Show direct at the lowest possible position. Manual bid management in Yandex Direct

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Today we are talking about which strategy is better to choose in Yandex Direct: let's see what the system offers us contextual advertising where to apply each option and how to make the campaign effective. The right strategy will help optimize advertising in both search and YAN: reduce the cost of a click, increase the flow of converting visitors, cut off non-targeted visits and get the right one. The main thing is to understand the goals, and only then select a specific tool.

Why do you need an impression strategy in Yandex Direct?

It determines who, when, where and how your ads will be shown and helps you optimize your campaign. Different strategies help solve different problems: reach the maximum audience, bring more targeted visitors, improve return on investment. At the same time, they have one goal - to save as much money as possible with maximum efficiency. And if you do everything right, then there will be no problems with this. But if the tool does not meet the task, and the rates are not adjusted on time, advertising in Yandex Direct will not be as effective. All other things being equal, you will get clicks and conversions, but you will miss part of the benefit. That is why it is so important to think over everything in advance: analyze the future campaign and choose a strategy in Direct. Let's deal with this in more detail.

What strategy in "Yandex Direct" to choose?

Depends on campaign goals, your experience with setting context, and a bunch of other things. In a global sense, there are two options: do everything with your hands or trust a soulless robot. Let's consider the second case first.

Automatic strategies in Yandex Direct

They are suitable if you are a beginner or just too busy to manage your own rates. There are plenty to choose from - as many as 5 automatic strategies. Can be set average price per click or conversions, average ROI, weekly budget, or desired number of clicks over the same period.

The principle of operation of the system is quite simple: the search engine algorithm calculates the estimated probability of a click on an ad, and if everything is OK with it, it displays an ad. At the same time, the system also takes into account transitions in the search, advertising network"Yandex" and user behavior. If an ad has an exorbitant CTR, the search engine will show it more often.

The traffic forecast is built for each time of day and day of the week separately - this is how natural traffic ups and downs are taken into account. At the same time, Yandex does not look like Vanga - it regularly recalculates indicators based on the effectiveness of your particular campaign, and does not refer to general statistics and some higher knowledge.

Why is a robot good?

The main advantage of automatic strategies in Yandex Direct is frequent bid updates. Up-to-date information is loaded into the interface every 15 minutes, but in fact the data can change much more often. In this sense, the manual mode is not so convenient - no one will be able to monitor the situation 24/7.

Now let's talk about each strategy separately.

Average CPC

Everything is simple here - you tell Yandex how much you are willing to spend on average on the transition, set a weekly rate, lean back in your chair and sit like a gentleman. The robot does everything else by itself: it predicts the probability of a transition and decides what, to whom, when, where and at what rates to show.

Priority key phrases can be specified independently or delegated to the algorithm. In the latter case, the robot adapts in about a week. For priority ads, the system will fight to the last and turn them off only when there is no budget left at all. Additionally, you can specify weekly spending limits. In this case, the system will spend no more than 35% of the budget per day, and the cap rate will not rise above 10% of the total amount. The robot applies the same rules in other strategies.

Such a placement strategy in "" is suitable for those who already know the approximate cost of a click and conversion. For example, if you have a good and old online store that you have been running campaigns on since opening. Analyze the effectiveness of the latter and, if nothing has changed radically since its completion, set approximately the same cost per click, plus or minus 15-30%.

Average CPA

Almost the same, only you indicate the cost of the target action. For everything to work, you need to correctly set up the goals in Yandex Metrica and specify them in Direct. Additionally, the maximum cost per click is indicated so that the robot does not drain the budget for potentially conversion, but unreasonably expensive transitions. Otherwise, everything here is the same as in the previous paragraph, only the “click” is changed to “conversion”.

If you know how much the target action on the site costs and do not want it to exceed some threshold value, choose this strategy. So you can pay only conversion and interested in buying visitors.

Average ROI

If your eyes light up when you hear "ROI", then this Yandex Direct strategy is for you. It helps you optimize conversions and bring your ROI closer to desired value: if you need ROI = 2, enter it when setting up the campaign and Yandex will do everything to achieve it.

Here, too, you need to connect "Metrica" and set goals. The latter must be specified in the campaign settings. Additionally, you can limit the weekly budget and the maximum CPC and specify the cost of goods and services as a percentage of revenue. This will help optimize the campaign strategy and spend money on advertising in Yandex Direct efficiently.

If the algorithm jumps above its head and produces a profitability higher than expected, the money saved can be put back on advertising - this way you will get additional clicks.

The strategy is suitable for those who do not have many goods and services and those who want to monitor the effectiveness of advertising in the format “I want to know how much I got from this”. For example, you provide some service that always costs the same. Or you produce 3 models of transformers. In any case, you will find out how much money Direct specifically brought you and easily decide what to do next with the campaign.

weekly budget

With this strategy, everything is simple: you tell Yandex Direct how much money you are ready to spend in seven days, choose a goal and wait for what will happen. You can get maximum clicks or maximum conversion. In the first case, the algorithm will try to reduce the cost of the transition in order to use the budget as efficiently as possible. In the second case, the emphasis will be on conversions for one or more goals.

The strategy is suitable if you need a lot of transitions. For example, you are launching a promotion and you need to tell everyone about it without spending a lot of money on it. The logic is simple: if the offer is profitable, it will interest even those who have not thought about buying. In the case of conversions, you increase the number of targeted visits.

Weekly click package

It’s even easier here - you tell Yandex “I wish so many clicks”, and he answers “I obey and obey.” The algorithm will try to get right amount transitions at the lowest cost. Clicks that are too expensive can be filtered out by specifying the maximum cost in the strategy settings. Such a scheme is useful if you need to sell a strictly defined amount of goods or services. For example, you can't ship more than 10 items per week. If the average conversion on the site is 10%, then it makes no sense to attract more than 100 visitors.

Be sure to customize everything you can. Regardless of which strategy you have chosen in Yandex Direct, set limits on the weekly budget, the maximum cost per click, where possible. If you work according to the model with ROI, indicate the cost of the goods.
Prioritize phrases. The system will do it itself, but only after a couple of weeks. If you know which ads people click more willingly, inform Yandex about it in advance. So you will spend your budget on advertising in Direct more efficiently.
Don't expect quick results. The system needs time to work out effective scheme work, so the results won't be as good at first. But over time, Yandex will understand what to do and will be able to correct the situation.
Get your targeting right. This way you will further increase the return on advertising. Set up a campaign for impressions during "hot" times, remove ineffective ads and watch the dynamics of popularity keywords.

Manual bid management strategy in Yandex Direct

If you are confident in yourself and your experience, you can choose manual bid management. In this case, you yourself determine the conditions and rates for displaying ads. You can enable separate display on search and in YAN - in this case, the rates will be different for each site. From other possibilities: limit daily budget with a choice of standard or distributed display type.

By default, all ads tend to go up to the first place. The exact position depends on the bet you choose. If you offer the most, you are in the top. But if you can’t spend a lot of money, but you really want to be in the block under the search bar, you can fool around.

When you select the “lowest possible position in special placement” option, you specify the maximum cost per click and tell Yandex that you want to get into the top context block at the lowest possible price. If your bid is high enough to qualify for special placement, your ad will move to the third position in the block above the search results. If the bid is not enough, then the ad will get into guaranteed impressions, in > 90% of cases to the first position.

If you choose the “lowest possible position in special placement and guarantee”, the strategy will change slightly. If a maximum price a click is not enough to break into special placement, the ad will be shown in the lowest position and in the bottom block. This will help you save on everything and spend the minimum amount of money. If you break into the upper block, then you pay the most for it. favorable price. If you fall into the "guaranteed impressions", then do not spend extra money on placements that are not the most converting.

The strategy is suitable for those who have repeatedly launched effective contextual advertising in Yandex Direct. If you set up targeting correctly, you can save a lot in manual mode.

What determines the choice of advertising strategy in Yandex Direct

From your tasks and experience. If you are not confident in your abilities and at the same time want to achieve good campaign optimization, give everything to the search engine algorithm. Yes, it will take time to adapt, but in the end you will get a strategy tailored to your goals and objectives: inexpensive clicks, good ROI or maximum audience reach. If you yourself know everything and know how, manage the rates manually. So the result will appear faster, but you also need to carefully control the course of the campaign. If the situation suddenly changes, you will be left without customers and without money.

FROM manual bid strategies for ads is an opportunity to:

independently control all parameters;
all the necessary conditions to place advertising texts and work on them.

Highest Position Available - This strategy delivers the highest amount of traffic at the best cost to serve ads.
Display in the block at the lowest price - the strategy implies the placement of ads at the very bottom of the corresponding blocks with ads. At the same time, traffic is provided with the smallest capacity at the lowest price. This option is convenient for those customers who want to carry minimum costs and unable to work with large quantity potential consumers.
Impression under search results - the strategy is used to ensure that advertising materials in guaranteed impressions do not rise above the top position. At the same time, they also do not move to the level of special placement, where they could receive the largest number visits.

AT all the rest are variations of the type: Show in block by min. price in “special placement”, in “special placement and guarantees”, etc.

For whom are manual strategies suitable?

D This category of Yandex.Direct strategies is chosen by advertisers who are willing and able to independently control from the first to last stage submission and promotion of their ads. It is also acceptable for those who strive to set and change the cost per click on their own. To help these strategies, there are various bid managers that keep the price within a certain position. My opinion about them is rather negative, you can read a little more in the article on automatic strategies at the link above.

Features of manual strategy

Owns the situation and can control the placement of the ad.
Independently manages the price and rates.
He himself determines the effectiveness of keywords and their placement in the advertising text.
Independently makes adjustments to the advertising campaign.

FROM manual strategy requires free time and certain knowledge, so the automatic strategy is considered more convenient for beginners. Advertisers who opted for the former should take into account the following nuances when setting up:

The position of the advertising text is interconnected with the cost of the transition. If you want to get to a certain place, you need to make sure that the price indicated is enough to achieve your goals.
When placing rates, one should not take into account the prices predicted by the Yandex.Direct system, although they are needed for a guideline.
It is also important to take into account the competitive situation that has developed within the framework of an advertising campaign and respond in a timely manner to changes in the system.
Do not forget that many Yandex.Direct clients are constantly working on optimizing key indicators while managing bids, so in order for an ad to give the desired result when managing bids manually, all parameters should be taken into account.
The size of rates and the price, their increase or decrease.
Time and region of ad display

P Before choosing a Yandex.Direct strategy, you should be aware that with manual control you will have to be extremely careful, constantly monitoring all indicators, and take timely necessary measures when there are changes in the system. This will increase the effectiveness of your advertising campaign and withstand fierce competition. If necessary, the manual strategy can be replaced by an automatic one and vice versa.

Which strategy to choose

E That question is constantly asked to me in the conditions of the new auction. You can describe and retell help and examples for a long time, how this or that strategy now works, but this is pointless since academic knowledge will not replace experience. The whole point boils down to the fact that the “Display in the block at the lowest price” strategy is no longer relevant. There is no point in explaining a lot here, I will give a few examples:

If all three advertisers are in the same block, then the ranking will be random.
If two are at the minimum price and one is at the “Highest Available Position” strategy, then he will be at the top without changing the CPC, he will just get more clicks for the extra. cost, the rest are ranked randomly.
If two are at the highest and one is at the lowest price, then it is constantly supported by the price of the 4th advertiser.

P you can read more here. The main thing to understand is that the most important thing is that when showing in a block at the lowest price, you depend on the price of the 4th advertiser, that is, it will be a backup for you, and you will not get a specific position because you are ranked randomly. Such a turn happened with the conduct of the new auction. Previously, backups could only be done if you set the highest available position, and by the way, all bid managers were sharpened for this. Now you do not directly depend on the price of a competitor, although their price affects yours, but not explicitly, but according to a complex formula, which, by the way, also takes into account the quality factor.

Attention: do not confuse the quality factor with the ad. It takes it into account, but not completely, there are other parameters, including the site itself.

To I changed as promised.

Novice advertisers who began to work in, for the first time, are faced with the choice of an advertising display strategy. Advertising company settings allow you to select 8 different strategies and each strategy has additional settings.

All strategies are divided into two large groups:

Automatic. In the screenshot above, automatic are all strategies with the words “average” and “weekly”. Everything is quite simple and clear here, we set average prices, an average budget (and, if necessary, goals in Metrica), and Yandex will try to spend the money most efficiently.
Manual. If you understand basic principles contextual advertising, accurately selected keywords and compiled specific ads for them, it is better to use manual strategies. Manual strategies allow more control over the advertising company and most often get top scores for less money.

In this article, we will consider only manual strategies.

Strategy for thematic platforms.

In this blog, I have already said many times that it is necessary to separate companies on search and on thematic sites. Some do not understand how to completely disable ads on thematic sites, or vice versa, how to show only on them. I specifically start with this strategy and show everything in the screenshots.

Highest Available Position

In this strategy, you assign a fixed cost per click and the highest ad position for that cost will be selected. If there is enough for the first place of special accommodation, then you will be there.

Moreover, thanks to the built-in tool Autobroker, if in the CPC auction you won all the advertisers and get to the first place, then not the price that you set will be debited, but the price sufficient to bypass the competitor below you.

But there is a catch here. It is on this strategy that there is a danger of “props” (when advertisers are squeezing each other and, due to the auto broker turned on for everyone, someone starts to overpay a lot) and the risk of quickly draining the entire budget. I'll talk about braces another time.

This strategy is best used with automated system rate management (eg Elama, Rbroker, etc.). These systems constantly adjust your bids according to the chosen rules and allow you to keep a certain place in the ad unit. Thanks to the constant monitoring of competitors and automatic bid changes, it is practically impossible that one of the competitors will put you on a “support” and at the same time will not force you out of the ad block.

Display in the block at the lowest price.

This is my favorite strategy because when your ad campaign is well set up, you can show ads in special placement but pay less than other advertisers. Detailed description this strategy will require a separate article, so I will write only the main ones.

This strategy has 2 options:

In a special location. I do not recommend using this option for those who want to save money. If the cost of a click is not enough to get into special placement, then you get into the guaranteed impressions block, but already according to the “highest available position” strategy. Thus, it often happens that you are in the first place in the guarantee, but pay more (sometimes several times) than the advertiser, who is in the last place in the special placement.
In special accommodation and warranty. It is better to use this option, then, both in special placement and in guarantee, you will always pay the minimum price.

But it is advisable to turn on this strategy when good statistics have been accumulated, and to be precise, a good CTR. After all, it is a high CTR that will allow you to stand in special placement with this strategy and pay less than guaranteed advertisers.

Show below search results

Let's say, in special placement, your ads are shown too often and you do not have time to process applications (some unrealistic situation), while the way out is that you can always show ads under the search results. They click much less often. And there are also two possibilities:

Display at the highest available position. The principle remains the same, but it only works in the ad unit under the search results.
Display at the lowest price. Same.

I think this strategy is useless. It’s better to just use the “impression in the highest position” strategy, but adjust the CPC so that it only gets there half the time.

So which strategy to choose?

In my opinion the most the best choice such:

First, we use the “highest position available” strategy (with the bid adjustment system connected to avoid props) and get a good CTR in special placement. For clicks, it turns out, we pay in full.
When we have gained a good CTR (above 10% within a month), we switch to the “display in the block at the lowest price” strategy.

To quickly find queries for your ads, use.

Yandex Direct also has manual bid management strategies. In this article, we will analyze the latter.
As the name of the strategy implies, it allows you to independently, with your own hands, manage the rates. You yourself set this value for the keywords of your advertising campaign.

In order to select this mode, you should go to the campaign on the server and in the "Strategy" item, select " Manual control rates"

How does manual bid management in Yandex Direct work?

You can either manage bids manually only in search, or separately in YAN, or you can do both. The main thing is to select the conditions for its operation in the strategy parameters, and set bids according to the display conditions on the campaign page.

For each impression condition, you will receive the maximum possible number of impressions, taking into account the specified limits and bids.
If you want to switch between and manual, the rates you set will be saved.

Daily budget

For this strategy, you will need to specify the maximum amount of expenses per day in the "Budget limits" block. Then, select the ad display mode:

If your companies are out of the daily budget, then the ads will stop with the appearance of a notification. Shows will only resume the next day. Minimum size budget is 300 rubles.

You can change the amount of the daily budget no more than 3 times a day.

Show on search results only

According to the Yandex auction principle, your ads in the search will tend to take. By selecting "Show on search results only" in the strategy settings, you can change this by indicating the desire for the smallest position, that is, under the search results. You can learn about the advantages and disadvantages of being in a guarantee from.

Conclusion

AT more Your ad placement is affected by the bids you set. And if they are too low, then none of these strategies will guarantee you placement in a certain position. In addition, rates are updated regularly.

Manual strategies are a fairly flexible and balanced management mode that will allow you to control the cost of advertising campaigns. At the same time, it makes it possible to quickly change any indicators manually and keep a "hand on the pulse", unlike automatic strategies.