Ads in Yandex.Direct can be created automatically using a feed — a file with information about your products and services. Yandex.Direct can use this file to generate Smart banners or Dynamic ads (which can also be generated based on data from your site).
If you are unsure whether it would be better to put together a feed or load data from your site, we recommend choosing a feed. This will allow you to create two different types of ads, show more detailed information in your ads and set more precise product selection rule. Using a feed also allows you to create and update ads faster than with a site.
There are different types of feeds for different kinds of businesses.
There are several ways to create a feed:
- use an XML file with prices,
- request one from your webmaster,
- download one from your site via an external service,
- create one manually on your own.
If you don't have a prepared file, then let's look at how to create a CSV-format universal feed. Doing so manually is not complicated, but a large product range can take up a significant amount of time.
Putting together a feed
You will need a program for working with spreadsheets like Microsoft Excel. Create a new file. The first row should contain the names of the columns. Enter all the required feed elements: ID — the identified of the offer (product or service), URL of the offer's page, Image — a link to the image, Title — the name of the offer, Description — a description of the offer, Price — the price of the offer without the currency and Currency — currency code.
Some elements are mandatory, but we recommend adding as many elements as possible with descriptions of your products.
You can take a more detailed look at the list of elements and their descriptions in the Help and with a real example. If you are unable to open the file, pay attention to the instructions at the end of that article.
Below the names of the columns, you should add data about your products. The data should appear in UTF-8 coding. It's also possible to gather a feed without using spreadsheets. If you decide to use a text editor, then the contents of the columns should be separated by a comma:
In comparison to ads based on site data, you can add descriptions of specific product characteristics that bots don't always pull from your site. For a vacuum, for example, these might include low noise levels, wet & dry cleans or hypoallergenic filter.
What to look out for when working with your feeds
Before loading your feed in the Yandex.Direct interface, make sure that:
- The feed contains all required parameters and attributes.
- All the element names are written correctly.
- Feed elements do not repeat, i.e. the file does not contain two "name" or "price" elements.
- The YML feed features links to product offerings.
- The feed type corresponds to the business type indicated.
- The feed corresponds to the permitted format (XML or CSV).
- The file does not exceed the maximum feed size of 512 MB.
- The category ID is a whole number no more than 18 digits.
The file will be rejected if any of these conditions are not fulfilled.
Loading the feed
Now when your feed is ready, you can load it into Yandex.Direct.
- On the "My campaigns" page, click the "Feeds" link at the bottom of the page. Click the Add feed button in the window that opens.
- Enter the name of the feed and select the business type that best describes your product offerings.
- Add a link to the file or upload it. Note that you won't be able to change the business type once you have saved the file.
Once the system receives the feed, the system will analyze the the product's name, type and other parameters.
If an error occurs when adding a feed (for example, the feed's size, format or the link to it do not meet the requirements), you will see the "Upload error" message and a link to the report about the errors.
Selecting an ad format
Now you can use you feed to quickly create Smart banners and Dynamic ads in Yandex.Direct. Smart banners appear on Search and in ad networks and dynamic ads on Yandex Search (and search sites in ad networks).
For Smart banners, you choose the visual format using a template, whereas Dynamic ads look like Text & Image ads:
As for the texts, titles for both formats can be generated automatically. For your Smart banners you can write the ad title and copy for each products in the feed. Dynamic ads automatically generate only the ad title, and you should compose a general text for the whole ad group.
More and more players in the retail industry are choosing Dynamic ads and Smart banners. These formats make it possible to cover a broad range of online stores and offer users current information about product availability, prices and descriptions. The 78% YoY increase in investments in these formats in 2018 emphasizes the effectiveness of these formats, given that such growth in the e-commerce segment could only come from products that generate stable profit for companies.Use Dynamic ads and Smart banner to develop your business and communicate effectively with your customers!
Creating Smart banners
Once you have loaded the feed, you need to decide how your Smart banner will look by choosing a creative. You can use your entire product list (and set filters later on that will limit your feed to a specific sample of products), load feeds from different sources and in different formats. After that you should set a goal for your ad campaign by choosing a strategy to optimize your clicks, conversions or ROI.
The system does the rest itself: analyzes your feed and picks the best product from your list, so that the banner features the product most relevant to the user's current needs and interests.
Moderation of Smart banners is carried out based on the content of the site. Depending on the type of products or services on the site, it may be necessary to provide certain documents, even if products or services are not added into your feed.
For more information on how to set up Smart banners, have a look at our instructions.
Creating dynamic ads
Dynamic ads are generated in separate campaigns and do a great job of supporting classic Text & Image ads. You can create them using your feed or data from your site. In the second case, go to the page where you edit ad groups and enter the domain of the site you want to generate Dynamic ads for.
Creating these ads is as simple as entering the address of your site, write an ad text adn add sitelinks. The system automatically generates the ad title, landing page URL and display link.
Check out our video lecture, to find out more about setting up Dynamic ads.
Creating a filter for the feed
When generating Smart banners and Dynamic ads you have the option of using your entire feed or individual products chosen by filters. On the page where you edit your ad groups, click +New filter and add up to 50 filters, linked by the "OR" operator. Then select your target audience, enter your CPC and set product selection rules.
To accurately selected your target audience, enter your Yandex.Metrica tag in your campaign settings. Then you can set up ad impressions for users who viewed products on your site or showed interested in similar products online but did not visit your site.
Selection rules determine which products from your feed to use and which to exclude when generating ads. In the "Category tree" tab, you can indicate a price range and specific manufacturers, or only pick products currently in stock.
Products can be picked according to different parameters, e.g. categories, price, etc. Don't overdo your combination of filters, however — your product list should feature products that meet all of your combined filters.
The parameters depend on the type of business feed.
If you choose the "Optimize number of clicks" or "Optimize number of conversions," you can set CPC or CPA in the filter settings.
Creating a feed and setting up filters are an important part of creating an ad campaign for an online store. Don't forget to set up retargeting — it allows you to increase the effectiveness of your advertising and lower the cost of attracting customers in comparison to your more general communications with your entire audience.
For additional help, remember that you can always reach out to your Yandex manager or the International Sales department.
Good luck with your campaigns!
*Additionally. How to open a feed in spreadsheets, using Microsoft Excel as an example:
- Create a new file.
- Click on the Data tab, followed by the From text button:
- In the Text Import Wizard window that opens, select Delimited, Start import at row 1, and Unicode (UTF-8) in the File origin field.
- At the second step, choose commas as the divider. Check the preview to see whether the data displays correctly.
- Continue the import and complete it.