CIS-Built Ad Networks: PropellerAds, RichAds, Evadav

Which major ad networks came out of the CIS?

Four networks dominate the CIS-founded segment of the push and pop market: PropellerAds, RichAds, Evadav, and Adsterra. All four trace their founding teams to Russia and Ukraine in the early-to-mid 2010s, built by ad-tech operators who cut their teeth running arbitrage campaigns before flipping to the supply side. PropellerAds is the oldest of the group, launched around 2011; Adsterra followed a couple of years later. RichAds and Evadav came later, entering the self-serve push market closer to 2017-2018.

None of the four operate legal entities inside Russia today. Sanctions and payment-processing restrictions after February 2022 pushed CIS-founded ad tech toward Cyprus, Estonia, and the UAE for incorporation, banking, and staff relocation. Exact headquarters addresses shift often enough that citing one here would go stale within months — check each network's current terms-of-service page before wiring a deposit.

Calling them "CIS-built" describes where the founders and much of the engineering talent came from, not where the company is legally domiciled now. Treat the label as a lineage marker, not a current operating footprint. Buyers who use it as shorthand for cheap Tier-2/3 volume are usually right; buyers who use it as shorthand for lax compliance are increasingly wrong, since several of these platforms now run KYC and creative-review processes stricter than some Western self-serve DSPs.

How do their traffic types and GEOs compare?

All four networks sell push, pop, and native traffic, but their GEO weighting differs enough to matter for targeting. Volume concentrates where CPCs stay cheapest to acquire — Tier-2 and Tier-3 GEOs across South Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America carry the bulk of push and pop impressions on every one of these networks.

Adsterra carries the heaviest Tier-1 mix of the four, useful when a campaign needs US or UK volume at push-network pricing rather than premium display rates. Evadav sits at the opposite end, built almost entirely on Tier-3 volume that suits low-payout nutra and sweepstakes offers rather than finance or SaaS.

What minimum budgets and CPCs should you expect?

Minimum deposits across these four networks run from roughly $50 to $500, and CPCs for push and pop typically start near $0.001 in low-cost Tier-3 GEOs and climb past $0.02 in competitive Tier-1 traffic. These figures move with seasonal promotions, account volume, and auction pressure, so treat them as a planning range rather than a quote. Confirm the live minimum and rate card on each network's own signup flow before committing budget.

None of these numbers should be treated as fixed. Ad-network rate cards shift with GEO demand and account history, and a network's public minimum sometimes differs from what an account manager quotes a returning buyer with spend history.

• PropellerAds: deposit minimum commonly cited near $100; push/pop CPCs from roughly $0.001 to $0.01 depending on GEO — verify against the current rate card, which changes often.
• RichAds: deposit minimum historically reported in the $200-$250 range; push CPCs generally sit slightly above PropellerAds' low end.
• Evadav: one of the lower entry points among the four, with deposits sometimes cited near $50-$100 — needs checking against current onboarding terms.
• Adsterra: deposit minimum around $100, with both CPC and CPM buying models available, useful for testing pop and native side by side.

Which verticals does each network allow?

Nutra, dating, sweepstakes, and gambling clear review on all four networks, while regulated finance, pharmaceuticals, and weapons-adjacent offers face the tightest restrictions or outright bans. Vertical policy is the fastest-moving part of any of these networks' terms of service, tightening after regulator pressure or a payment processor's complaint.

Confirm current category rules inside each platform's dashboard before launching a campaign in a regulated niche. A vertical allowed six months ago may require new documentation today, and enforcement varies by GEO even within the same category.

• Nutra: allowed on all four, generally requires GEO-specific landing pages and disclaimers; weight-loss and "miracle cure" angles draw the heaviest creative scrutiny.
• iGaming and gambling: allowed with licensing documentation in regulated GEOs; unlicensed gambling traffic gets geo-fenced or rejected, and policy tightens fastest in this category.
• Dating: allowed broadly; adult-leaning dating is usually routed to specific ad formats or zones rather than run-of-network placement.
• Sweepstakes and lead-gen: allowed on all four and consistently among the highest-volume categories on push and pop inventory.
• Crypto: case-by-case; some networks require proof of registration or restrict to specific GEOs following past enforcement actions in the sector.
• Pharma, tobacco, weapons, and hate-adjacent content: banned or heavily restricted network-wide.

How is their traffic quality policed?

Traffic quality gets policed through automated bot filtering, manual placement review, and buyer-side blacklist tools, though the automated layer catches less than its marketing copy implies. PropellerAds and Adsterra both require creative and landing-page approval before a campaign goes live, and RichAds runs manual moderation on submitted push creatives rather than relying solely on algorithmic screening. That slows launch time compared with fully automated Tier-1 exchanges, but a meaningful share of fraud and policy enforcement still happens by human review, not by a real-time bidding filter.

Every network in this group gives advertisers whitelist and blacklist controls for zone IDs and publisher IDs. Experienced media buyers treat that tool as the real quality-control layer, building GEO- and vertical-specific block lists from campaign data instead of trusting default fraud scoring. Third-party verification integrates with some of these networks' inventory, but coverage is partial — do not assume it applies to every zone.

Which network fits nutra vs iGaming vs sweeps?

Nutra and sweepstakes both favor the networks with the deepest Tier-2/3 push and pop volume, while iGaming favors the networks with stronger Tier-1 reach and licensing-aware review. That split roughly maps PropellerAds and Evadav toward volume-driven nutra and sweeps, and Adsterra or RichAds toward gambling campaigns targeting regulated Western GEOs.

None of this replaces a small test budget. Vertical fit on paper does not guarantee a specific offer clears review or converts at a given payout, and account-level results vary enough between advertisers on the same network that a $100-$200 test still beats guessing from a comparison table.

Quick decision checklist

Use this page as a decision aid, not a generic blog post. The practical question is whether the reader needs faster evidence about what is already working in VSL-driven direct response, especially across nutra, supplements, GLP-1, weight loss, blood sugar, and adjacent high-intent health markets.

Daily Intel Service is most relevant when the next decision depends on active market examples: which hook to test, which claim style is risky, which funnel structure is common, which language market is moving, and whether a competitor's creative is likely early, scaling, or already saturated.

• Start with the TL;DR if you need the direct answer.
• Use the table to compare trade-offs quickly.
• Use the FAQ for answer-engine-ready summaries.
• Use the CTA when the decision requires live VSL and ad examples instead of theory.

Daily Intel's coverage advantage

Daily Intel Service is positioned around category-leading variety and actionability: one of the broadest direct-response catalogs of VSLs and ad creatives across blackhat, greyhat, and whitehat advertising patterns, with enough context to understand what the advertiser is doing beyond the visible creative. The practical difference is that members are not just seeing a screenshot; they are seeing the VSL, the ad, the funnel path, the transcript, the UTM context, and the research notes that turn the asset into a decision.

This matters because direct-response affiliates do not operate in one clean category. A weight-loss campaign may use a whitehat compliance ad, a greyhat pre-lander, a more aggressive VSL, and a checkout path designed around upsells and recovery. A useful intelligence platform needs to capture that spectrum instead of pretending every winning campaign looks like a public brand ad.

Blackhat, whitehat, and multilingual signal coverage

Daily Intel tracks patterns across both blackhat-style and whitehat-style campaigns so operators can understand the market without blindly copying risk. Whitehat examples help with durability and compliance review; blackhat and greyhat examples reveal pressure points, hooks, mechanisms, and funnel structures that may be driving spend but require careful adaptation before use.

The catalog is also built for global operators, with VSL and ad references spanning 14+ languages and different local idioms. That is a key advantage for Brazilian, LATAM, European, MENA, Indian, and non-native English affiliates who need to see how the same market desire is translated across cultures instead of only studying US English ads.

How to use the intelligence responsibly

The goal is modeling, not copying. Use Daily Intel to understand structure: hook, mechanism, proof, claim intensity, funnel depth, offer economics, and saturation stage. Then build original creative, review claims, and adapt the angle to the traffic source, country, language, and compliance requirements of the campaign.

A strong workflow compares multiple examples before acting. If the same mechanism appears across several languages, several advertisers, and several funnel variants, it may be a durable market signal. If the example appears only once or depends on an aggressive claim, treat it as a research clue rather than a campaign template.

• Model structure, not protected creative assets.
• Separate whitehat durability from blackhat persuasion pressure.
• Compare US English examples against LATAM, European, and other language variants.
• Use transcripts and funnel notes to build original briefs.
• Keep compliance review separate from market research.

Methodology and source context

Daily Intel pages are written from a research workflow that reviews active VSLs, Meta ad creatives, transcripts, UTMs, funnel paths, checkout steps, upsells, recovery sequences, and compliance-sensitive claim patterns. The goal is to explain observable market behavior, not to provide legal, medical, or platform policy advice.

For educational pages, the supporting references should help readers verify search, crawlability, and public ad research context, especially Google helpful content guidance, Google SEO link best practices, and Meta Ad Library. Daily Intel then adds the direct-response interpretation layer so the page explains what the signal means for actual affiliate research decisions.

For deeper evaluation, continue through Global affiliate intelligence hub, Ad Spy Tools for Product Research: What They Actually Show, How to Tell an Offer Is Already Scaling Before Testing, How to Validate an Offer in One Day With Live Ad Data, Product Research Tools Compared for CIS Media Buyers, and What is a VSL?. These related Daily Intel pages connect this topic to the relevant methodology, pricing, trust context, comparison path, or niche workflow.