Contextual advertising tips. Part 2

Colleagues, as we promised in the first part , we want to share our experience in setting up contextual advertising. This part discusses launching a search campaign in Yandex.Direct, setting up YAN, retargeting in Yandex.Direct, remarketing in AdWords, and analytics of all advertising campaigns.

5 recommendations for setting up search advertising campaigns in Direct (Yandex)

1. Carefully select and filter key phrases.

• Do not chase high frequencies. This is especially true for new advertising campaigns. For such RK, the best option is low-frequency keys.
• Choose more targeted keywords, narrow the topic.
• Please note that there must be commercial keys: "price", "buy", "order".
• To control traffic quality and volume as much as possible, use search operators from Yandex.Direct.

Benefit: there is no high competition, the cost per click is minimized, CTR and CR rise.

2. There should be a separate announcement for each key. The request must be both in the title and in the text.

Benefit: the cost of a click is reduced by at least 2 times, the control over the effectiveness of ads is simplified, respectively, it is possible to respond to changes immediately.

3. Don't grab high stakes at the start of the RC.

• Decide on the maximum cost per click for which you are willing to give it your all. This will depend on the budget and margin on the product being promoted.
• Do not strive to be in the first position in special placement. Compare KPI from being in a certain place and the effect. Mark for yourself the most "working" places.
• Don't try to outbid your competitors. It is better to use low-frequency queries. In a bidding race, a campaign can end up losing money.

Benefit: CRO is reduced.

4. Negative keywords

Make an extensive list, the list should be ready at the start of the campaign. Enter words such as “free”, “download”, “do it yourself” and similar phrases there.

Benefit: low-quality traffic is cut off.

5. Use all Yandex.Direct tools to make your ad as visible as possible.

• Quick links will help increase click-through rate up to 40%. Even if the user clicks on several such links at once, you will pay as for one.
• Use a virtual business card, it will make the ad more visible. Also, the ad will be displayed in Yandex Map.
• If you are located in major cities such as Kyiv, St. Petersburg or Moscow, then by entering the exact address, an icon will appear in your ad indicating the nearest metro station, and this will highlight your ad.
• Don't forget the favicon. Experience shows that this small icon makes your advertisement more visible.

Benefit: the cost of a click does not grow, but the CTR, on the contrary, becomes higher.

If you want to get the effect of ads in Yandex.Direct, you need to constantly monitor, analyze and, of course, optimize them. Paying attention to the settings at the initial stage, you will get the result faster.

Tips for launching YAN in Yandex.Direct

1. Bid below

The user's request is shorter than the text on the page. Therefore, more advertisers compete in the display. This means that making the same rates, a click on YAN will be more expensive on average. At the same time, conversion from search is higher than from YAN. And this means that you will pay more for low-quality clicks at identical rates.

In Direct, by the way, there is a “magic button” that reduces the rate. You can get to it like this: “Campaign parameters”, then “Settings on thematic sites”, “Maximum CPC 80% of the bid in the search”.

We recommend setting the figure at 50% at the initial stage. And then we analyze, change.

2. Connect to Metrica

Shows in YAN are managed by Matrix.Net (artificial intelligence). He conducts his calculations, starting from several dozen incoming indicators. Part of the data is pulled from Yandex.Metrica. Therefore, in order for this very Matrix.Net to optimize impressions better, you need to connect Metrika for YAN.

3. Use questions

If time permits, then divide the campaign into 2 parts: one will be on the search, and the second in the YAN.

For search ads, texts with an exclamation point at the end work better. In YAN, question marks “work” better.

If your audience is the end consumer, and not an intermediary, then you can include expressive epithets.

4. Be careful with negative keywords

When splitting a campaign into two parts, review the negative keywords. Most likely, something will have to be excluded.

5. Sometimes it’s worth turning off YAN or behavioral factors

In which cases? The buyer's decision is made very quickly. If, for example, you advertise a quick opening of locks, then your client will only look for you in the search. Do you agree? Therefore, it is worth turning off YAN so as not to drain the budget for nothing.

Tips for setting up retargeting in Yandex.Direct

Online competition is growing exponentially. High competition in popular topics increases the cost per click. And the number of users returning to the site before making a purchase is constantly growing. How can you make sure that the buyer buys exactly what you offer? In this case, in order not to “fly off the pipe” with the budget, we recommend setting up retargeting in Yandex.Direct. If you are not yet familiar with the concept, then:

Remarketing is a type of advertising that is shown only to those who have already visited your site. A big advantage of such advertising is flexible targeting, which is based on the behavior of the person visiting the site.

So, we give out tips on how to effectively set up remarketing.

Tip 1: Get your remarketing setup right. This means that absolutely everyone who viewed the product cards does not need to be returned to the site. Use the webvisor to track the behavior of the user who made the purchase. See which path it takes before the trade is made.

Tip 2: Personalize your ad as much as possible. Look, if the user just went to the "Outerwear" category without visiting a single product card, you should not return it and spend your advertising budget on it. And if a person came in, looked through and put the goods in the basket, but for some reason did not complete the purchase, he needs to be “caught up” with an advertising banner and reminded of himself.

Tip 3. Designate clear time intervals in the settings. For example, if a buyer has landed on a page with a winter product, then you should not “catch up” with him in 3-5 weeks. In practice, the purchase by the user is made within a week. As you understand, it makes no sense to return the buyer later than a week later.

In the AdWords system, you can use the "Time to Conversion" parameter, which will give an answer for how long it is advisable to chase a potential buyer.

Tip 4: Image and text in your ad. Make sure that the picture in the ad and the product to which it leads from the advertising banner clearly match. If the image on the banner leads a potential customer to the wrong product category, the customer will be lost.

Tip 5. Carefully and scrupulously set the goals of advertising campaigns. The final action in the goal should coincide with the tasks of the RC.

Tips for Starting Remarketing in AdWords

1. Divide your audience into segments. If a person looked through computer equipment, offer him a promotion for this category of goods. This will make your ad more relevant.

2. Remove from the list of remarketing those who spent less than 30 seconds on the site. This will reduce the cost of the conversion, and the budget will save a lot.

3. Add children's entertainment sites (games, cartoons, etc.) to the list of exceptions. This will exclude the impressions to children of those users who visited you. It will also reduce the number of uninterested clicks.

4. Exclude your ads from appearing in mobile applications if you do not advertise them. To do this, add com to the list of hosting exceptions. The quality of traffic will increase due to the fact that the number of random transitions will decrease.

5. Maintain a list of the permanent audience of the resource for the longest period of time (540 days). This way you can periodically run ads with special offers for regular users, which will increase the number of repeat sales.

Search Remarketing Tips in AdWords

Don't get hung up on keywords. Think about what you do for people. RLSA (or search remarketing) in AdWords makes it possible to make advertising campaigns as close as possible to the “for people” principle. Today, when setting the RK, you can guess the intentions of your user, not only based on the search query, but also on their behavior during the last visit to your site.

Using remarketing lists, you can target specific audiences or set your own bid modifier. You can do this when you add audience targeting to your ad groups.

Now let's get down to the tips that you can use for your advertising campaigns.

1. Analyze and then optimize the result based on the behavior of different users.

Don't delay, add all the best remarketing lists to all ad groups (for RLSA, audience size must be at least 1000 people).

After two weeks, take a look at the "Audience" and see how the results differ by audience (from the average and from each other). Most likely, the picture will be as follows: the cost per conversion for existing customers will be 2 times lower than the average. If so, then you can designate a positive bid modifier for this audience. This will help you get more profitable conversions and improve your position. You will see that different audiences behave differently on the site. Then you can take advantage of bid adjustments.

2. Increase your reach

Look for new key phrases, strive to increase the likelihood of contact with an audience of interest to you. To do this, use "Targeting and bidding" in groups aimed at:

Keys in broad match. Copy the current search groups, apply lists to these groups, change the keyword match type to wide.

Shared Keys. This is where you can safely target the following words: +laptop , or [online store] .

Dynamic Search Ads (DPOs). DPO in a duet with remarketing will allow you to get a visitor outside the current semantics.

3. Retain Users

There is an opinion that the so-called customer loyalty is actually their inertia. That they are just too lazy to look for other suppliers. But if you see that your client is already ready to ask “what do others offer there?” - Remind yourself once again. Include competitor names and targeting existing customers in keyword phrases. No need to write their brands in your ads.

4. Different ads for different audiences

If a person is looking for you by the name of your brand, then most likely he will make a purchase anyway, without additional “goodies”. For those who are not on your lists, you need to show an ad that will lead him to a page with a discount, for example. This will increase the chances that a person will buy something.

5. Weigh the pros and cons before cleaning your remarketing list

There are niches where it is better to exclude from the list those who did not make a purchase, or those who made a purchase, but not on your site. You can exclude those who came to you, walked around the site and left without converting. In any case, our advice to you: think carefully before "burning bridges." Perhaps one contact with you is not enough for a person to make a conversion. Perhaps he needs to go to a couple more sites to ask the price and return to you.

Tips for analyzing contextual advertising in Analytics

1. Make summaries

Make a list of the main metrics, campaigns that you want to track. This will save you a lot of time to review 10,000 tables and reports. Such lists will be useful not only in the context, but also for monitoring the health of the main elements of the resource. Most importantly, do not forget to put events on them.

2. Analyze cohorts

Track the customer journey throughout the year. Build cohorts, explore traffic sources over a long period of time.

2.1. Count repeat purchases

This data will show you the "lifetime" of the client, how much it costs to attract him, etc. It will also allow you to calculate the exact income. You can also divide repeat purchases into groups of users (by source) - this way you will understand the real cost of a conversion.

3. Analyze multichannel sequences

Research sources that don't sell directly. See if they have an impact on the purchase. Multichannel sequences in this case will help to find the dependence in the conversion chain.

4. Understand the details

Explore the report in detail, analyze by hour to set the bid multiplier in AdWords for specific hours. Maximize the opportunity to optimize costs and increase ROI.

5. Analyze everywhere

It's simple, follow the algorithm - attraction, analysis, management.

Marketers often neglect the second and third points. But in vain! We are striving to create a quality product.