The switch to the new strategy will take place automatically, so you don’t need to make any changes to your campaign settings. Below, we have prepared answers to some popular questions about this launch and how to prepare for it.
- How does Yandex know what conversions I need?
We have been developing and improving special conversion classifiers. Thanks to the detailed feedback from our advertisers, we have been able to analyze which actions are most important for businesses in different areas. - What do you mean by predicting the probability of conversion? How is this possible?
Combining data from Yandex.Metrica and other Yandex services has allowed us to study anonymized user sessions and forecast the results of each visit. We can now determine with high probability, for example, whether a user will add items to their cart or visit the contacts page. Most importantly, we can then check if our forecast came true.
We automatically calculate the average conversion levels for each campaign. Using this information, Yandex.Direct purchases each site visit from YAN at the optimal price, automatically raising or lowering your bid in correspondence to the conversion forecast. - What if I have several goals set for my site? Which of them will determine the strategy?
Regardless of the number or type of goals you have set in Yandex.Metrica, the strategy will use data collected about typical conversion for your business type — whether that means placing an order or viewing the contacts page. By developing this technology, we have been able to teach Yandex.Direct to distinguish conversions from important but typical actions at the upper levels of the sales funnel.
You can continue to set whatever goals you need on your site — this will not affect the optimization process negatively, even if the goals have less than ideal settings. User sessions are analyzed directly. - What if I haven't set goals in Yandex.Metrica?
If a site has a Yandex.Metrica tag, the system analyzes user sessions and uses conversion indicators that take a number of factors into account like page depth, time spent on the site, interaction with page elements, and whether the user viewed their cart. You can still get higher quality traffic and more conversions. - What if I want to attract as much possible traffic instead of optimizing conversions?
The key aspect of the technology involved is that automatic bid adjustments are applied for each impression individually, based on the average conversion rates for the traffic in that specific campaign. In other words, if the site doesn’t bring about conversions, then there won’t be large variations in the CPA. - Why should I bother setting bids?
Your bids retain the central role in the purchase process and auctions.
In cases when the likelihood of conversion is higher or lower than average, additional corrective adjustments are applied.
Let’s say that your bid is 10 rubles. Most clicks will be purchased at this price. Bids for users unlikely to convert can be two or more times lower, you can buy them for five rubles and less. If Yandex.Direct finds “hot” customers with clear intent to make a purchase, Yandex.Direct can raise the bid by 14-15 rubles to make sure your ad wins the auction. - Which tools can I use to limit my budget?
The Daily and Weekly budget tools will continue to maintain your budget as they did before. You will get more conversions for the same money. - How can I assess the quality of my campaign or direct the strategy toward the goal most important to me?
We recommend basing your assessment on your CPA or Engaged Sessions in Report Wizard. Comparing indicators in different cross-sections, as well as the share of Engaged Sessions, can give you an idea which ad formats, audiences, host sites and display regions bring the most conversions. If you need to optimize a specific goal, we recommend the “Average CPA” strategy. - How much can a bid increase or decrease in a specific case?
There is no universal rule. Bids vary for each individual case. They depend on your average CPA and the conversion probability forecast for each specific ad impression. In any case, Yandex.Direct will rely on your bids and maintain your daily budget limit.
If there are other specific indicators you want to optimize, you can choose a different strategy for ad networks, e.g. an automatic strategy to optimize CPA, ROI, your weekly budget, etc.
Please feel free to contact your Yandex manager with any questions you might have.