YAN from A to Z: types of ads, principles of audience selection and the difference from Search

SEOnews online publication and eLama online advertising service launch a new project “YAN from A to Z”… In 9 video tutorials, you will learn how to set up effective campaigns in the Yandex Advertising Network (YAN).

Today we bring to your attention first lesson… In it, the leading specialist in working with paid traffic eLama Nikita Kravchenko will tell:

• what is the difference between advertising in YAN and advertising on Search,
• what ads are in YAN and how they are displayed,
• how the audience is selected who sees YAN ads.

Go!

Advertising theory in YAN

When visiting different sites, users can see such ads. They appear at the top, right, left, and bottom of resource pages.

Example of advertisements in the YAN block

Such advertisements catch up with users on completely different sites and are advertisements in the Yandex Advertising Network. For such advertising to appear on the site, resource owners must install special blocks for YAN.

Where YAN ads can be shown

• On the sites of the Yandex ecosystem: on the main Search page, on the pages of Yandex.Video, Yandex.News, Yandex.Mail, etc.
• On partner sites: RBC, Avito, sports.ru and other sites where the owner has placed the YAN block.
• On mobile apps: Opera, Happy Mama, GoKids, etc.

What advertisements are in YAN

• Text-graphic ads. Have an image and a title. May also have a description and additional links or clarifications.
• Graphic ads are graphic banners. They often take up more space than text-image ads, but are shown less frequently.
• Video add-ons… They are formed on the basis of text and image ads.
• Video ads… Yandex has a video network where you can run individual advertising campaigns and show your video ads. This format is suitable for brand and media tasks, but you can also receive applications and clients from there.
• Smart banners… In fact, this is a separate type of advertising campaigns that is more suitable for large online stores and aggregator sites that have a large number of pages and offers. When smart banners are launched, Yandex.Direct automatically generates advertisements and shows them to an interested audience.

By what principles does Yandex select an audience and display YAN ads?

• Before that, the user was interested in something (went to sites of a similar subject, looked at the product, looked for the product in the search).
• The user is reading material on the subject of the advertiser right now. For example, if a person goes to a site about cars, he can see there a YAN block on the subject of cars.
• The user is suitable for short-term interests, that is, he is interested in something right now.
• Hyperlocal targeting. The user lives, works, is right now, or often visits a certain geolocation.
• The audience is similar to the original segment of users (look-alike).
• Retargeting. The advertiser is targeting an audience that has already been on the site or is in the database. Retargeting campaigns need to be considered separately, because there are different scenarios for interacting with the audience. As part of the special course on YAN, we will not dwell on retargeting.

How YAN differs from Search

• The user is not searching right now. He goes to some site and there appears an advertisement that a person may be interested in.
• The relevance of your ads isn t that important. In Search, advertisements are responding to a specific search query right now. The advertiser is working with hot target demand, so it is important to maintain relevance in search ads. Ads that are displayed on YAN sites do not respond to a search query; they target the user for some characteristics or key phrases. Relevance is not so important here, it is important to grab the audience s attention and motivate users to interact with ads.
• YAN has a wide coverage, more than Search. Advertisers who do not run ads on YAN do not reach a huge audience.

YAN audience in Russia

• CPC, CTR and CR indicators in YAN are usually lower than in Search.
• CTR in YAN is not as important as in Search. A super-high CTR in YAN is a reason to think about whether ads are being clicked on certain sites. The average click-through rate in YAN hovers around 1%.
• The CPA (CPL) indicator can be either lower or higher than in Search. The effectiveness depends on many factors. For some projects Search is more effective, for others YAN, but to understand it, you need to test YAN.

Examples of comparing Search and YAN “head-on” for the same period of time

In this first example, the advertiser needs to consider whether to continue working with YAN. The screenshot shows that the CTR in YAN is lower, the average cost per click is also lower, and the conversion is lower. The price of the target – for example, sending an application – in YAN is 2 times higher than on Search, and the applications received from YAN are much less. If this price of the application is not satisfactory, you need to optimize campaigns in YAN or even disable them.

In this example, YAN also wins in terms of cost per click; in terms of the number of conversions, YAN lags slightly behind Search. The conversion rate of YAN and Search differs by about 2 times (less in YAN), but the target price in YAN turned out to be more than 2 times less than on Search…

It is not known how you will manage with YAN, but it is imperative to test it. YAN can drive a lot of traffic and conversions at a good price.

Lesson summary

• Advertising in YAN is different from search advertising. On the Web, there are completely different approaches to the formation of ads and more targeting.
• YAN has a huge audience, it is imperative to use its potential. Launch, test, optimize and only then make a decision whether YAN is right for you or not.