Yandex surpasses Google.ru at PPC clickthrough rates

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 match types explained

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 launches a desktop application for managing PPC campaings

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.

Understanding Yandex.Direct PPC platform

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.

Dynamic Search Ads

Dynamic Search Ads look like other text ads that you see on Google search results pages. But in fact they’re a new way to target searches with relevant ads that link to the most appropriate landing page, all based on the content of your website. You don’t have to choose keywords, tell Google when you add a page to your website or take it down, or create an ad for each product page of your site. AdWords figures out when to show your ads based on the same indexing and relevance technologies used for Google's organic search.
How it works

AdWords uses content from your website domain to target your ads for searches


instead of keywords.


You can tell AdWords whether all pages or just specific sections should be used to target your ads by creating dynamic ad targets. Dynamic ad targets can be your whole website or specific sections of the following:
pages that belong to specific categories
pages that contain certain words
pages whose titles contain certain words
pages whose URLs contain certain strings

Using Google’s organic search index of your website, AdWords determines which searches might be relevant to the products and services offered on this website. When AdWords finds searches that are a match for your dynamic ad targets it generates a text ad in real time that links to the most appropriate page from your website. The headline is dynamically put together by taking words from the search phrase and content from the landing page used in the ad. The rest of the ad is a template that you wrote when you set up or edited your campaign.


Although Dynamic Search Ads change the way that ads are targeted for searches, they won’t impact the way that ads get ranked, the performance of your keyword-based ads, or the amount of control you have over your account.
Same ranking. When entering the auction, the ranking of a dynamic search ad is determined in the same way as keyword-based ads: the maximum cost-per-click bid that you’ve specified for the dynamic ad target and the dynamic search ad’s Quality Score using the same calculations that are used with other search ads. The cost for a click is based on your ad’s Quality Score and the AdRank of the ad just below yours, again, just like with other search ads.
Works with your keyword-based campaigns. Complementary instead of competitive, Dynamic Search Ads don’t trump keyword-based ads. Dynamic Search Ads only show when keyword-based ads for your domain aren’t eligible to run in the auction. And the performance of your Dynamic Search Ads won’t influence your keyword-based ads and vice-versa since AdWords handles the history of your Dynamic Search Ads separately from your other ads.
You’re still in control. With Dynamic Search Ads, you control the dynamic ad targets, ad templates, bids, and your budget. You can use negative keywords, like "free" or "returns," just like with traditional campaigns to avoid showing your ads on searches that don't convert into sales. And you can prevent advertising when specific words or phrases appear on the page, like "temporarily out of stock" or "sold out", when you add dynamic ad targets that exclude pages containing these words. You'll also get full reporting: see the headlines and landing pages of your ads, the ad generated, average CTR and CPC, and conversion data.
Who should use Dynamic Search Ads

You’ll probably get the most value from Dynamic Search Ads if you operate a website with hundreds or thousands of products, services, and listings that frequently change. Do you currently map keywords, bids, and ad text to each product listing on your website? Dynamic Search Ads can help you get more complete ad exposure for more of what you sell, while reducing the effort of keeping your ads, keywords, and destination URLs current.