Contextual advertising news in November

Yandex.Direct started open beta-testing of a new tool – autotargeting, which allows serving ads on Yandex search without adding keywords. Its algorithms analyze the ad text and the landing page, then they select suitable queries and display ads in response to them. This tool makes it easier to work with semantics in contextual advertising.

Yandex.Direct also launched an extra way of displaying smart-banners in several popular subjects: automobiles, clothing, children’s goods, furniture, and building supplies. The system will analyze the feed content and automatically generate an advertisement for one of the items. This ad will be displayed along with other advertisements if a standard smart banner does not take up the whole ad block. The new feature will increase campaigns’ reach.

Yandex.Audience now offers a new way of creating geosegments – Polygon. Advertisers can select a specific area of any shape on the map and show their ads to online audience within this area. This tool is the most popular one in Yandex.Audience. There are now over 85 geosegments created. Businesses of different types are interested in this new feature: local shops and huge store chains use this tool to increase traffic and attract more customers living and working in a specific area.

Yandex is now testing displaying ads in the center of the search results page. Advertisements appearing in the center look as part of organic results, marked as an ad, which is hard to see at first glance. For now, advertisements only with non-commercial phrases can be displayed in the page center.