OLX, the online classified service, have announced their expansion into the Russian market. The company provides a similar service to CraigsList, where users are encouraged to place free classified adverts for products or services.
Working already in 35 countries, OLX usually advertises through Google Adwords. However it seemed natural for them to partner with Yandex in Russia, as the search engine commands a 55% slice of the contextual advertising market. OLX will be using Yandex Direct to promote traffic to the site.
As Michael Ushakov, Head of Yandex PR commented,
OLX has already started using Yandex Direct to place adverts and we are discussing other ways of partnership with them further
The classified sector in Runet is not particularly competitive at the moment. Rambler Media teamed up with the existing service “Из Рук В Руки” (in English “From Hands to Hands”) last year but the rather conservative advertising policy of Rambler has been blamed for the lack of traffic to this enterprise.
Arsen Revazov, IMHO.ru CEO, thinks there are larger problems than traffic,
I’m not sure that OLX will earn much through advertising because the sites of free adverts are not popular among advertisers. This is a low quality audience.
Vladimir Dogov, Chief Representative of Google in Russia disagrees,
The classified area is getting increasingly popular and used by both individuals and companies. The search engine that works to index OLX adverts will be increasing the traffic of this resource.
Source: RBC Daily
Nick Wilsdon
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