Yandex Direct is a service that businesses can use to acquire new customers. It displays ads to potential customers online and brings them to a company’s platform, such as a site. Users can learn about the brand, its product range, and, if they like any items, place an order right away there.

What Yandex Direct is

Yandex Direct helps businesses attract customers by advertising their products on the internet. Ads are served in Yandex Search, Yandex Maps, and on Yandex Advertising Network partner sites. To learn more about ad placements, see the sections below.

Product offers are shown to users who are searching for similar products online. This approach lets you target your company’s message to interested audiences, saving money by not advertising to people who don’t need your products or services.

Differences between promotion in Yandex Search and promotion in the Yandex Advertising Network

The appearance of ads may differ.

Yandex Search. Company offers are displayed in search results returned to users once they make a query with a certain keyword or phrase. The queries they appear for are either automatically generated or can be specified by the advertiser themselves.

Here’s an example. Yandex Direct is of interest to people who are planning to launch promotional campaigns. If a lead types “launch contextual ads” in the search bar, they can see an ad link, follow it, and start using the service at once.

Ads served in Yandex Search have a special label

Yandex Advertising Network (YAN) combines more than 60,000 sites where your ads can be placed. Its algorithms are tailored to user interests. If a person has previously shown interest in a specific product, they may see a related offer in the network.

For example, a user performs a search for info on how to launch a promotion online. They read articles on the subject, watch videos, and explore what tools are available. The next time they visit one of the Yandex Advertising Network sites, they might see an offer to use Yandex Direct features.

This is what an ad looks like in Yandex Weather

Why businesses need Yandex Direct

Let’s say a lead faces a certain problem. They start searching for info on how to fix it. Such a person is more likely to be interested in a product that meets their needs than someone who hasn’t searched for anything on this topic. Contextual advertising on Yandex helps encourage potential clients to make a purchase.

Here’s what tasks you can address with it:

• Introduce your business to potential clients: Users learn about your company through Yandex Search and on other sites. They click through to the company’s page, find out about your products, study useful materials, and subscribe to a newsletter. This way, the users learn more about your company and may return to make a purchase next time.
• Boost sales: Brand offers help attract users to the product, motivate them to visit the online store, and complete a purchase.
  For instance, a person is looking for where they can buy a mobile phone. A search results offer from an online store appears, advertising discounts on smartphones until the end of the month. This may encourage the user to click through to the page with the product catalog and buy a smartphone right away.
• Bring customers back to your site: If a person has already shown interest in your products but hasn’t placed an order yet, you can remind them of your offer.
• Increase brand trust: For example, you can launch brand awareness ads, that is, banners or videos that will create a certain image of your company. The target audience constantly sees the brand mentioned in a positive context and starts trusting it more.

How to set up Yandex Direct on your own

The Yandex Direct interface may vary.

To launch your first campaign, register in the service. Click Get started and fill out the form that opens. If you don’t have a Yandex ID account, you will need to create one first, then proceed to fill out the form in Yandex Direct.

The Get started button is in the top-right corner of the screen

In the form, select the type of advertiser — individual or legal entity. Depending on the selection, enter either your personal or your company’s tax ID (INN)

Once you fill in the data, read the terms and conditions of the Privacy Policy, agreement, and offer. Next, select the checkboxes to confirm that you accept the agreement and click “Start using the service”.

Interface overview

Once you complete the registration, you’ll see a window where you can launch your first campaign. To do this, add a link to the resource, social media, marketplace, or app you’re going to promote.

The page the user lands on after registration

On the left of the screen, there is a menu with the following sections:

• Overview: This tab shows your promotion results
• Campaigns: Info on all your launched campaigns, their status, and selected strategies
• Recommendations: Tips from Yandex Direct to improve the effectiveness of your campaigns
• Conversions: Data on conversions, that is, user actions that align with your goals
• Statistics: Promotion reports (This section appears after you create your first ad campaign)
• Library: Additional materials
• Tools: Additional features for campaign setup and management.
• Information: Reference information
• Payments and documents: Data on payments made by the user

How to launch ads if you have little experience with promotion

If you have little or no experience with promotion, use the Campaign Wizard. This is a Yandex Direct mode with simplified ad settings. The Campaign Wizard provides suggestions for settings and offers ready-made headlines, text, images, and keywords.

When you first log in to Yandex Direct after registration, you’re automatically taken to the page for launching ads via the Campaign Wizard. You can also get to this mode by clicking “Add” and then “Campaign” in your personal account.

The “Add” command is in the top-left corner

Next, a window opens where you can choose a mode for launching promotions. In the Campaign Wizard, select one of the following options:

• Conversions and traffic: A universal option that is good for most sites.
• Product campaign: Launch it if you want to promote a site with a wide range of products.
• Sales on marketplaces: This option is good for merchants from popular platforms.
• Telegram channel promotion: Choose this type if your objective is to promote a Telegram channel and attract subscribers.
• Promote your business without a site: An option for those who have no website.

Types of campaigns in the Campaign Wizard

Follow the steps below to set up Yandex Direct.

Step 1. Enter a link to your site: In the address bar that appears, type the URL of the page you want to attract users to.

Copy the URL and paste it in the address bar — your resource will be found automatically

Step 2. Review the ads: The system will suggest several options for titles, images, and text. These elements will be combined during display, so ensure they all work well together.

You can edit title and text options or upload your own image

The tool will also offer a list of sitelinks. These allow potential clients to navigate directly from the ad to important pages on your site, such as a catalog. Edit the list if needed.

If your company is listed on Yandex Business, your contact details are loaded automatically.

Step 3. Set the region and target audience selection method: Specify the city, region, or area where you offer your products or can deliver them. You can select a country or multiple regions.

The next step is to select your target audience. The service will analyze your website and automatically find interested users who will see your offer. You can also choose manual management and set the customers’ characteristics yourself, such as their interests, habits, gender, age, search queries, and more.

To have your target audience selected automatically, choose “Optimal audience”

Step 4. Specify the promotion goal: You can select two types of goals in the Campaign Wizard:

• Maximum clicks: This goal ensures as many clicks on your ad as possible within the allocated budget to attract more users to your site.
• Maximum conversions: This goal helps get as many conversion actions from your site users as possible within the allocated budget. For example, making calls or requests. The goals may differ depending on the type of business.

To select “Maximum conversions,” you must have a Yandex Metrica tag on your site. To learn how to install it, see this article. If you enabled Yandex Metrica previously, the tag ID is shown automatically in the “Enter the tag ID” field.

Conversion action selection window

Step 5. Choose your weekly budget: Yandex Direct has three options that you can choose from, or you can set a custom amount that you find appropriate. The money will be spent within the set limit. Once the budget is depleted, promotion will pause.

How Expert mode works and who it’s for

Expert mode has more settings. It’s suitable for:

• Marketing experts with experience in promoting products and brands
• Specialists who are familiar with Yandex Direct settings

Select Expert mode to use advanced tools

Let’s take a look at the campaign types available in 2024:

• Unified performance campaign. A universal type suitable for promoting practically any product and service. Setting up a unified performance campaign requires experience in contextual advertising.
• Ads for mobile apps (App installs and in-app conversions). This type is effective at increasing your app’s user base and engagement.
• Search banner (Visibility in Yandex Search). This helps increase brand awareness. The banner is displayed on the right in the search results.
• Display ads (Audience reach). Formats designed to increase brand awareness and image. Select this type to reach the widest possible audience.

Let’s walk through how to set up Expert mode using the unified performance campaign as an example. The entire process is divided into three steps.

Step 1. Setting up a campaign: You select the desired placement, specify your budget, and set a schedule. Additional options are available, such as adding negative keywords — your offers won’t be shown for these phrases.

First step of setup

Step 2. Setting up an ad group: You can fine-tune the geographical targeting, select keywords, and define the interests of potential clients.

Here, you can also enable retargeting, ensuring your ads are seen by people who have already visited your website.

Second step of setup

Step 3. Create the ad: Customize the appearance of your ad by adding images, headlines, text, and sitelinks to your site’s pages.

Third step of setup

If you want to improve your understanding of settings and use Expert mode, take a free training course. With our experts, you’ll go through every setup step and learn how to select a marketing strategy and track its effectiveness.

How to calculate your budget and top up your account

As an advertiser, you can choose what to pay for: impressions, clicks, or conversions.

For effective advertising in Yandex Direct, it’s important to both set it up correctly and to calculate your costs. Do this based on your business goals. For instance, a psychologist is selling consulting services:

• The sales target is 10 sessions a week
• A consulting session costs $200, so the expert is ready to pay 25%, or $40, per customer.
• The weekly budget will be: 40 × 10 = $400

The advertiser is provided with tips on the amount to be allocated so that the actions bring the expected result.

How to top up your account

Find the “Top up” button in your advertising account. Click it to see the available payment methods. Select the appropriate one and enter the top-up amount.

Account top-up methods for individuals

Next, enter the payment details and confirm your payment. When topping up your account, factor in the VAT (it ranges from 0% to 20% for various businesses). All amounts are shown excluding VAT.

If you need payment documents for accounting purposes, go to “Payments and documents” or “My payments”. The Yandex Balance page will open, allowing you to download documents from the “Invoices” and “Reconciliation reports” tabs.

Key takeaways

1. Yandex Direct is a service for placing contextual ads online.
2.  Ads in Yandex search results appear in response to user queries, while the Yandex Advertising Network algorithms display ads based on the user’s online behavior.
3.  Ad placement in Yandex Direct helps you attract customers, sell your products and services, and encourage users to return to your site to make repeat purchases.
4.  If you have little or no experience, use the Campaign Wizard. If you’re already familiar with running ads, choose Expert mode.
5.  To estimate your budget, you can forecast your expenses yourself, follow the tips provided by Yandex Direct, or refer to a marketing expert.