Step 2. Create a group Set up targeting

Select an audience by configuring the targeting criteria for the ad group.

1. Specify the ad serving area to only serve ads to people that can actually make use of your offer (either because they're located in the region you selected or are interested in that region).

   • Under List countries, regions, cities, start typing a region, such as Tula or Kursk, in any format. Or use the region tree.

   • Select Specify a region on the map if you want to serve ads in a specific location, such as near your café, or if you need to target customers within a small area.

   Read more about configuring

2. Select a group scenario:

   • All interested audience: Ads will be shown to all potential customers whose characteristics match your targeting settings.
   • New customers (for online stores) or New audience (for other businesses): ads will only be shown to people who have never made a purchase or completed other conversion actions on your site.

   The All interested audience scenario is selected by default.

   For the New customers (New audience) scenario, add a segment with your existing customers. and Yandex Direct will exclude this segment from ad impressions. To select your audience, you can use these rules: Goal in Yandex Metrica, Segment in Yandex Metrica, Yandex Audience segments, or Mobile app goal.

   If E-commerce is enabled in Yandex Metrica for your site, a segment with existing customers is created automatically (you can edit it as needed).

3. Autotargeting is a mandatory impression condition for serving ads in search results or Yandex Maps. You must select at least one query category for each ad group. When you switch placement from the Yandex Advertising Network to Yandex Search or Yandex Maps, autotargeting is automatically enabled for all query categories in each group. We recommend double-checking the settings when you change the placement location. You can only disable autotargeting for campaigns served in ad networks.

   Under Brand mention in Yandex Search queries and Yandex Maps queries, select the type of queries for which you want to serve your ads. These can be queries mentioning your brand, mentioning a competitor brand, or not mentioning any brands.

4. To make your ads appear in search results for user queries, make sure to also set up keywords. If you want to set up placements in the product gallery, use search queries for products as keywords and select all query categories for your autotargeting.

   When serving ads on networks, the system automatically selects ads that have keywords which match the subject matter of the site or the interests of a user.

5. Describe your audience's interests and habits: what topics they're interested in, what companies they engage with, what sites they visit, and what apps they use. Their behavior could be similar to that of online shoppers in specific product categories, like pet products or household chemicals.

6. Add audience segment criteria. Under Audience segments, set up your goals, as well as your Yandex Metrica and Yandex Audience segments to define your relevant audience. To create retargeting lists, you can use predefined or automatic segments and set up Yandex Metrica and Yandex Audience.

   If necessary, enable offer retargeting. The option works for product ads and catalog page ads in any category. The users who viewed products or catalogs on your site will see this information in your ads placed in the Yandex Advertising Network. If users interacted with your offers or catalogs in the app, they will only see product ads in the Yandex Advertising Network.

   Set up product ads and catalog page ads in one ad group based on one source: a feed or a site. This enables Yandex Direct to create ads in a combined format.

   • You can combine audience segments on Yandex Search with keywords or autotargeting criteria using the logical AND operator. This means that your ads are shown to users who fall into the audience segment and meet the targeting criteria, such as keywords or autotargeting criteria. You can combine audience segments using the logical OR operator. If your targeting criteria include a keyword and two audience segments, your ads will be shown to users who search the keyword and match at least one segment.

   • You can combine audience segments in ad networks with other targeting criteria using the OR operator. This way, your ads will be shown to users who meet at least one of the impression criteria or match the audience segment.

7. Add a promo. This is an ad extension that includes a brief description of the promo and is marked with a special label. It is shown in search results if the ad gets the first premium placement. In YAN, the serving of extensions with ads is governed by the Smart Design algorithm. When clicking the extension, the user can be forwarded to a site page or app page that is different from the page linked in the ad.

   If you've already set up a promo for the campaign, it's inherited by all groups within that campaign. You can replace it with a different promo or select Disable promo if you don't want to serve it for this group.

   You can only add one promo per ad group.

8. Under URL parameters, specify your shared UTM tags and dynamic parameters for this ad group. They will help you track the ad placement results. Tags and parameters are automatically added to each link in every ad in the group. This includes links, sitelinks, and the button.

   If you set URL parameters both at the campaign level and for the group, the campaign-level parameters are ignored. In this case, the group's ads use the tags specified for that group.

   Learn more about UTM tags.

9. You can use the advanced settings to set up:

   • Adjustments (coefficients) to increase or decrease the bid, CPA, or conversion value based on user characteristics, ad format, and other criteria.

     You can create groups with different targetings and ad types in the same campaign. The more groups you add, the more data is collected to train the strategy. In the strategy, you can specify a target customer acquisition cost (cost per conversion, cost revenue ratio, or cost per click). Keep in mind that the customer acquisition cost may be lower or higher for individual groups. For example, a group may advertise a product with a higher profit margin than the campaign average. Alternatively, the group may target regions with lower competition and fewer bidders or lower prices than in other regions.

     To manage the customer acquisition cost, adjust the CPA, cost revenue ratio, or CPC for this group. The name of this option depends on the limit you selected for the strategy.

     For example, you have a campaign that consists of three ad groups, each for its own product category: “Sofas”, “Beds”, and “Chairs”. The campaign strategy is configured to generate sales with a Cost revenue ratio (CRR) limit of 10%.

     Your data shows that, on average, “Sofas” is the most profitable category of the three, so you could increase the CRR for these products up to 15%, which is 1.5 times higher than average for the other categories. In this case, you can set a “+50%” adjustment for the “Sofas” ad group.

     On average, products in the “Beds” category have a lower profit margin, and their customer acquisition cost is 8% of the revenue, which is 20% less than the campaign average. Set a −20% adjustment for the “Beds” ad group.

     For products in the “Chairs” category, the customer acquisition cost is about 10% of the revenue. You don't need to adjust the cost for this group.

     Adjustments for CPA, cost revenue ratio, or CPC in this group are applied on top of other adjustments, with their coefficients multiplied.

     For example, in the above campaign, we added an adjustment for the display region: “+40%” for impressions in Saint Petersburg and Moscow. As a result, we get the following cost revenue ratio for these region — 1.4 × 10% = 14%.

     For the “Sofas” group, when served in Moscow, the cost revenue ratio will be 14% x 1.5 = 21% because a “+50%” adjustment is set for the group.

     What other adjustments are available

   • Site content type: Increase your reach by advertising on Yandex Advertising Network sites with adult content. The category of your ads is determined by moderators.

Save your changes and proceed to creating ads.

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