If a user visited the site but did not complete your target action (e.g. placing an order), retargeting can help lead them to conversion. This technology allows you to contact users with messages adapted in relation to a user's past actions on your site or in your store: to push those who have already viewed a product or added it to their cart to place an order, to remind previous customers about regular purchases, or to help raise interest among new ones.
To set up retargeting, you no longer need to create segments in Yandex.Metrica or Yandex.Audience. Now, if you have a Yandex.Metrica tag on your site, you can use it in Yandex.Direct to create automatic targeting segments that can come in handy for retargeting.
How to set it up
Using the tag, Yandex.Metrica divides visitors into groups with similar characteristics. The following automatic (prepared) segments are now available in Yandex.Direct:
- New users — those who visited your site for the first time in the past 90 days.
- Returning users — those whose visit to your site in the past 90 days was not their first.
- Search traffic — those who came to your site via search results from Yandex or another search engine.
- Link traffic — those who were redirected by links from other sites to yours.
- Ad traffic — those who were brought to your site after clicking on an ad.
- Bounces — those who opened one page of your site, spent less than 15 seconds on it and did not complete any target actions.
- Non-bounces — those whose site visit lasted longer than 15 seconds, who visited more than one page, or fulfilled a goal set in the tag.
- Traffic from mobile devices — those who viewed a page from a smartphone or tablet.
- Traffic from desktop devices — those who visited from a desktop computer or laptop.
To create a new retargeting list, go to Retargeting & Audiences → Add in the Yandex.Direct interface.
In the window that opens, click +Add retargeting list and select Yandex.Metrica segment from the drop-down list:
In the field to the right, you will see a list of segments, with some of them marked Automatic:
Set up targeting criteria, and then select the right targeting for your ad groups.
This list will be available for each tag that you have editing rights for. If you have read-only access, you will be able to see previously created segments, but there will not be a list of automatic segments.
You can find out more about retargeting in Yandex.Direct in the Help guide.
What these new segments can do
Filters for automatic segments have to match all types of sites, so they are very general. When you need more subtle settings, it is better to make your own customized segments in Yandex.Metrica. Keep in mind, however, that many tasks can be solved with automatic segments:
- Provoke interest among new visitors. You can reach out to users made their first visit to your site in the past three months, for example, and further familiarize them with your brand or a specific product.
How to do it yourself. Create an ad group and a new retargeting list: choose the condition "At least one fulfilled" and the "New visitors" Yandex.Metrica segment. Adding a discount on first purchases is a great way to attract attention from new visitors. - Stimulate purchases. The best segments for this scenario are "Returning users" or "Non-bounces."
How to do it yourself. Like in the first example, create an ad group and a new retargeting list. In the ad, try to offer a concrete response to the user's query and in line with the material of the site. Let's say the visitor left a site selling bouquets of flowers (perhaps they didn't like the color, contents or the size) — offer other compositions or gift sets. - Increase sales or remind about regular purchases. The "Returning users" segment also works in these situations, but in combination with your own segments.
How to do it yourself. When setting up the retargeting list, choose the "All fulfilled" condition, targeting for an automatic segments from Yandex.Metrica and for your own segment of users who made purchases on your site. - Bring back those users that left quickly. If a user left your site after opening just one page and viewing it for less than 15 seconds, that does not mean that they are not interested in your offer. It is possible that they want to return once the price is lowered or when your product range expands.
How to do it yourself. Tell about updates, changes, or recently added services using conditions: select "At least one fulfilled" and "Bounces" and then add "None fulfilled" and the "Non-bounces" segment. This will allow you to filter out those users who has both bounce and non-bounce visits, i.e. to target only those users who quickly left your site.
Reach out to these users with more relevant messages, and there's a chance they could become your customers. - Cover your mobile audience. More and more users are using the internet solely from mobile devices, or they search for information about a product from their smartphone before placing the order from their desktop computer. Don't miss out on this audience!
How to do it yourself. Prepare separate creatives for those users who visited your site via mobile device and don't forget to add fast-loading Yandex.Direct Turbo pages as mobile landing sites — this can increase your chances that you audience will see your offer, even if their mobile connection is not the most stable. - Try out different settings. Target your ads at new and previous visitors, and use experiments in Yandex.Direct to compare your results.
- Correct your search bids. Go to Bid adjustments, and then to the Target audience subsection. Click +New adjustment and choose a segment to increase or decrease the bid for it:
There are many scenarios in which you need to address users who have already had online or offline contact with your site or brand. Our customer cases provide examples of real-life scenarios. Please refer to the checklist we prepared for working with our segments. Targeted communication can have a significant impact in reducing CPL and making your advertising more effective.
We plan to continue adding to the list of automatic segments, so please send your ideas and suggestions about which segments we should add to your Yandex manager.