Promoting a site

To promote your site using the Campaign Wizard, provide a link to the page that you want to advertise. The Campaign Wizard suggests relevant settings, related terms, texts, and images at each step of creating an ad.

Users will see your ads in search results, on the Yandex Advertising Network's sites, and in Yandex Maps.

Create a campaign

1. In the Campaigns section, tap in the bottom-right corner.

2. Select Campaign Wizard.

3. Enter the full link to the page that you want to promote. The Campaign Wizard will pull in the details based on that page.

   If you don't have a site, select promotion without a site. To do this, tap Proceed without link.

   Site availability will be monitored automatically. If the site is unavailable, your ads will pause to prevent unnecessary budget spending.

4. To insert UTM tags or other parameters into the link, under Link to the promoted page, expand Additional parameters, and enter a value.

   This is an optional step. URL parameters help you better track statistical metrics and offer deeper insights into the effectiveness of your campaign. For more information, see URL parameters.

5. To serve your ads on Yandex Maps, enable this option in the Promoting a company from Yandex Business section. If you provide a link and Yandex Direct doesn't find your company on Yandex Maps automatically, link your company to the campaign manually.

   Once you've linked the company:

   • A green label appears on Yandex Maps so your company stands out against competitors.

   • The company will rank higher in Yandex Maps search results for targeted queries.

   • The campaign will be added to the “Similar places” section in the cards of related companies.

Configure your ad layout

1. Based on your site, up to five title and image options and up to three texts will be selected. These ad elements are combined when your ads are served. Make sure all the elements work well together and don't contradict each other.

   You can edit any setting or add a custom option:

   • Describe your promotional offer and its unique benefits.

     Read our recommendations for writing ad texts.

     You can use templates in your ad texts. Set the default keyword and put a hash sign “#” before and after it. Next, in the Audience section, select Manual setup and add the keywords that you want to insert into the template.

   • Change images: upload custom images, select the images pulled from the site, or pick out stock or AI-generated images. Images created by the neural network are selected by ad category and stored in a stock image database.

   Over time, Yandex Direct will automatically choose the most effective combination and start serving it more often.

2. Add up to 2 videos to the ad. The video must be no more than 100 MB and from 5 to 60 seconds.

   Technical requirements for videos

   Format	MP4, WebM, MOV, QT, FLV, AVI
   Size	no larger than 100 MB
   Duration	between 5 and 60 sec
   Recommended aspect ratio	16 : 9; 1 : 1; 9 : 16
   Minimum resolution	360p
   Recommended resolution	1080p
   Video frame rate	from 20 fps
   Video codecs	H.264, VP6F, VP8, Theora
   Number of video tracks	1
   Minimum quality	44 kHz, 16 Kbit/s, stereo
   Audio codecs	AAC, MP3, Vorbis
   Number of audio tracks	no more than 1
   File codec	avc1, F4V, isom, M4A, M4V, mmp4, mp41, mp42, qt
   Cover	No

   A good, relevant video can draw more attention to your ad and boost your conversion rate.

3. Under Sitelinks, you'll see links to key pages on your site, like pages with discounts or descriptions of certain products. To edit, replace, or delete a link, tap the field with that link.

4. If your company is listed in Yandex Business, the contact information will be loaded from there automatically. If there are multiple addresses or phone numbers specified in Yandex Business, you can choose which of them to show in the ad.

Ads created by the neural network

These are additional ads for your campaign. They're generated based on the promoted page and your organization's details. Additional options are created using Yandex Neuro Ads, a cutting-edge neural technology solution.

How it works

An additional ad group will be created in the campaign: this is where your automatically generated ads will be added. On average, Yandex Direct creates up to 20 neural network ads.

Before they are approved, such ads are automatically filtered by a range of parameters, including relevance and appeal. Then they are checked by humans and sent for moderation.

Define your audience

1. Set your display region.

   Ads will be served for extended geotargeting:

   • In search results, based on search queries or the user's regular region.

   • In ad networks, based on the user's frequent location, regardless of their current location.

   You can't disable extended geotargeting in the Campaign Wizard. It's best to revise your related queries so that they account for extended geotargeting. For more information, see How does geotargeting work?

   If you link your company on Yandex Maps to your campaign and select the option Link ads with a company on Yandex Maps, geotargeting settings won't limit your impressions on Yandex Maps.

2. Select the impression time.

   If your company is listed in Yandex Business, Yandex Direct will load your company's business hours by default.

   How to set up time targeting

3. Select your audience:

   • Optimal audience: Yandex Direct selects the appropriate settings based on your ad texts and the promoted page.

   • Manual setup — Use this option to manually configure:

     • Targeting parameters based on the user profile: gender, age, and device type.

     • Under Interests and search queries, specify the interests and habits (such as websites, companies, or categories) that your audience may search for. You should also add related terms — these are keywords that Yandex Direct will use to target interested users.

     Autotargeting impressions are enabled by default, with all categories selected. If needed, set exceptions by adding negative keywords, autotargeting categories, or branded queries.

   If you switch from manual to automatic audience selection, it resets everything: all autotargeting categories are enabled, selected interests are removed, impressions are re-enabled for all device types, gender is set to any, and age is set to 18+.

Specify the campaign goals and budget

1. Under Promotion goal, select your campaign goal: "Maximize clicks" or "Maximize conversions". Choose your CPA or CPC expenditure logic.

2. If you've selected "Maximum conversions" as your goal, specify your Yandex Metrica tags.

   Under Conversions, add user actions that are important for your business and specify how much you're willing to pay for each of them.

   If you link your company on Yandex Maps to your campaign and select the option Link ads with a company on Yandex Maps, geotargeting settings won't limit your impressions on Yandex Maps.

   • In the Yandex Metrica tags section, Yandex Direct will automatically create for your company a special tag named “Yandex Maps tag” along with goals. This tag cannot be removed.

   • An additional goal section will appear on Yandex Maps: Call, “Go to Messenger”, and “Plot route.” You can keep only the relevant goals and change their costs.

     The “Open messenger” goal combines all events (clicks) on contact buttons for WhatsApp, Telegram, Viber, if these messengers are listed in the company profile.

3. Define the weekly budget. A budget that covers at least ten conversions for the most expensive goal.

   Yandex Direct will spend money within the specified amount. The campaign will run as long as there's money in your account.

4. The strategy will be selected automatically depending on your settings:

   • If you selected "Maximize conversions" at an average weekly CPA and set one or more goals with a specified cost, you'll get maximum conversions for these goals. Your average weekly CPA for each goal will aim to match the specified value. You'll pay per ad click. Yandex Direct will select the audience that is most likely to convert.

   • If you selected "Maximize conversions" at a fixed CPA and set multiple goals with a specified cost, you'll get maximum conversions for all the goals that you added. You'll pay per conversion. When multiple conversions are completed, you're charged for each of them. Yandex Direct will select the audience that is most likely to convert.

   • If you selected Maximum conversions with no limit and a single goal, the campaign will bring you maximum conversions for the selected goal within the specified weekly budget. You'll pay per ad click. Yandex Direct will select the audience that is most likely to convert.

   • If you selected "Maximize clicks" at an average weekly CPC, you'll pay for clicks to your site. Your average weekly CPC will aim to match the specified value.

   • If you selected "Maximize clicks" with no limit, Yandex Direct will choose the strategy that brings the maximum amount of interested users to your site within the specified budget.

   Placements are selected automatically to ensure optimal achievement of the campaign goals for the specified budget. You can't select placements and add blocked sites in the Campaign Wizard.

5. Tap Create campaign — it will be submitted for moderation.

To edit the campaign later, tap Save as draft.

As an advertising data operator, Yandex assigns each creative a unique identifier (token) when creating campaigns. It uses this token to aggregate all your placement data and send it to the Unified Register of Online Advertising (ERIR). Learn more about ad labeling.

Moderation, payment, and launch

After you create your campaign, our moderators check it for compliance with the advertising requirements.

You'll receive the moderation results at the email that you used to register in Yandex Direct.

Some campaign elements are moderated separately (for example, images). If one or more elements fail moderation, the campaign starts without them. The moderation status and comments are shown on the campaign page. You can delete or edit elements that failed moderation. The edited elements are re-submitted for moderation and added to the campaign if they pass.

Your ads will start running as soon as Yandex processes your payment.

When you launch a campaign, its page shows basic information about its settings. You can edit active campaigns only through the Yandex Direct website. Some parameters can't be edited (for example, Site). Edited parameters have to be moderated again.

Campaign statistics

After starting your campaign, you can monitor its performance in the statistics sections.

Have questions?

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