We are constantly working to improve our automatic strategies, to make them better help businesses reach their goals. As a result, trust in Yandex algorithms is increasing — our automatic strategies account for 30% of all budgets in Yandex.Direct, and 45% for the Yandex Advertising Network.
Over four months of open testing, the "Optimize conversions" strategy with payment for results showed its usefulness for a wide variety of advertisers in Yandex.Direct. We have brought more than two million important targeted actions to more than three thousand businesses, and launched for everyone.
When is paying for conversions useful
Let's say that you have your own bakery and you need your advertising to lead to cakes being ordered on your site. By launching the "Optimize conversions" automatic strategy with payment for conversions, you can minimize the risk present at the start: select creatives and experiment with landing pages, gradually accumulate experience while only paying for completed orders at a fixed price.
Ads with pay-per-conversion can be run in campaigns without accumulated statistics, even if you have never placed ads in Yandex.Direct. That is what 5% of participants in the open testing did — this was their first experience with the advertising system.
Of course, experienced advertisers and large businesses will also like this new feature.
Case: Automatic strategy with payment per conversions helped increase an online store's turnover
Mir Kubikov, a chain of certified LEGO stores, compared the performance of an automatic strategy with payment for conversions with manual bid management over the course of several months. The company shared its observations and test results:
- The "Optimize conversions" automatic strategy with payment for conversions brought an average of twice as many weekly conversions in the Yandex Advertising Network and 43% more on Search.
- Revenue increased by 33% on Search and by 74% in YAN.
- The average Share of ad spend for campaigns decreased by 4% on Search and by 56% in YAN.
The experiment helped increase the company's turnover, revenue and conversions while also lowering their Share of ad spend.
How it works
It's simple: you select a goal for the "Optimize conversions" automatic strategy, specify the desired CPA, and pay for those targeted visits that occurred within 21 days of the user clicking on the ad.
For the algorithm to work correctly, a campaign must meet several requirements:
- A Yandex.Metrica tag is configured and records at least 10 conversions on the site for the selected goal every week.
- The maximum CPA is 72 USD (or 64 EUR).
- The weekly budget is enough to buy 20 conversions.
- Minimum account balance: 72 USD (or 64 EUR) or 3× the CPA (the larger of these amounts). The system will warn you if there are insufficient funds on the account to receive conversions at the specified price.
Tips in the interface will help you navigate the settings.
Yandex.Direct will help you choose which goal to optimize for by showing the conversion rates of goals from all traffic sources. It will highlight in green those goals for which you can get more than 20 conversions, in yellow — from 10 to 20, and in red — less than 10. We always recommend choosing goals with more conversions when working with automatic strategies, and if there are not enough conversions for the desired goal, it is better to choose a goal higher up the sales funnel in your settings.
For each campaign, you need to select one target action, whether it's adding a product to the cart, filling out a form, clicking the "call" button or something else. In the automatic strategy settings, you can specify regular or multi-step Yandex.Metrica goals, offline conversions. The latter is especially important for businesses with a long purchase cycle or those who work more with customers offline. Offline conversions should be uploaded at least twice a week.
How to calculate the conversion cost for your settings
- Use the tips the system provides. The interface will indicate the recommended average CPA. In campaigns where the desired goals have already been reached, Yandex.Direct will calculate the average CPA for the last two weeks. In new campaigns without conversions, the benchmark will be the CPA on the account for the same 14 days. Over time, the interface will show recommendations based on average data for the industry — for those who have not yet placed ads in Yandex.Direct.
- Another option, if the tips are insufficient: if you still have no idea how much it costs to complete the desired goal, run the "Optimize conversions" strategy first with a weekly budget limit, without setting the CPA. In two weeks, the algorithm will find conversions and collect statistics that can be used to determine the right price to set. If the cost per conversion is higher than expected, you should check your targeting settings, your creatives and the conversion rate of your landing page. A separate report will help you keep track of conversions:
More information about the settings of the for conversion payment model and the "Optimize conversions" automatic strategy can be found in the Help guide. You can also manage them via the Yandex.Direct API or Direct Commander.
Take payment for conversions for a test drive, try out its capabilities for yourself and let us know what you think! And if you have any questions, we will be glad to answer them at any time by phone or email. Good luck with your campaigns!
