Every advertiser strives to get the most out of advertising campaigns in Yandex.Direct, but situations often arise when the cost per click is too high and the use of contextual advertising becomes unprofitable. In this article, we will tell you how to reduce the price of Yandex.Direct by increasing the effectiveness of advertising.
What is the cost of a click made up of?
The cost per click in Yandex.Direct is formed according to the auction principle. But ads with the maximum bid do not always appear in the first place, since the principle of the selection algorithm is more complicated.
One of the main factors is the subject matter of the promoted resource, since competition and demand are not the same in different niches. In popular topics, there are more people who want to place ads, so clicks are more expensive.
Another factor that affects the price is the region where your ad is shown. The greatest competition occurs in both capitals and large cities, as the most solvent users are concentrated here.
Different options for impressions also differ in price. The most expensive of these is special placement, in which ads are placed above the organic search results. Guaranteed impressions in Yandex.Direct are cheaper – a block for ads at the bottom of the first page, and dynamic ones – under search results on the second and next search results pages.
CTR is an indicator of the click-through rate of advertisements, which reflects the percentage of the number of clicks on an advertisement to the total number of its impressions. The higher this parameter, the cheaper each click will be for the advertiser, since it is more profitable for Yandex to show ads that are clicked on more often.
When forming the cost, the ad quality coefficient is taken into account. If it is relevant to the search query, the score will be higher. The behavior of users on the site after clicking on the link in the ad is also taken into account, so you need to use the most suitable landing pages.
Site Karma is the effectiveness of past advertising campaigns, which is also tracked. Therefore, it is necessary to disable ineffective ads that lower the overall CTR, which negatively affects karma and increases the total costs of contextual advertising.
What methods can be used to reduce the cost per click?
In order to save money on Yandex.Direct, it is necessary to act in a complex manner, using certain methods and settings in order to attract traffic and not go beyond the budget.
Expanding the semantic core
The ads use keywords that are entered into the search bar when searching for a product or service. Each key phrase, depending on the category and frequency, has its own cost – the most popular queries have the highest price. Using mid-frequency and low-frequency queries can be both cheaper and more efficient because the competition is lower.
Increase ad relevance
It is necessary to ensure the direct occurrence of the key in the title, as well as its presence in the text. This makes the ad more attractive to the user and contributes to more clicks as he sees the answer to his question. Cost per click decreases as the forecast assigns high click-through rates to ads that match user requests.
Adding negative keywords
Negative keywords are words or phrases that do not show ads in the search query. They have an indirect impact on cost per click, allowing you to prevent impressions on non-targeted search queries. This increases the CTR and decreases the cost per click in Yandex.Direct.
Track Key Phrases Over Budget
It is necessary to identify key phrases, the costs of which exceed the maximum allowable cost of the target action and do not lead to its completion. First of all, you need to check the relevance of the request, ad, and the page the visitor comes to. If the settings are correct, you can turn off the request or lower the rate to reduce the cost of traffic.
Avoiding low engagement keywords
Some key phrases bring visitors who are not interested in the offer – they do not leave applications, and increase the bounce rate without taking targeted actions. If a request does not bring conversions, there is no point in wasting resources on it, since the promotion will not bring the desired effect. One of the ways to save money on Yandex.Direct is to track such phrases and disable ad impressions for them.
Using operators
Operators are special characters that qualify keywords. They are used to display ad impressions for a specific word form and filter out unnecessary traffic. The rates per click when using operators are much lower, but you need to use them carefully, otherwise you can lose a share of targeted traffic.
Exclusion of unprofitable sites in YAN
Contextual advertising in ad networks is cheaper than search, but even here there is an opportunity to save money. To do this, you need to analyze which sites target users come from, which sites give too expensive conversions, and where impressions do not bring results. Ineffective platforms with inappropriate impressions should be turned off.
Track takes
In advertisements, duplicates are duplicate or overlapping keywords that compete for impressions with each other. There is no guarantee that the system will select the most relevant ad in each specific case. As a result, duplicates lead to both an increase in the cost of a click and a decrease in CTR, so they need to be removed.
Dividing the campaign into several regions
In different regions, the competition, and hence the pay-per-click, is different. Displaying contextual advertising all over the Russian Federation leads to overpayments, since the general statistics will include the most expensive regions, and the cost per click will increase. To solve the problem, you can launch campaigns for Moscow, St. Petersburg, and other regions, or create separate ones for each of them. In the second case, you can take into account the regional characteristics of the target audience, which will increase the effectiveness of the promotion.
Time adjustments
Many advertisers do not use ad impressions at night, weekends and holidays, so the cost per click becomes more profitable. You can use the time when most competitors are idle to get cheap clicks if the company’s schedule allows.
Working with ad text
The quality of the text affects how often users will click on the ad, that is, one of the main parameters – CTR. This means that Yandex.Direct will show your ad more often than competitors and at a lower price. To do this, you need to pay attention to the competitive advantages of the offer, indicate specific numbers, mention discounts and promotions, use a call to action.
Adding additional information to your ad
In addition to the title and text, you can add quick links, contacts, opening hours, favicon to the ad, indicate a rating on Yandex.Market and insert a link to the site. A bulky ad will stand out, and the click-through rate will increase accordingly.
Testing
It is not always possible to create an ad that will work as efficiently as possible the first time. To identify the more successful, A / B testing is performed. At the same time, the indicators of two variants of the same ad, differing in headings, text, etc., are analyzed. Based on the results, they leave the option with higher CTRs and conversions.
Bid Adjustment
By adjusting your bids, you can fine-tune your targeting, optimize your campaigns, and save your budget. It should be based on an analysis of the target audience, an understanding of the portrait of a potential client who is ready to place an order. You will need data on gender and age characteristics, marital status, etc. After the portrait is completed, you can lower the rates for non-target audiences.
What methods of lowering rates are better not to use?
There is a list of methods that should not be used to reduce the cost of a click, since they do not bring the desired result and, on the contrary, can aggravate the situation. What you don’t need to do when running a campaign in Yandex.Direct:
- Click your own ad to increase CTR. Deliberately boosting clicks on your own ad leads to the fact that the budget is quickly spent, and sales do not increase. In addition, Yandex.Direct uses a multi-stage technology to protect against invalid clicks – they are detected and not taken into account in statistics.
- Use near-theme keys. These include high-frequency phrases from related topics that are indirectly related to the advertised product or service. These clicks may be cheaper, but the vast majority of them will be inappropriate. As a result, the use of near-topic queries will not provide savings, only unnecessary costs.
- Use overnight impressions if there is no one to handle leads during this period. At night, the number of advertisers decreases, and the cost per click will be more profitable. But the night show strategy will be effective only if it is possible to accept and process applications.
- Use impressions in the regions for a low price. Many people advise at the first stage to launch ads in regions with low competition, and after increasing CTR, switch them to expensive regions. If you only work in Moscow, then regional advertising will be a waste of money.
Conclusion
There is simply no one-size-fits-all method that would help reduce the cost of a click at a time; the methods must be used in combination. The main attention should be paid to:
- Improving the quality indicator. When determining it, a number of features are taken into account: the correspondence of key queries to the ad, the quality of the landing page, the duration of the user’s stay on the site, etc. To improve the quality, it is necessary to work on all the components of the advertising campaign.
- Increasing CTR. You need to create attractive, relevant ads that grab attention and fully meet the user’s expectations.
- Finding niches with fewer competitors. It is worth taking advantage of the opportunities offered by low-frequency queries, impressions during unpopular hours, advertising in cities with low competition, etc.
- Correctness of settings. In Yandex.Direct, you can display ads at the exact request of a narrow audience that is at the time you need in a specific place and views ads from a specific type of device. Competent settings will help you save as much as possible by removing inappropriate impressions.
Optimization of advertisements must be done constantly, carefully analyze advertising campaigns using the right tools, identify weaknesses and eliminate them as quickly as possible. The preferences of the target audience are constantly changing, new competitors appear on the market, so an effective advertising campaign may not show the most worthy results tomorrow.
Without certain knowledge and skills, an independent attempt to reduce the cost of a click in Yandex.Direct can lead to the opposite result. If you need to save time and budget on advertising, while increasing its effectiveness, contact FireSEO specialists.
