Yandex Ads Engagement Campaign: Viewable Display Ads on Turkish Websites

How does the Yandex viewability guarantee work?

The biggest waste in display advertising is money paid for impressions that sit below the fold or are never visible, not even for a moment, as the user scrolls. In the Engagement campaign, Yandex makes the MRC viewability standard a condition of payment: if at least 50% of the banner didn't stay on screen for at least 1 second, that impression isn't charged. This means every paid impression in the campaign report was at least viewable. Being viewable doesn't prove interest, so we measure engagement separately through session duration and page depth.

Setting the target CPM

The campaign runs on a target cost per thousand impressions (CPM). Yandex's logic is simple: a higher target CPM means access to more competitive, higher-quality placements, and therefore higher-quality traffic. The target is reviewed every two weeks based on performance. We set the starting target based on the site's engagement data and, looking at session quality over the first two weeks, decide together with the Yandex team whether to raise or lower it.

Banner formats and creative best practices

There are three banner types, and they can run together in the same campaign. Feed-based dynamic banners show products from the catalog and can be set up as promotional banners if needed. With static image banners, several creatives are uploaded and machine learning favors the ones that perform well. Adaptive display banners combine text and images; image, headline, description, price, button, language and link can each be customized, and 39 languages are supported.

• We reuse creatives that performed well on other platforms; Yandex recommends this too.
• We favor high contrast, human faces, bright colors and short, clear copy.
• Each banner has a single, visible call to action.
• We prepare images in Google Display Network sizes; the campaign accepts these sizes.
• We build creative tests based on findings from our ad creative analysis work.

Where the ads run in Türkiye, and how they feed retargeting

The inventory runs on high-traffic local news and classifieds sites in Türkiye. This makes the campaign relevant for Turkish-speaking local users rather than a Russian-speaking audience, which is what sets it apart from other Yandex products.

The Engagement campaign isn't a sales campaign on its own. The visitors it brings grow the retargeting audience of performance campaigns such as the Unified Performance Campaign or Yandex Ecomm+. We read success through new visitors, engaged session rate and how these visitors convert through retargeting in the following weeks, analyzing it in GA4 and Metrica together. RTB House Quality Traffic can play the same role on the open web; we compare the two using the same metrics.

Engagement Campaign: when do we recommend it?

How we manage Engagement Campaign

1. Counter and feed setupWe install the Yandex counter and, if available, connect the feed in Google or Facebook format.
2. Banner trioWe prepare dynamic, static and adaptive banners in GDN sizes.
3. Target CPMWe set the starting target with the Yandex team based on the site's engagement data.
4. Two-week reviewWe update the target CPM and creatives based on session quality.
5. Connecting to retargetingWe retarget incoming visitors in performance campaigns and report on the contribution.

Engagement Campaign: metrics and requirements

The Brand Move Yandex Team

To learn more about Engagement Campaign or other Yandex ad formats, contact The Brand Move Yandex team today.

Contact us now