Headlines from the 2014 Russian Affiliate Congress and Expo

The third annual Russian Affiliate Congress and Expo (RACE) wrapped up Saturday after two event-packed days including the second annual ceremony of the RACE awards.

Large Number of Attendants

On Friday morning, Moscow's Sokolniki Exhibition and Convention Centre was packed with people. Gaming operators, webmasters, bloggers, website owners, SEO experts, specialists, advertisers and members of affiliate programs have all arrived at the Russian capital to take part in this important event. The attendees came from all over Russia and from the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).

Development of Russian and CIS Markets on Display

Reporting on RACE, a writer for the major Russian newspaper Pravda wrote that the event has shown the extent of the development of the affiliate market trend in Russia. By bringing together the great number of attendees that it did, the event steered the development of affiliate marketing and other trends in Russia and the CIS into a positive direction. Networking was also a big part of RACE, with new business opportunities and seeds of partnerships planted throughout the two days of the event.

Exhibition

The RACE grounds were packed with people who divided their time between the different section in the exhibition and the panels which were held throughout the event. Attendees witnessed exhibitions by companies the likes of the veteran Mail.Ru group, AdmitAd GmbH, AdvertStar and others. The panels and talks engaged in matters regarding the state of the market at the present and in the future.

Panel Highlights

Some highlight panels included a presentation about the future of search engines presented by international SEO consultant Jan-Willem Bobbink, a talk by head of Alytics Ilya Makarov about contextual advertising on the basis of CPA model and a report on myths and realities on productivity in affiliate marketing presented by Elena Burdyugova from Element Group.