Keyword insertion is popular feature available in most PPC platforms. By dynamically inserting a keyword that triggers the ad, keyword insertion, when used wisely, helps to increase click-through rates by making the ad more relevant and appealing the the searcher’s eyes.

Most search engines use the same syntax {keyword:default text}, which can be used in any part of an ad: title, ad text, display or destination URL.

Keyword insertion is just as handy for Yandex SEM as for any other search engine PPC program. However, the usage of it can be confusing for us, who are used to Google and Microsoft AdCenter interface. In this article I will try to explain Yandex keyword insertion feature in AdWords/AdCenter terms.

How dynamic keyword insertion works in Yandex

First of all, Yandex refers to dynamic keyword insertion as “ad templates“. Some short information about it can be found in Yandex.Direct help center.

Second, the syntax for dynamic keyword insertion looks like this: #default text#. Unlike Google AdWords, Yandex.Direct does not provide a possibility to choose capitalization. The inserted keyword will look exactly the way you enter it in your keyword list. AdCenter works the same way, which I find quite inconvenient.

Third, if keyword is too long and will cause exceeded character limit, the default text will be shown. The limit for ad title is 33 characters including spaces and punctuation; for ad text – 75 characters including spaces and punctuation. There is only one description like, like in AdCenter.

Example: Yandex PPC ad with keyword insertion operator

Other considerations

- Dynamic keyword insertion will not work with contextual ads, but only available for search ads.

- Inserted keywords will look exactly like in your keyword list, regardless of what work form (singular or plural) or case triggered the ad.

- Russian language has 7 cases. Be careful when using keyword insertion in ad text – if the case is wrong, the ad will not look professional or trustworthy.

- Be careful when using dynamic keyword insertion in destination URL. Spaces between words will be replaced by %20. Cyrillic characters will be encoded in UTF-8.

Dynamic keyword insertion is a very useful feature, but should be used with extreme care. Make sure all keywords associated with the ad make sense in the ad context, both semantically and grammatically. If used correctly, using dynamic keyword insertion will dramatically improve your CTR on Yandex.

I am sure many of you are successfully using Google Display network to drive sales. Yandex has an analog to Google’s display network called Yandex Advertizing Network (also refferd to as YAN or РСЯ in Russian). Until recently it was practically impossible to manage contextual ads in a good way. As I mentioned in one of my earlier posts, contextual ads could not be separated from search ads. The bid levels were not optimal and the keyword choices limited.

Recently, however, Yandex made a change in their way of handling contextual ads. From now on there is a possibility to separately manage and optimize advertizing on Yandex content network, which gives search marketers new great possibilities of reaching their target audiences in the Russian market.

The main advantage of this new feature is, of course, more flexible bidding. Running display ads in a separate campaign is a big improvement. Now you can adjust bid levels to achieve the desired coverage, which was difficult when the ads were running on search and content network at the same time.

Another great thing is that now the contextual ads can be used the same way as on Google’s display network. Google recommends creating ad groups as “themes” related to your business rather than just selecting keywords. Now you can do similar things with Yandex content ads.

Now, for example, an online shop selling tents could target keywords like “hiking” and “trekking” on Yandex content network to reach out to more potential customers. This was not an option before, when the same campaign had to target both search and content network, as these keywords are way too broad to bid on and would result in poor CTR and unnecessary spend on Yandex search.

Ad formats on Yandex content network

The ad formats are the same as for Yandex search advertizing:

Ad Title: max 33 characters

Ad Text: max 75 characters

No graphical ad formats are available. Yandex content network only supports text ads.

Special syntaxes, such as for example keyword insertion, just like with GDN, are not supported.

How to configure targeting for Yandex display network

Configuring the targeting is very simple. Go to campaign settings -> Strategy and select “Independent management for different site types”.

Configuring targeting for Yandex content network campaign

Then just create your ads, add keywords, set bids, and you are ready to go!

I am sure many of you are wondering how it works with match types in Yandex. They do not provide a description in their Yandex.Direct help topics, and there is no possibility to choose a match type in Yandex Wordstat keyword tool. It took me a while to figure it out as well, and here is my understanding of the whole match type system.

1. The matching option that comes by default

This is important for both interested in Yandex SEO and Yandex.Direct PPC. What Wordstat keyword tool returns as search volumes is probably the closest to what Google would return for a modified broad match.

This means that search volumes in Yandex keyword tool will include impressions for all queries containing all words of your key phrase in any order, in all forms, including plural.

Yandex kyeword tool Wordstat

The prepositions and other stop-words are ignored, like in Microsoft AdCenter, but if you would like to see the search volume for a phrase with a particular preposition, you can use the plus sign in front of it.

Example:

By default search volume for coat with a belt will actually include search volume for both coat with a belt and coat without a belt.

If you are interested in finding out search volumes for phrases containing the term coat with a belt, you would have to enter coat +with a belt into Wordstat keyword tool.

2. Exact match, the Yandex way

It is possible to set keywords on what AdWords specialists would know as exact match by using quotation marks, which is quite confusing since in Google that would indicate phrase match, i.e. the opposite of what it means to Yandex.

As I mentioned in one of my previous posts, Russian language has 7 cases, which involves changing the endings for all nouns and adjectives depending on a case. Do not worry about that, because all cases are included into Yandex’s exact match as well as plural forms.

If you wish to only bid on exact match of a plural form, for example, you would need to use an exclamation mark in front of the word.

Exmaple:

Key phrase “cheap sofas” will trigger ads for search queries cheap sofas and cheap sofa.

Key phrase “cheap !sofas” will only trigger ads for the query cheap sofas.

3. Broad match, the Yandex way

There is a possibility to include synonyms, mistypes, transliterated words etc. and all the other stuff that Google would include in their broad match.

This feature is called “other relevant phrases” and needs to be manually activated. It is turned off by default.

Yandex.Direct, the PPC platform of Yandex, has been around since 2001 and is the oldest system of contextual ads in Russia (Google launched AdWords in Russia in 2002). Even though it displays ads to over 22 million people every day and attracts hundreds of new advertizers from Russia and overseas, the user interface is, let’s say, not the most convenient. Managing large PPC campaigns through Yandex web interface is a challenging task. But from now on it will be much easier for all search marketers. Finally Yandex launched a desktop tool for managing Yandex.Direct accounts, similar to those of Google, Bing and Yahoo!. Please meet  Direct Commander!

The tool is available for Windows and Mac, but unfortunately the user interface is in Russia only. The first version of Commander is not as powerful as AdWords Editor, but it provides all the basic options you need for day-to-day PPC optimization. With the help of Direct Commander you can easily:

- Change campaign and ad settings (targeting, budgets, alerts, site exclusion, automated campaign management features such as Autofocus etc.)

- View statistics

- Create, edit and manage ads

- Add, remove and modify keywords

- Manage your presence in Yandex Catalog

- Import data from XLS and CSV files

The interface is very convenient, in my personal opinion. Commander window is divided into 3 panels

1. Campaigns

2. Ads

3. Keywords

The panels can be minimized if needed. I really like the fact that you don’t need to switch between tabs, but can edit the campaign at all levels simultaneously.

Direct Commander window

Of course, since it is the first version, there are a lot of functions that are missing. For example, it is impossible to download campaigns into Excel. Would be also nice to have the Yandex keyword tool (Wordstat) incorporated into the tool.

I am looking forward to more features in Direct Commander, but it’s already a big improvement. The tool is going to be great help to all search engine marketers optimizing for Yandex.

In the last couple of months I have been spending a good amount of time with Russian PPC campaigns, both in Google.ru and Yandex. Even though I personally prefer Google’s interface, as it much more user -friendly and convenient, Yandex delivers more traffic and at a good cost.

Yandex.Direct provides some interesting features that automate parts of optimization tasks, such as, for example, “Autobroker” for automatic CPC management and “Autofocus” for automatic keyword refinement. Unlike most Google’s PPC automation tools, these two are actually quite useful.

The recent study conducted by Neiron.ru also showed that Yandex PPC ads have significantly better CTR comparing to Russian AdWords :

Yandex

Google.ru

To come up with these numbers Neiron.ru analyzed 5 896 473 search result pages in Yandex and 2 199 835 in Google.ru.

According to the study, ads in premium (top 3) positions receive 75,7% of all clicks on PPC ads in Yandex and 91,1% in Google.ru. 9 ads in Yandex’s right column get to share the remaining 24,3%. Google’s 8 ads on the right receive 8,9% of clicks.

Last week Yandex announced that machine learning technology MatrixNet, powering their organic search, was applied to Yandex.Direct as well.

CTR of Yandex.Direct ads increased by astonishing 20% during the first week after implementation of MatrixNet. Quite an improvement, isn’t it?

Yandex.Direct is a PPC platform for advertizing on Yandex and their content network. Yandex hold 65% of contextual ads market in Russia, so if you want to enter this market, that’s probably where you will allocate a big chunk of your advertizing budget.

Yandex.Direct ads in Yandex search results

Yandex have been working very hard for a year or so to attract foreign advertisers, not only promoting themselves at conferences in the US and Europe, but also investing into English translations of the most important tools and tutorials:

• Yandex.Direct interface in English: http://direct.yandex.com
• Yandex.Direct help center and program description in English:
  http://advertising.yandex.com/, http://direct.yandex.com/help/
• Yandex corporate blog: http://company.yandex.com/ with the latest news and features

When I first started with Yandex.Direct, there were a few things, which I had a hard time to grasp, being used to working with Adwords. Below I will list the key differences between Yandex.Direct and Google Adwords.

1. Campaign structure

Yandex.Direct platform allows you to group keywords and ads into campaigns. There is no support for ad groups. The campaigns looks like a bunch of ads with a number of keywords assigned to each ad.

2. Keyword match types

In Yandex.Direct there are no match types as such. The keyword matching works like modified broad match in Adword. E.g. adding a keyword Cheap Laptop Bags into Yandex.Direct will give you similar results to adding +cheap +laptop +bags into Google Adwords.

There is a tool inside Yandex Direct the system that allows you to broaden keyword matching and incorporate synonyms, which will make it more similar to Google’s broad match.

You can start your keyword research using Yandex Keyword Tool.

3. Negative keywords

Negative keywords can be only created at an Ad level.

4. Ads

The ad format is 33 characters for the title and 75 characters for the ad text. Dynamic keyword insertion is supported.

What is not supported is ad rotation. When working with Adwords, you usually create several ads per ad group and test different messages to maximize your CTR and conversion. With Yandex.Direct it is impossible to have several ads shown for the same keyword at the same time.

5. Display network

Yandex have an extensive content network in Russia. The selection criteria for the websites are very strict, therefore you can be sure, when opting into the network, that your ads will be shown only on respectable and good quality sites with a fair amount of traffic. This is a big advantage in comparison with Google’s GDN, where you get all those useless clicks from thousands small spammy sites!

What is different with Yandex content network is that :

- the ads will only be shown if your keywords match keywords in web page content (like with Bing content ads, really), while Google would rather match a “theme” of your ad group than a particular keyword.

- It is not possible to create a campaign targeting display ads only, which is totally the opposite of what Google recommend when working with GDN. Your ads to be shown on Yandex content network AND search results, or in Yandex search results only.

6. Conversion tracking

In Yandex.Direct there is no conversion tracking as we know it. Instead of tracking pixel you get from Google or Bing, the suggest you to install Yandex.Metrics, which is their analytics kit, in a way similar to Google Analytics. Yandex Metrics is a very good and powerful tool; the only problem with it is that it is only available in Russian at the moment.

Otherwise, you can rely on 3rd party tracking solution, but then the number of conversion won’t be shown in Yandex.Direct interface.

7. Mobile ads

Yandex.Direct does not support device targeting. Your ads will be shown on mobile devices by default if they occupy position #1 or #2.

The interface of Yandex.Direct otherwise if pretty straightforward. If you are an experienced search marketer, it won’t take you long to get comfortable with the platform.

For almost a year now Yandex is using machine learning technology aka Matrixnet. Until recently, the “learnings” were used for improving the SERPs: eliminating spam, understanding users’ intents in cases when search queries are too generic or have multiple possible meanings etc. etc. Opinions differ, but all in all the quality of search results is much better than when I started writing RussianSearchTips.

A week ago Yandex launched yet another search algorithm Reykjavík. They call it their first step towards personalized search. Reykjavík aims to adapt to users’ language preferences, i.e. shows more results in English to those who likes (and clicks on) results in English and the other way around.

Last week yet another human aspect was brought to the world’s attention: behavioral targeting for display advertising. Sounds good, right? But here comes the weird part.. or rather parts

a) “Behavioral targeting” includes dividing the audiences into 2 groups by gender, 5 groups by age and 2 groups by income.. Hmm, not that is interesting. The new technology called Crypta, which is behind this targeting, analyses search queries of Internet users and by looking on what people are searching for, it assigns them to these categories. But income, medium or high, still? C’mon!

b) Yandex is positioning this “smart” targeting as a “Super-premium” service and is charging 1,5 times more for using it, comparing to traditional targeting options. This comes as a surprise to me, since testing these things with both Bing and Google, from my experience, gave nothing. Yandex, however, prior to releasing this targeting, published a number or research papers of how and what different gender and age group search, so now, supported by all those stats, this “smart” targeting can actually sell..perhaps.

Now, a few other things I find amusing. Mail.ru, owning 2 major social networks in Russia (Odnoklassniki.ru and MoiKrug.ru) commented to CNews.ru that “when the (market) players do not possess actual information about their users, they are forced to replace it by hypothetical assumptions based on statistical algorithms. Not sure, Yandex’s approach can be a sufficient replacement for real knowledge about their audience”. WOW, I thought. That is mean.

But guess what, the day before yesterday Yandex released another new feature! Now you can sign in into ANY Yandex service with your account in several social media sites , namely Vkontakte, Odnoklassniks, Facebook, Google, Mail.Ru or Twitter! This feature is available on all devices. Ha-ha, and how is that for “not possessing real data”? Working on it, working on it

I am not sure, when or if antitrust and privacy law suits will hit Yandex, but these developments are really fun to watch! Looking forward to further developments

Yandex.Direct is AdWords of Yandex. It works almost the same way and looks very similar.

This week Yandex has started to show up to 3 sponsored links above organic search results, while before the maximum amount of paid ads was 2. Yandex claims that this will affect only the most competitive keywords, i.e. not more than 2% of all queries.

More sponsored links in Yandex SERPs

According to SearchEngines.ru Internet audience is not very fond of increased amount of paid listings. A large amount of people have screens with resolution lower than 768px (e.g. netbooks users) and cannot see organic search results at all.

In blogs and forums Yandex is being compared with Chinese Baidu, where all 10 top results can be paid listings =)