextual
advertising operators, are often very familiar with setting up a campaign but very poor –
with Russian grammar and marketing. The resulting ads are simply embarrassing.
Media-contextual advertising
Banner ads are demonstrated to a target audience. Unlike sales-oriented contextual
advertising, this also works for the company’s image, and increases brand awareness. Below
we describe the major media-contextual solutions in the Russian market.
Yandex.Bayan
This banner network uses the numerous advertising ser-
vices of Yandex, which are very popular in Russia (many of
them have become completely irreplaceable) and encompasses
a variety of target audiences. Advertisers choose thematic sites
to show their banners.
Unlike contextual advertising, which is aimed at the use of the
© Vadim Tylik • 2018 • RMAA Group • www.russia-promo.com 12FINDING YOUR CUSTOMERS ON THE INTERNET IN RUSSIA — HOW TO GO ABOUT IT?
theme of the resource where it is located, context-media advertising from Yandex is focused
on the queries that the user enters in the search box. For example, if you are looking for win-
ter shoes, you will see banners of the stores that sell them.
The advertiser does not pay per click, but per demonstration of advertising. Yandex
provides discounts to partner agencies.
Mail.ru Group
This is one of the largest companies of Runet, which owns
the popular Russian mail service Mail.ru, social networks “My
World” and “Odnoklassniki”, as well as several thematic por-
tals.
Advertisement is _ targeted according to demographic (gender and age) and geographical
parameters, as well as _ fields of interest. Partners of Mail Group enjoy various discounts.
Begun
Rambler owns a number of popular internet projects,
also placing advertising on large sites that do not belong to it.
There is also a partner program that allows you to advertise
on small portals. Of the well-known sites where Begun places
advertisement there are several that are worth mentioning.
They are Afisha.ru, a portal with announcements of cultural
events; Livejournal.ru - the largest blogging platform of Runet;
websites Price.ru (compares prices from online stores) and Ferra.ru (reviews of home appli-
ances).
“Begun” claims to cover an audience of over 15 million users per day and more than 40 mil-
lion per month. Advertisement is _ targeted geographically, as well as according to interests.
Partner agencies enjoy discounts from Begun.
Context-media network Google AdWords
Context-media advertising from Google is not so relevant in
Russia, compared to the English-speaking segment of the net-
work. But it is also worth paying attention to, as YouTube and
Gmail, which are included in this advertising network, are popu-
lar worldwide.
Google AdWords does not provide discounts to partner agencies.
© Vadim Tylik • 2018 • RMAA Group • www.russia-promo.com 13FINDING YOUR CUSTOMERS ON THE INTERNET IN RUSSIA — HOW TO GO ABOUT IT?
DIY or find an agency?
By passing banner advertising to an agency, in four cases out of five you pay the same
money as ordering a campaign by yourself. Agencies benefit from discounts that are pro-
vided by the operator, not from the margins paid by the customer. At the same time people
familiar with the peculiarities of the Russian media environment and the mentality of Rus-
sians will be working for you.
Social networks
The main thing you need to know about social networks in Russia is that even if their
functionality is the same, the audience is not homogeneous. VK is not very different from
Facebook, but these networks have a different audience, and even the same people there will
behave differently.
VK
This mostly Russian-oriented social network can be your main
instrument. It has the largest number of users. Since more than 60%
of people are under the age of 25 years, VK is considered to be a youth
network. The older generation, though, often creates accounts for audio
and video (almost completely unmoderated, and therefore containing a
high proportion of pirated movies and music), and does not communi-
cate through the site that much.
When working with a group of brands, SMM-editors often adopot a casual tone, and
appeal to the audience as “you” (disrespectful form of address in Russian, appropriate among
family members, friends, and young people). Content is usually catchy, viral, with game ele-
ments.
In this social network, you will not find the usual tool of Facebook, which is advertis-
ing in the news feed of users. This social network is willing to advertise in communities using
their own exchange advertising, which makes it easier to search for a group and buy advertis-
ing in them.
You create a promotional post; select the community that is suitable for the subject
according to the number of readers and the price of the post (assigned by the moderator of
the group) and pass your post for moderation. At the same time the system will lock a certain
amount of money on your account equal to the price of the ordered advertising. After this the
group moderator expresses his willingness or refusal to publish your post, and the reserved
amount is deducted or debited from the account. After this the post will appear in the news
feed. Moreover, you can preset the time of publication, or the period of time the post is to be
published for.
The rest of the promotional opportunities of VK are very similar to Facebook: placing
targeted banner advertising, special offers in games, and creating your own brand advertising
applications.
© Vadim Tylik • 2018 • RMAA Group • www.russia-promo.com 14FINDING YOUR CUSTOMERS ON THE INTERNET IN RUSSIA — HOW TO GO ABOUT IT?
Facebook
Facebook is also used by Russians, although significantly
less than VK. The Russian audience for this network is older
than that for VK, usually has a high level of education, and
likes meaningful communication. In communities people
usually appeal to each other respectfully as «You», and try
to make the posts more informative and useful, rather than
entertaining.
Instagram
In October 2015 official ads became available on Russian seg-
ment of Istagram. Such ads pop up on the newsfeed, thus attracting
consumers’ attention. In Russia there are no existing competitive anal-
ogies up to this point. Today, the number of Istagram users in Russia
keeps on growing after it hit 12 million. This network is mostly popular
in Moscow (nearly 3 mln users) and Saint Petersburg (500 thousand users). 70% of the audi-
ence are women.
Official advertising on Istagram has flexible settings. You can select the display time
and sort your audience by location, gender, age, and interests. Business advertising would be
the most promising when it’s tied to a specific city (stores, cafes, studios), goods and services
for women (beauty studios, jewelry), or cell phone apps and accessories. You need to remem-
ber that advertising in Istagram can also cause a negative effect, since users don’t like seeing
ads in their newsfeed. So, do your best to make your ads either useful or just funny. You can
manage your Istagram ads through an ad account on Facebook or though authorized resell-
ers in runet and CIS countries, such as Aitarget.
DIY or find an agency?
Our recommendations on social marketing will be the same as for SEO. To moder-
ate the communities in social networks just one freelancer is enough. I should add that in
Russia fraud is thriving - when thousands of bots that are indistinguishable at first glance
from real users are added into communities. Account hacking is also popular, real users are
being signed for a page or brand account without their knowledge. Contacting the agency
does not provide an absolute guarantee that you will not be deceived - there are examples
of fraud from the companies as well, so be sure to check the reputation of the agency before
starting work
E-mail marketing
The largest number of myths is concentrated in the field
of email marketing. First, many see e-mail marketing as spam e-
mail. And, secondly, the idea of e-mail marketing itself in Russia
and, for example, in the United States is quite different. For in-
stance, if the US has a huge amount of e-mail-brokers who offer a
database of e-mail addresses according to certain characteristics:
interests, work position, income, gender, and age, you won`t
© Vadim Tylik • 2018 • RMAA Group • www.russia-promo.com 15FINDING YOUR CUSTOMERS ON THE INTERNET IN RUSSIA — HOW TO GO ABOUT IT?
find this in Russia. And if someone offers you such a service in Russia, then you should think
about the quality of this service.
Speaking of e-mail marketing, I mean the following: people expressed a will to sign
up for your newsletter, which means agreed to be sent letters from you. In Russia there is a
huge amount of spam, so recipients of e-mails they didn`t subscribe for have no enthusiasm
for letters from unknown addresses. Most of these messages are sent to spam without being
read. However, there is a way to reach the desired audience via e-mail.
If you do not own an e-mail database of a Russian-speaking audience, but you want to
do e-mail marketing, in this case, you will need to reach those who have access to the desired
audience. Russian internet agencies that are engaged in e-mail marketing create their own
Internet projects. For example, a site dedicated to cooking, where users can get thousands
of free recipes, working “at the behest” of an agency. An advertiser comes to an agency with
the request that he is interested in access to an audience of “women, aged 25+, with chil-
dren”, and the agency shall carry an e-mail campaign of the brand “jointly” with the cooking
website. Thus, it becomes a legalized e-mail newsletter, which does not contradict - Russian
legislation and is accepted normally by internet users.
B2B e-mail campaigns are more difficult to carry, but, it is possible. Therefore, it is im-
portant to find an agency that has connections with the sites or resources, owning the neces-
sary databases.
DIY or find an agency?
For conducting mailing you only need one copywriter who speaks Russian. If you are
able to find a good specialist without the help of the agency it’s half the battle. The other
half - to find the necessary databases (which is the main problem), here you cannot do well
without a professional agency with access to the right resources.
Cost per Action – advertising model
This business model is relatively new to the Russian
advertising market. A CPA agency assumes a full range
of measures to promote your project and gets paid for
the results of its activities: customer calls, purchases
from an online store, placing goods on a wish list, in-
stalling applications, accounts registration, and so on.
Each of these events, pushing consumers to pur-
chase something, is negotiated and rated by the CPA
agency and is marked by a short but succinct term
«lead». The procedure for obtaining leads is called, lead
generation.
Lead generation is basically a win-win business pro-
motion format for those who do not want to delve deep-
ly into digital strategies. The business does not have to agree on all the advertising moves to
© Vadim Tylik • 2018 • RMAA Group • www.russia-promo.com 16FINDING YOUR CUSTOMERS ON THE INTERNET IN RUSSIA — HOW TO GO ABOUT IT?
approve layouts and paying video producers, then await the issue, and worry about the errors
and miscalculations of staff or invited marketing specialists.
Besides, leads allow the specifying of the task at most through the use of certain con-
straints. You can choose a specific product that needs to be promoted, the most interesting
region for business, the social status of the consumer and even the cost of the lead - in gen-
eral, any parameter, allowing you to select the best consumer out of a huge audience.
Most often, the CPA agency enables customers to set the monthly amount of leads that
they can actually handle.
Where do leads come from? Today, there are four general directions of lead genera-
tion: contextual advertising, cold calls - implemented with the help of call-centers, the con-
version of organic traffic of successful online projects with a high level of attendance into
leads, as well as affiliate marketing.
Influencer Marketing
Influencer Marketing is going to remain an effective way of brand promotion in 2016.
This promotion channel can prove effective on any platform: personal website, live journal
and other blogs, youtube, periscope, social networks, such as VK, Facebook, Istagram. It is
extremely important for your opinion leader to engage with his audience. The main ways
to promote the product through the opinion leader include direct recommendation, casual
mentioning of the brand in a positive context without imposing, and testing the product.
Many brands in Russia are currently using influencers for promotion.
How do you choose the influencer? It’s better if this is a person whose spheres of
interest naturally include the product being promoted. For example, a blogger writing
about tourism can advise his readers the equipment of a certain brand. In the same way, it’s
better to promote online games on the game channel. It’s very important that your audience
is laid-back. Your influencer must be either a professional in a certain sphere or a celebrity
whose life interests many ordinary people.
It’s important to make sure that the main audience of
your leader does not involve people with well-developed
critical thinking. Otherwise, this promotion attempt
can turn into a negative experience both for you and
your blogger. So, it is preferable to choose an agent who
would talk to his audience about simple things, such as
entertainment, good food, his tastes and plans, and so on. In a blog with mainly analytical
materials, you will instantly face a negative reaction from the audience, as soon as they are
given any advice.
Besides, it is worth remembering that you can’t just promote any product or service
through opinion leaders. It should look like a simple recommendation from a friend. For
instance, in most blogs it’d be hard to offer the readers a specific mix for construction or a
certain type of tyres, though it might still be possible on some specialized YouTube chan-
nels. Influencer Marketing is perfect for promoting products and services related to health
and entertainment, for this is exactly what can be advised in an informal conversation with a
friend: things like clothes, cosmetics, trips, restaurants and cafes, goods for kids, etc.
© Vadim Tylik • 2018 • RMAA Group • www.russia-promo.com 17FINDING YOUR CUSTOMERS ON THE INTERNET IN RUSSIA — HOW TO GO ABOUT IT?
Blogging
Russia has two major blogging platforms: LiveJour-
nal for texts and YouTube for videos. YouTube is the
number one video hosting site in the world, and Russia
is no exception. “LiveJournal” owes its popularity to a
glorious past. It was the first social platform that Rus-
sians began to explore. Many used it as a social network,
until the much more convenient and technologically
advanced Vkontakte and Facebook appeared. However,
these networks are poorly adapted to posting big texts, text search and arrangement. Also
blogs on «LiveJournal» are popular because old-timers that became popular many years ago
did not want to leave them. And there is significantly less trouble with the platform than with
your own website on a separate domain.
Blogging and video blogging in Russia is very different. If video bloggers, as with
other countries, mostly work with their own themes, bloggers on LiveJournal stand out not
for their knowledge of a particular narrow topic, but writing skills, personal charisma, intel-
ligence, the ability to create viral posts, and excite the readers. In other words, if YouTube
has the advantage of revealing certain topics and meeting interests, “LiveJournal” is an area
almost entirely owned by individuals endowed with charm. In both cases, of course, there are
some exceptions.
Themed blogs can be found in the segment «stand alone». This is because of the fact
that bloggers earn by placing ads, and until relatively recently, “LiveJournal” did not provide
such an opportunity.
YouTube
To find bloggers who can present your product or service,
it’s best to use the search on YouTube. Enter the name of the
topic you want in the search box and select the filter “Chan-
nels”. Next, the use options “Sort by rating” and “Number of
Views” – they will help you find the most popular bloggers
working with the topic you are interested in.
Also, websites analyzing lookup statistics can also be helpful,
for example, Topchannel.ru or Whatstat.ru, where information is presented more clearly
than in video sharing.
LiveJournal
LiveJournal has its own rating based on views of blogs, num-
ber of comments and reposts. It is quite objective. Ratings
of Russian-language blogs can be found at Livejournal.com/
ratings/users?country=cyr. This value, referred to as social
capital is used for web ranking. The calculation algorithm is
kept secret in order to avoid ratings being artificially inflated
by bloggers.
Besides individuals, thematic communities, which are collective blogs, are a force. They can
© Vadim Tylik • 2018 • RMAA Group • www.russia-promo.com 18FINDING YOUR CUSTOMERS ON THE INTERNET IN RUSSIA — HOW TO GO ABOUT IT?
be a good tool in promoting your business, but require a certain delicacy when working with
them. Any member of the community can create a post in it by default, but moderators often
impose restrictions, such as some criteria according to which the post is considered worthy of
the community. In conjunction with the pre-moderation and limited access to writing posts
it is quite a serious barrier for publication. Therefore, working with communities requires a
thorough understanding of the principles of their operation.
If you want to create an advertising post in the community, first contact the moderator and
ask for permission to do it, and second, try to make sure that the post is not just advertising.
Blogs entertain people and help them to learn new things; make sure that these functions are
performed by your post.
Instagram
Istagram is currently being used by numerous brands to promote
their products and services. For several reasons, Instagram network
proves to be quite convenient for Influencer Marketing. The lion’s share
of a post is taken by pictures, and the audience of popular bloggers and
celebrities is pretty laid-back. Besides, Istagram is mostly a female social
network. It’s essential that your opinion leader does not simply share pictures of the product,
but adds his positive remarks as well.
It’s very good if the blogger uses home pictures instead of professional shots in front
of the logo banner. Here are some typical examples of advertising posts in Instagram: ce-
lebrity recommends a cosmetic/clothes brand, popular blogger shares about promotion at a
specific place, influencer mom recommends a cool developing game for toddlers.
«Blogun» and other exchange platforms
In addition to personal work with bloggers
there is another possibility - bulk buying of adver-
tising on blogs via global web marketplace. This
is a risky way since when making a bulk order you
cannot control the blogs and social networking ac-
counts where your advertising will appear, nor the quality of their content and audience.
The oldest and most popular of such marketplaces is Blogun.ru. Requirements for the
bloggers are: at least 20 posts per month, not less than twenty subscribers in LJ. At the same
time, it is quite difficult to ensure that blog subscribers did not stop reading it a few years
ago. But Blogun also helps to make contact with the stand alone blogs where thematic con-
tent is placed, as we mentioned before.
© Vadim Tylik • 2018 • RMAA Group • www.russia-promo.com 19FINDING YOUR CUSTOMERS ON THE INTERNET IN RUSSIA — HOW TO GO ABOUT IT?
DIY or find an agency?
Finding a popular blogger, inviting him to use the product or service and place a review is
not too difficult, and there will be a real effect.
But you can produce a much greater effect by enlisting the help of people who have worked
with the blogosphere for years, familiar with the characteristics of audiences for each of the
most popular bloggers. They will be able to target your PR more accurately.
PERSPECTIVES OF WEB ADVERTISING
IN RUSSIA
The digitalizing of media space is continuing and will continue. More and more people
are shifting their attention to the Internet. The Russian online audience is growing. Mobile
devices that allow you to use the Internet wherever you go are developing rapidly.
Unfortunately, today, during this period of political and economic difficulties, busi-
ness has more obstacles. This is a good reason
to use the experience of the global financial
crisis of 2008 and apply it to online advertising,
which demonstrated its effectiveness back then.
According to the agency «Mindshare Interac-
tion», during the crisis the Internet advertis-
ing market in Russia increased by 55%. Cheap
advertising contact, precise targeting, specific
tools for advertising campaign tracking and
managing made online advertising an ideal tool
in times of crisis, when it was important to get the most out of the money invested in sales
promotion.
Today, digital marketing techniques allow you to get in touch with Russian consumers
worldwide. My experience in promotion of international brands on the Russian market in-
dicates that businessmen today are not just interested in the Russian market; they are inter-
ested in the whole Russian-speaking audience, living in CIS countries, Europe and America.
As of 2014 the Russian-speaking market as a whole covered more than 270 million people
according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia.
The crisis and political woes will pass – we`ve been through it many times before. So
use the crisis as an opportunity to get a piece of the pie from the Russian market, while your
competitors behave passively, trying not to take risks.
© Vadim Tylik • 2018 • RMAA Group • www.russia-promo.com 20So Where to Go From Here?
This paper merely touches the surface of How to Reach Us: If you want to contact
the Digital Marketing in Russia. If you Vadim Tylik directly, he can be reached
need help promoting your business in via e-mail at :
Russia, consider RMAA Group. We offer vadim@russia-promo.com
the following services to help you:
or connect Vadim on LinkedIn: http://
Full Digital Marketing Solutions in www.linkedin.com/in/vadimtylik
Russia for foreign companies: We
handle everything from developing
marketing strategy, market analysis
to ads production, digital and online
advertising that fits your specific needs.
For more information contact RMAA
team via e-mail:
office@russia-promo.com
Be sure to check out RMAA Group`s
blog for the latest information on the
Russian marketing trends. See
www.russia-promo.com/blog
About the Company:
RMAA Group is an independent Russian full service Marketing agency.
RMAA Group helps international b2c and b2b brands enter the Russian
market. RMAA Group serves companies from the USA, England,
Europe, South Korea and China which are interested in the Russian
market.
RMAA Group`s core competencies include: Search Marketing, Digital
Advertising, Analytics & Conversion Rate Optimization, Mobile &
Social Media Marketing, Content Marketing, Digital Marketing
Strategy & Media Planning and Influencer Marketing. Our global
vision is to create a favorable economic environment allowing foreign
companies to operate successfully in the Russian market.
About the author:
Vadim Tylik – Russian entrepreneur, founder and
president of the RMAA Group – Russian full service
marketing and advertising agency. Vadim helps foreign
companies to develop and implement marketing
strategies in Russia and CIS region, create performance
based digital media campaigns in order to expand more
effectively on the Russian market. With more than nine
years of experience in the advertising industry and
marketing, Vadim has worked with dozens of medium-
sized and big businesses, the most famous of which are
– Merkle (USA), BigPoint (Germany), and Dong Feng
Motor Corporation (China).You can also read
