Russian Advertising Market Trends 2025: From Global to Local

This growth indicates a full recovery of the Russian advertising market from recent crises, including the impact of global advertising system blockages. The market now demonstrates more stable growth than in previous years. Key drivers of this expansion include the integration of new technologies and the scaling of advertising formats in messengers and marketplaces.

What to expect from the coming year of 2025? Experts from RMAA have identified the main trends to watch in the upcoming 2025.

Reflection of Global Trends in the Russian Market

The Russian advertising market is a distinctive environment where conventional marketing mechanisms may not always function as they do in other countries. Advertising in Russia employs unique tools and possesses its own specific characteristics. Nevertheless, certain global trends inevitably permeate the Russian media space.

Optimisation for Voice Queries

Recently, Google revealed that more than 20% of users already utilize voice search on their smartphones almost daily. This is not just a new trend – it’s a challenge for advertising systems. Companies are massively adapting their SEO strategies to account for conversational language patterns and secure top rankings in search results.

Russia is no exception. Following the rest of the world, the country is witnessing a growing adoption of both voice searches and smart assistants – but with its own systems. Popular assistants like Alexa and Siri are far less common in Russia. However, Russians enthusiastically embrace Alice by Yandex, which was introduced in 2017. Smart speakers featuring Alice are incredibly popular, and over seven years, the number of users has grown to 64 million people – today, one in five households in the country has a smart speaker. Following the integration of the YandexGPT language model into the voice assistant this spring, the number of queries increased by another 20%.

Marusya by VK is also popular. There are other voice assistants as well, as this segment is actively developing today. This serves as an important “wake-up call” for all advertisers in Russia to consider the Yandex and VK voice search capabilities. Otherwise, there is a significant risk of losing a substantial portion of the ‘hot’ audience.

AI

AI takes center stage in marketing strategies for 2025. Algorithms are used for a variety of purposes, the main ones being:

• generating texts and visual content;

• personalizing advertising messages;

• analyzing user behavior.

It is expected that by 2028, global investments in artificial intelligence for marketing and advertising will exceed $107 billion.

There is a lot of valuable information to share about the implementation of Artificial Intelligence, but one of the main trends for brands in Russia is the rise of Telegram chatbots.

Telegram bot @AviasalesCheapTicketsBot, which informs the user about the availability of cheap airline tickets for the destination and season he/she is interested in

Why? It’s simple. A bot accelerates sales, maintains continuous contact with the consumer, and reduces the distance between them and the company. It is a fast and convenient feature that minimizes the likelihood of refusals. Various options of strategies can be applied here, but the most important one is sales.

Site Optimization for Mobile Versions

In the last quarter of 2023, mobile devices accounted for 58.67% of global web traffic. In the second one, surveys showed that 96.2% of respondents accessed the internet via mobile devices. Although these people also use laptops or desktop PCs, the percentage is significantly lower (62.8%).

This indicates one thing: the average user overwhelmingly prefers using a phone over a computer. Advertisers worldwide are adapting to this trend.

In Russia, over 130 million users are regular internet consumers, with mobile traffic accounting for approximately 95.1%. This forces brands to consider a mobile-first approach. It cannot be said that this trend has just emerged. However, while it previously held less importance, it has now become critical.

The main optimization goals are interface simplicity, loading speed, and adapting content for small screens. For deeper analytics of mobile traffic, tools such as AppMetrica, Mixpanel, Adjust, and others (depending on specific tasks) take center stage.

Interactive Content and Gamification

Users increasingly value engagement: from AR filters to mini-games in mobile apps – interactivity transforms advertising and sales into an exciting story, often with the added incentive of a bonus.

The global gamification market is expected to reach $15.43 billion in 2024, with an average annual growth rate of 25.84% projected through 2031.

In Russia, gamification is currently implemented primarily by large ecosystems such as banks, marketplaces, and federal retailers. However, this approach is beginning to penetrate deeper into all layers of business. Moreover, advertising platforms enable the launch of strategies tailored to this format, for instance, Rewarded Video in Yandex.Direct or ads in VK Stories launched via VK Ads.
 

A game with rewards in the form of promo codes in Samokat - the product delivery service

UGC

By 2025, brands will increasingly give a voice to their consumers. Recommendations, video reviews, flash mobs, and challenges involving customers build trust more effectively than traditional advertising campaigns.

The simplest example of UGC is customer reviews posted on brand platforms. These can take the form of social media reposts, dedicated pages on websites, or screenshots from various review sites. Companies planning to develop this approach commercially must ensure such content leaves no doubts about its authenticity. Businesses suspected of artificially inflating their positive reputation risk losing more than they gain.

Page with video reviews on the EMC private clinic website

A relatively new trend has also emerged in this space – personalized reports. Services used regularly by individuals offer their audience summaries based on their interests, search queries, purchases, and progress in various activities. In December, "year-in-review" reports are particularly popular, and people actively share them on social media. While Western audiences share Spotify Wrapped music summaries, Russian users have started widely sharing personalized selections from Yandex Music.
 

Year-in-review in Yandex.Music

Local Trends in the Russian Advertising Market

Global trends have a significant impact on the Russian market. However, in the local marketing landscape, they transform, acquire unique characteristics, and compete with other tendencies. Here’s a look at the ones to watch in 2025.

Telegram Potential

Telegram is more than just a messenger. Today, over 50% of Russia's population uses it daily, and the app ranks among the top two most downloaded in the country. By 2025, it has evolved into a fully-fledged advertising platform, especially for the Russian and CIS markets. Its convenient formats, an increasingly sophisticated ad manager, and vast thematic diversity enable various brands to achieve their goals.

A key direction within the messenger is paid social. Telegram itself offers this through its Telegram Ads platform, alongside numerous third-party services that surged in 2024. Even Yandex.Direct introduced a strategy tailored for Telegram. Additionally, the presentation of advertising messages has become more appealing to users.

In other words, ignoring promotion on Telegram seems questionable, as it is becoming increasingly effective and the messenger's audience continues to grow.