How to set up autotargeting

Autotargeting is a tool that allows you to serve ads for search queries relevant to the ad text and landing page, without using keywords. Learn more about autotargeting in Yandex.Direct Help.

In Direct Commander, autotargeting is displayed on the keywords tab. The Keyword field displays a system value for autotargeting: ---autotargeting. The Keyword and Negative keywords fields are not editable.

An ad group can only have one autotargeting.

Add autotargeting

Autotargeting can be added to several ad groups at once.

  1. On the Campaigns tab, select a single campaign or multiple campaigns.
  2. On the Ad groups tab, select an ad group or multiple ad groups to add autotargeting to.
  3. On the Keywords tab, click Add and select Autotargeting from the menu.
  4. Edit the autotargeting settings in the Inspector in the Editing section.

    You can assign a search bid or priority to an autotargeting (depending on your strategy). You can also fill in the Parameter 1 and Parameter 2 fields to be used as {param1} and {param2} variables in the ad link (or site link) for autotargeted serving.

  5. Press Ctrl + S (Cmd ⌘ + S on MacOS) or click the Save button at the bottom of Inspector.
  6. Make sure that the autotargeting settings are correct (marked with the icon).

    The icon means that autotargeting contains errors: not all required parameters have been set, or the values of some parameters are invalid. Hover on to find out where the error is.

Note. Autotargeting can also be copied from one ad group to another.

Start and stop

You can start and stop autotargeting-based serving similarly to keywords or together with keywords.

  1. On the Campaigns tab, select a single campaign or multiple campaigns.
  2. On the Ad groups tab, select one or more ad groups.
  3. On the Keywords tab, select a single or multiple autotargetings or keywords.
  4. In the Inspector Edit section, select an action in the State field.
  5. Press Ctrl + S (Cmd ⌘ + S on MacOS) or click the Save button at the bottom of Inspector.
  6. To apply the state change, upload the campaigns to the server (All data option).

Set a bid

You can assign a bid for autotargeting similarly to keywords and along with keywords.

You can only assign a bid on search for autotargeting. If you are assigning a bid to a batch in the Bid Wizard or Inspector, bids in ad networks do not apply to autotargetings.

In the Bid Wizard, you can assign a single bid to all autotargetings, and increase or decrease the bid by a certain percentage. When bids are assigned based on the target traffic, the autotargeting bid is not changed.