The Optimize ROI strategy in Yandex.Direct helps lead your advertising campaigns to the performance levels optimal for your business. Its aim is to get the highest conversion rates for your goals and bring your advertising ROI as close as possible to the value you set. To put it simply, you define which user actions on your site bring you revenue and your target ROI, and the strategy will do its best to bring you the conversions necessary to reach it. 

Previously, this strategy was only useful for online stores and businesses that were ready and willing to set up e-commerce in Yandex.Metrica and automatically transmit the value of their goals. Thanks to the updated algorithm, it is now as simple as adding priority goals in Yandex.Direct, entering their value, and selecting them in the settings of the Optimize ROI strategy. You no longer need to carry out complex calculations to figure out your revenue from the amount you invested in advertising and switch to the bid adjustment interface — the system will now do this on its own based on the profitability of specific goals for your business. 

Now, this strategy is an option not just for businesses that sell products online, but also for those who offer services like legal consultation or appointments with a doctor or cosmetologist.

How it works

Let's imagine three scenarios of how users behave when they visit your site: 

Scenario 1. The user fills out a form indicating what they want to order and presses "Send." 

Scenario 2. The user presses a phone button and calls you.

Scenario 3. The user views a product, adds it to their cart and pays for it. 

All three of these scenarios are important for your business, but they are not equal in terms of profitability. Let's say that users who call your business typically bring 500 RUB of revenue, those that fill out the order form — 300 RUB, and those that place orders — 3000 RUB. You can set several different priority goals ("Form," "Call" and "Purchase") and set a different value for each of them. The value you set for a conversion should reflect the revenue you receive each time that specific goal is reached. To get a better idea of how to calculate it, have a look at the Help guide and another article. 

Once Yandex.Direct receives the values of your goals, the system can "understand" which user actions are most beneficial for your business, and can use your settings to determine in real time which users will help reach and maintain your target ROI. This is how the automatic strategy can optimize your ROI together with your priority goals, i.e. to adjust your bids in such a way that you get the right conversions for all your priority goals — while trying to maximize your revenue.

Setting it up

There are just a few simple steps to set up the Optimize ROI strategy. 

1. Make sure you have entered the number of your Yandex.Metrica tag in the campaign settings. 
2. Select your priority goals and set the value for each of them.
   Let's say that a user is choosing financial services on your site. Show the system what the user's path looks like on your site by setting priority goals, e.g. "Visited site," "Opened loan offer," "Sent request." This will help Yandex.Direct understand which actions are most valuable to your business. The more you add to your sales funnel in Yandex.Direct, the better the algorithms will be able to bring you the conversions you need.
   If you are not ready to describe the entire customer path in detail, you can simply enter values for several key actions, e.g. if your business offers manicures and appointments with a cosmetologist — services with different conversion costs. It's as simple as telling the system that for your business, a "Request for manicure" is worth 200 RUB, whereas a "Request for makeup" is worth 300 RUB. In this case, you needn't fill out the "Production costs for the products or services" field  (more about this later).
   What should you do if users place orders on your site, but also by phone? Make your phone number on your site clickable and add a priority goal "Phone call."
3. Select the Optimize ROI strategy. Enter the optimal ROI for your business. Aim for a realistic, reachable ROI — if you set it too high, it will hamper the system as it tries to bring you the right users.
4. Pick a specific goal for optimization or select "All priority goals" — then the algorithm will take the value of each of them into account in the optimization process.
5. "Production costs" is an optional setting. If you are able to calculate the costs (on your end) of the products and services linked to your priority goals, add them in the special field.
6. Launch the campaign.

What comes next

We understand that return on investment, including for advertising, is one of the main indicators of a business's performance. That is why we are teaching our algorithms to focus first and foremost on your ad campaign's return on investment for your business. Our goal is to move from pay-per-click to a pay-per-conversion model. We will continue to work so that our advertisers will be able to make decisions about their ad campaigns based on their profitability, find new customers and further develop their businesses.