Retargeting and audience selection for app promotion
Retargeting is a mechanism you can use to target ads to your app's existing users. It helps businesses:
- Encourage users to complete purchases.
- Bring back inactive users.
- Increase the number of purchases and other conversion actions performed in the app.
- Nudge users to get to the next stage of the marketing funnel.

How to launch
To set up a retargeting scenario for app promotion, create a unified performance campaign and select the Retargeting goal.
How retargeting interacts with other impression criteria
In Yandex Search
Retargeting in search results works together with keywords or autotargeting via the “AND” logical operator. Ads are served to users who meet both the audience selection conditions and impression criteria, that is, keywords or autotargeting criteria.
Within the scope of the retargeting list, the logical "OR" operator is used. If your targeting criteria include a keyword and two retargeting lists, the ad is shown to users who searched for the keyword and are part of your retargeting lists.
In ad networks
Ads in ad networks are only served to users who meet the retargeting conditions.
How to set up an audience segment for retargeting
An audience segment for retargeting is a way to describe the audience you're interested in. You can create a set of conditions based on mobile app goals in Yandex Direct or use predefined Yandex Audience segments.
|
Segment creation method |
Segment type |
Where the segment is created |
|
Dynamic. User data is updated automatically. |
Yandex Direct |
|
|
Dynamic. User data is updated automatically. |
Yandex Audience |
|
|
Static. User data is only updated manually. |
Yandex Audience |
Segment based on mobile app goals
Before creating the segment, set up goals for your app:
- In the left-hand menu, select Library → Mobile apps.
- Next to the app you need, click Edit.
- In the Goals to use in the strategy section, add the goal you want to use when creating the segment.
You can create a segment in one of the following ways:
- In the left-hand menu, select Library → Audience segments → Add retargeting list.
- Go to a unified performance campaign and open the page for creating or editing an ad group. In the Retargeting section, click Add → Create new condition.
Sets of rules
Audience segment criteria can include up to 50 sets of rules combined using the AND operator.
The system lets you choose various criteria for rule fulfillment — All fulfilled, At least one fulfilled or None fulfilled.
Alert
Audience segment criteria that include only exclusion rules (the None fulfilled option) can only be used for bid adjustments. You must have at least one rule set with the All fulfilled or At least one fulfilled criteria to apply a targeting condition.
Rules
Set rules using the mobile app goals.
To each of your rules, you can add users who have the behavior or interests similar to users who completed the selected goal. When creating a rule, specify:
-
Selected goal only to select the users that were already converted for the goal.
-
Selected goal and look-alike users to select both the users that were already converted for the goal and a new audience of similar users.
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Only similar users to select only the new audience. Users that were converted for the goal or were included in the segment won't be selected by the condition.
Similar users are identified using Crypta technology.
For each goal, set a period between 1 and 540 days. Ads will be served over that period to an audience that fulfills the criteria you specified. Segments based on mobile app goals are automatically updated on a regular basis, so they contain current user data.
You can add up to 250 rules in total. The more rules you set for the segment creation criteria, the narrower the audience reach.

You can view all your audience segment criteria on the Audience segments page. You can add a retargeting list to any ad group in one or more campaigns.
Note
You can create a maximum of 2000 audience segment criteria per account. You can add up to 50 audience segments per ad group.
You can also edit a retargeting list that you created previously. To do this, on the Audience segments page, click the criterion name and enter your changes. You can also create a new retargeting list that keeps the changes you made by clicking Save as new.
Yandex Audience segments
With Yandex Audience, you can:
-
Use dynamic segments from the AppsFlyer mobile measurement platform. Learn more about integration with AppsFlyer in Yandex Audience Help.
-
Create a segment based on mobile device IDs. Learn more about this segment in Yandex Audience Help.
Note
We recommend that you use In-Device mode when creating a segment based on mobile device IDs.
More about Yandex Audience.
Conversion tracking
Check your tracker settings using this checklist. Learn more about conversion tracking.
Have questions?
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