Booming Russia: advertising spending increases by 73%

The online advertising market in Russia is a good business to be in: it has been estimated at $260 million in the first half of 2008. This is an increase of 73 per cent compared to the same period in 2007, says MindShare Interaction.

The contextual advertising accounted for $161 million or 62% of total online advertising spending, while display advertising accounted for 38% ($99 million) of total online spending.

No wonder that Google recently acquired Begun, one of Russia’s most important advertising agencies. They’ve plenty of experience with contextual advertising, which might come in helpful when Google will introduce contextual pre-roll ads on YouTube.