Yandex Ads

• Yandex Direct account and Metrica setup
• Keyword research and campaign structure
• Ad copy and visual assets
• Defining remarketing audiences
• Cost comparison with Google campaigns

• Cost per click and per conversion
• Search term report
• Side-by-side cost comparison with Google

• Industries where click costs on Google are high and competition is intense
• Tourism, real estate and health tourism businesses that want to reach Russian-speaking audiences
• Accounts whose Google campaigns are already established and that want additional volume from search ads

We don't recommend Yandex as a standalone main channel; for a business without a Google campaign, we recommend starting with Google.

Before trying Yandex, we look at the search terms report of your existing Google campaign: keywords that have a high click cost but bring in conversions are the first ones to test on Yandex. That way, a small test budget shows whether the channel works for you.

Yandex ads are run from a Yandex Direct account opened with a Yandex ID, and a Yandex Metrica tag is added to the site for measurement. Before a campaign goes live, the ad copy goes through Yandex moderation.

1. A Yandex ID is created in the company’s name, and Direct and Metrica are linked to it. The account stays with you, and we are granted access.
2. The Metrica tag is added to the site, and actions such as form submissions, phone clicks and purchases are defined as goals.
3. Metrica is linked to the Direct account, so the campaign can be optimised towards these goals.
4. Region, language and keyword list are set, and negative keywords are added from the start.
5. Ads are sent for moderation; if any copy is rejected, it is corrected based on the stated reason.

Ads that fail moderation

Yandex moderation assesses the ad copy, images and landing page together. The most common reasons for rejection are a landing page that does not load, an offer in the ad that does not appear on the page, superiority claims that cannot be substantiated and, in some sectors, missing required documents. The reason for a rejected ad is shown in the Direct interface; the correction is made accordingly and the ad is resubmitted for moderation.

Keyword operators

Matching in Yandex works differently from Google. Putting a minus sign in front of a word makes it negative; putting words in quotation marks means the search must consist of only those words; the exclamation mark operator excludes inflected forms of a word. In an agglutinative language like Turkish, if these operators are not used correctly the budget drifts to irrelevant searches.

When defining goals in Metrica, we set separate goals not only for thank-you page visits but also for clicks on the phone number and messaging links. Yandex campaigns learn which goal to optimise for from these definitions; if a weak goal is chosen, the campaign multiplies cheap but worthless visits.