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Aff. Marketing in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus? (14)

12-18-2015 03:56 PM #1 markohf (Member)
Aff. Marketing in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus?

So I am from this region and I would like to know if it will be profitable to advertise campaigns in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus.
I get really nice prices for these countries:

Russia: $0.2 CPM
Ukraine: $0.05 CPM
Belarus: $0.07 CPM

And the traffic is really not that bad it's quality as I know is really great unlike pops etc.
I am fairly new to paid traffic I am more of an SEO guy but as I can see these prices are not that bad comparing to other networks that have around even $1 CPM.

So what I want to ask is:

1. Have you ever promoted in these countries?

2. If so, what was your EPC, CR etc..

Thanks
Marko

12-18-2015 04:14 PM #2 thuglife (Member)

Marko, EPC CR etc varies by offers so only one way to find out, test that traffic source.

12-19-2015 01:09 AM #3 egorpe (Member)

There's a bunch of affiliates in Russia running Russian offers.

Some of the offers and landers I saw are direct ports of English language offers.

Don't get too excited though as if you don't know the language and don't know anyone who knows the language you'll probably fail miserably. One hour translation won't cut it. The ported campaigns I saw were done by someone who knew the language and local specifics well.

I saw some poorly translated Russian campaigns and I was like "what the fuck is this shit. kill. kill. kill."

12-19-2015 11:29 AM #4 markohf (Member)

Quote Originally Posted by egorpe View Post
There's a bunch of affiliates in Russia running Russian offers.

Some of the offers and landers I saw are direct ports of English language offers.

Don't get too excited though as if you don't know the language and don't know anyone who knows the language you'll probably fail miserably. One hour translation won't cut it. The ported campaigns I saw were done by someone who knew the language and local specifics well.

I saw some poorly translated Russian campaigns and I was like "what the fuck is this shit. kill. kill. kill."
That's why I am interested in these countries because my native language is Cyrilic which means that I can understand 40% of any other Cyrilic language including Russian, Ukraininan and Belorussian. And I have friends who are native speakers of those language as well because I live in that region as I said.

What I was mostly interested was the performance of these countries. Not all countries perform as great as others and I was mostly interested in these countries because I get a really nice price.

12-19-2015 12:28 PM #5 azureus (Member)

I find these markets very difficult, localizing an offer doesn't mean just translating it or understanding the language. From what you say I assume you are Serbian or Bulgarian which is nice but maybe you'll be better off with starting in your neighbouring countries.

People in Ukraine don't have a lot of money, people in Belarus don't have credit cards and generally don't know how to pay online (and they don't have a lot of money either). And to target Russia you could get help from your affiliate manager. I tried some offers which worked in most European countries and didn't work at all in Russia. Also the amount of bot traffic in Russia tends to be higher than in other countries.

12-19-2015 06:04 PM #6 markohf (Member)

Quote Originally Posted by azureus View Post
I find these markets very difficult, localizing an offer doesn't mean just translating it or understanding the language. From what you say I assume you are Serbian or Bulgarian which is nice but maybe you'll be better off with starting in your neighbouring countries.

People in Ukraine don't have a lot of money, people in Belarus don't have credit cards and generally don't know how to pay online (and they don't have a lot of money either). And to target Russia you could get help from your affiliate manager. I tried some offers which worked in most European countries and didn't work at all in Russia. Also the amount of bot traffic in Russia tends to be higher than in other countries.
Well the offer that I was looking at was the free iPhone giveaway with pin submit. I wanted to test that because yes people are poor in that region, the offer didn't pay much, only $0.80 per lead but the price was nice, so I'll give it a shot

12-19-2015 07:59 PM #7 matuloo (Legendary Moderator)

It actually doesnt matter THAT much whether its a poor country or not, if there are offers available for the GEO, someone obviously figured out how to monetize it

I do OK with Russia for example, but its true the GEO required a bit different approach to optimization, I couldnt make it running on a large scale, so had to literaly pick the golden sources and bid high there to get the good traffic. Im still able to get decent volume there and the ROI moves around acceptable 25-40% depending on the day. I also use low paying offers, but they are easier to convert.

I would also emphasize the importance of running with properly translated creatives, I had a native Russian translate the ad copy for me. I speak some russian personally, so i did the first batch of test banners with the help of google translate, then correcting the obvious mistakes, but it didnt work good enough. Proper translation definitely helped it.

Its definitely an interesting GEO tho, the available traffic volumes are huge.

12-19-2015 09:11 PM #8 egorpe (Member)

By the way, Russia is not as poor as you might think.

It's kind of like Thailand with a huge gap between ultra rich and very poor so just target the right segment of the market.

12-19-2015 10:18 PM #9 matuloo (Legendary Moderator)

Quote Originally Posted by egorpe View Post
By the way, Russia is not as poor as you might think.

It's kind of like Thailand with a huge gap between ultra rich and very poor so just target the right segment of the market.
Very true, I doubt there is a place with more top level Mercedes, BMW, AUDI... cars than Moscow in the whole Europe

12-19-2015 10:49 PM #10 jimmymob (Senior Member)

I crushed it with dating offers for Russians a few years ago (e-darling for example.) It converted extremely well for me and the advertiser was ecstatic about the quality. So definitely some money to be made, at least on that niche.

12-19-2015 11:05 PM #11 markohf (Member)

Quote Originally Posted by matuloo View Post
It actually doesnt matter THAT much whether its a poor country or not, if there are offers available for the GEO, someone obviously figured out how to monetize it

I do OK with Russia for example, but its true the GEO required a bit different approach to optimization, I couldnt make it running on a large scale, so had to literaly pick the golden sources and bid high there to get the good traffic. Im still able to get decent volume there and the ROI moves around acceptable 25-40% depending on the day. I also use low paying offers, but they are easier to convert.

I would also emphasize the importance of running with properly translated creatives, I had a native Russian translate the ad copy for me. I speak some russian personally, so i did the first batch of test banners with the help of google translate, then correcting the obvious mistakes, but it didnt work good enough. Proper translation definitely helped it.

Its definitely an interesting GEO tho, the available traffic volumes are huge.
Yeah it's really nice to scale that's why I am interested in those countries. Thanks fore the info though

12-20-2015 02:31 PM #12 affiliaxeoran (Member)

There is definitely money to be made in these GEOs. Binary offers are popular there, Travel, eCommerce, Games...

There are some strong affiliates operating in these GEOs.

As friends here mentioned, there is a relatively large population there with a LOT of money.

And in any case, as we all know, there is good money to be made even in countries where the population isnt very rich (as a whole).

12-21-2015 12:17 PM #13 direct2offer (Member)

Russia is not poor... But local currency is not strong at the moment, and people are not ready to pay for something in USD...

Binary offers are popular there, Travel, eCommerce, Games...
Binary - was popular one year ago, not now;
Travel - difficult last year (depends on the local currency... rouble went down from 35 roubles per 1 one USD in 2014 to 70 roubles per 1 USD in the end of 2014 and untill now... that's why people don't travel too much);
Games - works well, but huge experience needed;
eCommerce - the same with games.

one click works well, but you need private landing from advertiser and better payouts

12-21-2015 12:41 PM #14 affiliaxeoran (Member)

I agree in general.
Binary still works but maybe not as good as it used to.
Travel still works but not as good as it used to.
Games and eCommerce are working well but as I have said there are some strong publishers operating in this market so you need to be good at what you do.

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