Changes are coming to Yandex.Direct that will increase the flexibility of negative keywords. Previously, advertisers used negative keywords to prevent ads from appearing in response to search queries containing specific words, but now they will be able to use phrases 2-7 words in length to filter out users not part of their target audience.

To illustrate, let's say that you advertise a low-cost airline using the keyword (plane tickets). You could avoid showing ads to customers looking for more expensive tickets by adding the phrase (-business class) to your negative keyword list. This is more effective than using individual negative keywords (-business -class) as they would exclude search queries like (plane tickets business trip) or (plane tickets economy class). You'll be able to use phrases as negative keywords on the campaign or ad group level in the usual field.

The Yandex.Direct API will support multi-word negative keywords as well. You'll be able to add up to 7 words (separated by spaces) into the NegativeKeywords parameter of the Campaigns and AdGroups services as elements of an array. The get method will return these negatives too.

Note: These new settings will not affect the negative keywords already in use in your campaigns. After launching a new campaign, the phrase (VIP first class luxury) will function as one single negative keyword. This means that Yandex.Direct will only exclude search queries that contain every one of these words.

Now you can begin to prepare for these changes, and we’ll let you know once they’ve launched. Please stay tuned!