Myths in PPC advertising: Does the “Consider automatically stopped competitors’ ads” option reduce the CPC?

SEOnews and eLama, an online advertising automation service, continue to disassemble common misconceptions in contextual advertising.

Earlier we told:

In the new video Nikita Kravchenko, Leading Paid Traffic Specialist, eLama, will explain whether the option “Include automatically stopped competitors ads” reduces the CPC in Yandex.Direct.

Myth: the option “Consider automatically stopped ads from competitors” significantly reduces the cost per click in Yandex.Direct

There has been a myth among some advertisers for a long time that the option of campaign settings in Yandex.Direct “Include automatically stopped competitors ads” lowers the cost per click. In fact, this is not the case.

How this parameter works and what it affects

The option “Include automatically stopped competitors ads” is located in the additional settings of the advertising campaign.

The checkbox for this parameter is enabled by default, but it can be disabled. Then some of the competitors advertisements will not count towards the bid forecast.

Important! Yandex even says that this parameter only affects the rate forecast.

What is a bet forecast

The column “Rate forecast” in Yandex.Direct can be seen if you go inside the advertising campaign. The column shows various forecasted rates for the current moment in time.

The auction is dynamic, so the calculated forecast values ??can change at any time. If the checkbox of the parameter “Include automatically stopped ads from competitors” is enabled, then it will affect whether all advertisers who run ads for these keywords will be taken into account in the bids forecasts.

If the checkbox is disabled, then the predicted bids will be calculated only for those advertisers who are active right now, because some advertisers set time targeting: for example, their ads are not shown at night or on weekends.

You won t be able to influence the CPC using the “Include automatically stopped competitors ads” parameter.

In Yandex.Direct, the cost per click is calculated at the time of the auction among those advertisers who are competing for impressions right now. For an ad to appear in the top position, the ratio of predicted CTR, click-through rate and ad quality must be higher than that of competitors. In any case, you will be charged as much as calculated at the time of the auction.

How to work with the “Include automatically stopped competitors ads” setting

• If an advertiser manages bids manually, it is recommended to always take into account all competitors, that is, do not disable this checkbox. It is possible that the specialist decided to set rates at 8 am on Monday. He saw that it was enough to set 50 rubles to get a traffic volume of 100, and indicated this amount. However, at 9 a.m., another 50% of competitors connected, whose ads had been disabled on weekends due to temporary targeting. Due to the fact that there are more competitors, the auction warmed up, the 50 rubles bid may no longer be enough to get the required traffic volume. It is almost impossible to constantly manually change rates in the interface. Therefore, when manually managing bids, it is better not to change the checkbox and always take into account all competitors ads.
• If an advertiser manages bids using bid managers (for example, eLama), which automatically track changes in bids and set them necessary to get a certain amount of traffic or maximum traffic, the checkbox can be turned off. In this case, you do not need to take into account the stopped ads of competitors.
• If the advertiser uses auto strategies, the checkbox will not affect anything, since Yandex.Direct algorithms always take into account the current situation at the auction.