Step 1. Make sure that your audience can find you and place an order

— What are your campaign geotargeting settings?

Many people in Russia have left big cities to wait out the stay-at-home period either at their dachas (summer houses), visiting relatives, and some even travelling even further away to their hometowns. At the same time, they continue to work remotely and actively order goods and services. Give them the opportunity to find you.

You may want to include nearby regions in your geotargeting settings and activate the Expanded geotargeting option so that you don’t miss on those users who have left for a short time but are still interested in shopping in your city.

— What about your impression schedule?

What once were marked differences in user behavior between weekends and weekdays have now largely disappeared. People have fewer places to go on weekends, and they spend almost all their free time online: looking for home improvement products, online classes for children, ordering groceries, watching movies, and making plans for the future. If your business is currently running, it is more important than ever to continue showing ads on weekends to attract more leads.

Step 2. Come up with relevant offers

— Does your site make it clear that your business is still open?

On your site, mention that you are still working and that delivery is available. It is important that this information be present on the first page, so that users don’t need to guess whether you are currently accepting orders.

If it is difficult for you to make changes to your site regularly, you can easily make a new landing page in our Turbo Site Builder so that your ads lead to the most relevant offers.

— Are you responding to users’ queries?

Try catching current waves of interest. That does not mean every business should start producing hand sanitizer and masks, but there have been numerous examples of businesses who radically changed the wording and composition of their offers in March and April to respond to changing external conditions. One good example is companies that specialize in event catering switched to delivering everyday meals. A hotel near Moscow made a similar decision — the owners arranged for delivery from their hotel restaurant to continue, though the hotel itself cannot accept guests.

Advertisers who cannot make a radically new offer can simply mention contactless delivery to their site and ad copy, and make seasonal product and service selections with the popular hashtag #домалучше («better at home»).

— Are there ways to reallocate your resources?

Other popular trends are webinars and online product consultations. Salespeople from offline stores now have free time that can be redirected towards customer support on the company’s site and content creation: recording videos, publishing in a blog on Yandex Zen, uploading new photos and reviews, live streams with tips and recommendations.

— What will customers want in the future?

While some services are unavailable now, users are likely to want them once life gets back on track. Businesses that previously did not offer certificates and subscriptions now do. One chain of Moscow hair salons is offering their regular customers attractive discounts if they pay in advance for future haircuts.

Step 3. Use your budget effectively

— Is your Yandex.Metrica tag linked to your campaigns?

Now it is especially important to maximize the return from each ruble. To get the most out of your campaigns, order a free Yandex.Metrica setup and specify the key goals in the campaign (or choose an automatic strategy that brings conversions at your selected price).

— Are you taking advantage of current interest?

Try using automatic retargeting segments to bring as many users as possible to convert.

And last, don’t be afraid to talk about the changes and difficulties that your business is facing. Loyal customers place great value on honesty and transparency. And many of them are likely to be understanding if you write how they can support you, e.g. by placing a larger than normal order to help compensate delivery costs. Or by telling their friends about your business to help you attract new customers.

We talked about other trends and ways of adapting, as well as Yandex’s support for business during our online conference on April 22. If you missed it, the recording is available here (only in Russian).

If you have questions, reach out to the customer service department.

We will soon be writing about other changes we are introducing to make working with Yandex.Direct easier and more convenient specifically for smaller businesses.

Please take care of yourself and your loved ones! And keep in touch.