How to set up autotargeting

Autotargeting is an ad serving technology that is not based on keywords. It analyzes data in the ad and on the landing page and determines whether the ad matches the search query, user interests, or website content. Using autotargeting, you can attract additional targeted traffic by serving ads to an audience not easily reached through keywords. Learn more about autotargeting in Yandex Direct Help.

In the Ad groups tab in Direct Commander, you need to specify the categories and choose brand mentions for autotargeting in search results. In the Keywords tab, the Keyword field displays a system value for autotargeting: ---autotargeting. The Keyword and Negative keywords fields are not editable.

An ad group can only have one autotargeting.

Autotargeting setup

You can set up autotargeting in several ad groups at once.

1. On the Campaigns tab, select one or multiple campaigns.

2. In the Ad groups tab, select one or multiple ad groups where you want to set up autotargeting.

3. Edit the autotargeting settings in the Inspector:

   • In the settings, select a specific search query category for autotargeting, or leave all categories enabled.

   • Select which queries should trigger ad display: queries mentioning your brand, a competitor brand, or not mentioning any brands.

4. If needed, go to the Keywords tab and edit the fields:

   • For the manual bid management strategy, automatic bids are available for autotargeting in search results. You can switch to manual bid management anytime.

   • You can set a bid on ad networks.

   • Fill in the Parameter 1 and Parameter 2 fields to replace {param1} and {param2} variables in the ad link (or sitelink) for autotargeted serving.

5. Press Ctrl + S (Cmd ⌘ + S on MacOS) or click the Save button at the bottom of Inspector.

6. Make sure that your autotargeting settings are valid (the icon is shown next to them).

   The icon means that autotargeting contains errors: not all required parameters have been set, or the values of some parameters are invalid. Hover over to find out where the error is.

Start and stop

You can start and stop autotargeting-based serving similarly to keywords or together with keywords.

1. On the Campaigns tab, select one or multiple campaigns.

2. On the Ad groups tab, select one or multiple ad groups.

3. On the Keywords tab, select a single or multiple autotargetings or keywords.

4. In the Inspector Edit section, select an action in the State field.

5. Press Ctrl + S (Cmd ⌘ + S on MacOS) or click the Save button at the bottom of Inspector.

6. To apply the state change, upload the campaigns to the server (All data option).

You cannot disable autotargeting for the following types of campaigns:

• Ads for mobile apps in unified performance campaigns with autotargeting for targeted queries.

• Unified performance campaigns with impressions in Yandex Search.

Learn more about disabling autotargeting in Yandex Direct Help.

Set a bid

You can assign a bid for autotargeting similarly to keywords and along with keywords.

For the manual bid management strategy, automatic bids are available for autotargeting in search results. You can switch to manual bid management anytime. When assigning bids in bulk in the Bid Wizard or Inspector, bids in ad networks do not apply to the autotargeting.

In the Bid Wizard, you can set a single bid on autotargeting and increase or decrease the bid by a certain absolute value or percentage.