Internet advertising in the Armenian market is a relatively new term. It very quickly became widely spread in the market, however it has yet to have been deeply studied. That is why I decided to carry out research on the subject, by conducting expert interviews with marketing service providers and organization that use those services.

Different kinds of trending internet advertisements are used in the international and the Armenian market. If there are no restrictions on the types of internet advertising on the international market, in the Armenian market, the top type of internet advertising remains to be social media platforms.

Facebook (including Messenger Engagement type ads) is the most effective social network in Armenia, as it gives small businesses the opportunity to gain notoriety in their field with minimum expenses. Experts consider influencer marketing to be the second most trendy form of advertisement. People are starting to trust advertising on news feeds less, instead they trust the people who inspire them.   

While banner ads and background ads are gradually yielding their positions on the international market, they are still on the list of the most demanded types in Armenia. These types of ads are usually placed on Armenian news and entertainment websites.  

Some experts also include native advertising among the list of trends, which is not possible to distinguish from content. This is a system which allows you to simultaneously display and pay for several sites, not for the display time, but for visits.

Along with the development of some advertising types, there are some types which are being pushed out of the market. For example, Google blocks popup ads and large floating ads, feeling that these get in the way of and interrupt the users’ actions.

In Armenia, ads are also used on the Google platform, specifically by using Google AdWords. The latter works with keyword promotion, however, since latin transliteration is still mainly used to search in Armenian, search engine optimization (SEO) as well as paid AdWords ads are not very effective in Armenia yet.

The results of the research show that there is also widespread advertisement in Armenia through messages via SMS and Viber, which are most often used by clothing and apparel stores.

 

If we rank the top three forms of internet advertising spent on, we’ll get the following results:

1. Online casinos, totalizators, betting companies

2. Bank/loan organizations or mobile operators

3. Service providers (restaurants, shops, etc.).

The reason that online casinos spend the largest amount of money is that many of them are blocked by platforms (such as Google and Facebook), and in order to get good results, they have to spend huge budgets.

Betting companies, banking, credit organizations and mobile operators also use traditional advertising tools along with internet advertising. The same is true for service providers, such as construction, technical or dessert shops, medicines.

Meanwhile, IT, Saas (software as a service), e-commerce companies, restaurants, cafes and some shops mostly use digital advertising services.

Anna Khachatryan
Digital Marketing and Business Development Specialist

The views expressed in the column are those of the author's and do not necessarily reflect the views of Media.am.