How to set up autotargeting

Autotargeting is an ad serving technology that is not based on keywords. It analyzes data in the ad and on the landing page and determines whether the ad matches the search query, user interests, or website content. Using autotargeting, you can attract additional targeted traffic by serving ads to an audience not easily reached through keywords. Learn more about autotargeting in Yandex Direct Help.

In the Ad groups tab in Direct Commander, you need to specify the categories and choose brand mentions for autotargeting in search results. In 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.

Autotargeting setup

You can set up autotargeting in 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. Edit the autotargeting settings in the Inspector:

   • In the settings, select a specific search query category for autotargeting, or leave all categories enabled.

   • Here you can select the type of queries to serve your ads for. These can be queries mentioning your brand, mentioning a competitor brand, or not mentioning any brands.

4. If needed, go to the Keywords tab and edit the fields:

   • For the manual bid management strategy, automatic bids are available for autotargeting in search results. You can switch to manual bid management anytime.

   • You can set a bid on ad networks.

   • Fill in the Parameter 1 and Parameter 2 fields to replace {param1} and {param2} variables in the ad link (or sitelink) 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 your autotargeting settings are valid (the icon is shown next to them).

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

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 multiple 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).

You cannot disable autotargeting for the following types of campaigns:

• Text & Image Ads in search results.

• Unified performance campaign^β.

• Dynamic ads.

In these types of advertising campaigns, you need to select at least one query category.

Set a bid

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

For the manual bid management strategy, automatic bids are available for autotargeting in search results. You can switch to manual bid management anytime. 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 set a single bid on autotargeting and increase or decrease the bid by a certain absolute value or percentage. When bids are assigned based on the target traffic, the autotargeting bid is not changed.