The principles of the auction and pull in contextual advertising
Contextual advertising today is the main source of attracting customers for many companies. And for them, getting advertisements in the special placement of Yandex.Direct is not just an important question, but a matter of principle. Loss of special placement from the unit for at least one day can lead to a decrease in monthly revenue by 5% - which, you see, is no longer a joke.
Therefore, competition in some subjects comes to outright war. And when opportunities to optimize their own campaigns have already been exhausted, and the competitor has not been defeated, the methods that are questionable in terms of ethics are used.
One of these methods is podzhimanie. Let's try to figure out what it is, on what basis it works and when the use of a spin-up can be justified.
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It's no secret that Yandex.Direct works on the principle of auction among advertisers. The more willing to show ads on a specific request, the higher the rates. But in order to understand how the spin-up works, you and I will have to get deeper into the principles of this auction.
When choosing a winner in an auction, Yandex.Direct compares not just advertiser bids, but products of the cost of a click on clickable ads (CTR). More Direct takes into account some other indicators, but to a lesser extent, so we will manage these two.
It is important to remember that clickability is calculated by Yandex.Direct for each key phrase for each block (special placement, warranty, dynamic displays) separately.
Yandex.Direct auction is an auction of the second price. The winner pays not his bid, but the minimum price that ensures the victory in the bidding - the rate of the nearest competitor plus 30 kopecks (the minimum auction increment in Yandex.Direct).
Now that we know how the auction works in Yandex.Direct, we can draw the following conclusion: by reducing the gap between their bid and the block entry boundary (pushing toward it), the advertiser does not increase the chances of getting into the block (because the bid is still less passing), but it increases the actual cost of a click to competitors, since Direct strives to earn on those who hit the block (special placement or guarantee) no less than on those who did not hit it (second price principle).
Let's understand the mechanics of this method using an example. For ease of understanding, let’s take the fact that all advertisers in this example have the same CTR (although in practice it never happens).
In general, push-up is bad and we do not approve of it. In the end, pushing up only leads to an auction warming up and raising bids for all advertisers. But sometimes this method is justified.
The first case is when one of the competitors for some reason pulled up a bet several times. As we remember from the principles of the auction, he himself does not pay this bid, but only hinders everyone else. Such a careless advertiser can be punished. Preload it according to the described method for a short time and with the help of 20 friends to provide 20 clicks that will cost him a week, if not more, budget. After that, change your bet back. In this case, an inexperienced advertiser can only be regretted: most likely, he will not even understand what happened. But Yandex.Direct technical support will explain to him where the entire advertising budget has gone, and he will no longer raise rates.
The second case is the war of brands. Suppose you are a manufacturer of smartphones, and a competitor is advertised on requests containing the names of your production models. Your dealers lose traffic, sales fall - you incur losses. Since you have started a war against you in the context, you can and should use the entire available arsenal, including pressure training.
The first and obvious problem is that pushing up competitors will not go unnoticed, retaliation will not take long. You can also squeeze in other key phrases or even squeeze out of special placement.
Secondly, the use of a push-up in itself increases costs, as you begin to operate with large rates.
Well and thirdly, you can easily "fly into", if you do not have time to change the rate. Your bid can suddenly become passable for a variety of reasons, from disabling competitor campaigns to changing bids or even CTR ads. Therefore, if the push-up is not a one-time nature (as is the case with the punishment of a negligent advertiser), but constant (for example, brand wars), then you should use contextual advertising automation tools — bid managers that automatically control the rates .
In addition, since now the majority of advertisers use the “Show in a block at the lowest price” strategy, you cannot pin down any one of the competitors - you are pressing everyone who is in the special placement block at once.
Let's take the example of eLama.ru to consider the settings that need to be set in the bid manager, if you decide to preload competitors, turning a blind eye to ethical considerations.
In order for the push-up to work, we need to constantly set the rate close to the price required to enter the special placement, but a little less. Therefore, in the bid manager we use the following algorithm for calculating the rates: the cost of entering the special accommodation is minus 0.03 ye.
In this example, we created two rules: for working and non-working time, with different maximum bid limits, in order to insure yourself against overpayment per click.
We hope this article will help you to better understand the principles of the work of contextual advertising, and you will never have to put this knowledge into practice into practice. We are for a peaceful context.
PS For skeptics: if you think that when using the “Show in block at the lowest price” strategy, the push-up cannot be used, then simply create two accounts in Yandex.Direct and create exactly the same ads in them (the same keywords, same texts), but with different links, and see how the threshold for entering the special placement will change when you raise the bid in one of the accounts.
PPS This is the second version of the article about crawling in contextual advertising, especially for Megamind. Original article (first version) in the blog eLamy.
Therefore, competition in some subjects comes to outright war. And when opportunities to optimize their own campaigns have already been exhausted, and the competitor has not been defeated, the methods that are questionable in terms of ethics are used.
One of these methods is podzhimanie. Let's try to figure out what it is, on what basis it works and when the use of a spin-up can be justified.
')
Principles of Yandex.Direct Auction
It's no secret that Yandex.Direct works on the principle of auction among advertisers. The more willing to show ads on a specific request, the higher the rates. But in order to understand how the spin-up works, you and I will have to get deeper into the principles of this auction.
The principle of calculating the rate
When choosing a winner in an auction, Yandex.Direct compares not just advertiser bids, but products of the cost of a click on clickable ads (CTR). More Direct takes into account some other indicators, but to a lesser extent, so we will manage these two.
For example, the user enters the query "pizza delivery per hour."
Your ad's clickability on this request is 10%, the rate is 50 rubles. So, with 100 hits Direct will earn 500 rubles.
The clickability of a competitor's ad for the same request is 5%, and the rate is more - 70 rubles. But with 100 impressions Direct will earn only 350 rubles, which means it’s better to show your ad.
It is important to remember that clickability is calculated by Yandex.Direct for each key phrase for each block (special placement, warranty, dynamic displays) separately.
CPC pricing principle
Yandex.Direct auction is an auction of the second price. The winner pays not his bid, but the minimum price that ensures the victory in the bidding - the rate of the nearest competitor plus 30 kopecks (the minimum auction increment in Yandex.Direct).
For example, you are ready to pay up to 20 rubles per click, and a competitor is willing to pay up to 30 rubles. In this case, the clickability of its ads 5%. So Direct can earn on it up to 150 rubles from 100 hits.
The clickability of your ad is 10%. So, to earn the same 150 rubles for you, you need to take 15 rubles per click. Therefore, you win the auction, and a click will cost not 20 rubles (as you indicated), but only 15.3 rubles (the competitor's rate * 100 / your CTR + 30 kopecks).
How does the push up work
Now that we know how the auction works in Yandex.Direct, we can draw the following conclusion: by reducing the gap between their bid and the block entry boundary (pushing toward it), the advertiser does not increase the chances of getting into the block (because the bid is still less passing), but it increases the actual cost of a click to competitors, since Direct strives to earn on those who hit the block (special placement or guarantee) no less than on those who did not hit it (second price principle).
Let's understand the mechanics of this method using an example. For ease of understanding, let’s take the fact that all advertisers in this example have the same CTR (although in practice it never happens).
The cost of entering the special accommodation for the request "pizza delivery" 160 rubles.
At the same time, advertisers who are in this block may pay less if their competitors decide that it is easier to place in the guaranteed impressions block, the entrance to which is only 95 rubles, and set rates from 96 to 100 rubles. In this case, in fact, the cost of a click in special placement at the bottom position is not 160, but only 100.3 rubles.
But if one of the advertisers raises their bid to 150 rubles, then the actual cost of a click in special allocation will be 150.3 rubles, that is, it will become one and a half times more.
When to use a pushup
In general, push-up is bad and we do not approve of it. In the end, pushing up only leads to an auction warming up and raising bids for all advertisers. But sometimes this method is justified.
The first case is when one of the competitors for some reason pulled up a bet several times. As we remember from the principles of the auction, he himself does not pay this bid, but only hinders everyone else. Such a careless advertiser can be punished. Preload it according to the described method for a short time and with the help of 20 friends to provide 20 clicks that will cost him a week, if not more, budget. After that, change your bet back. In this case, an inexperienced advertiser can only be regretted: most likely, he will not even understand what happened. But Yandex.Direct technical support will explain to him where the entire advertising budget has gone, and he will no longer raise rates.
The second case is the war of brands. Suppose you are a manufacturer of smartphones, and a competitor is advertised on requests containing the names of your production models. Your dealers lose traffic, sales fall - you incur losses. Since you have started a war against you in the context, you can and should use the entire available arsenal, including pressure training.
Push up problems
The first and obvious problem is that pushing up competitors will not go unnoticed, retaliation will not take long. You can also squeeze in other key phrases or even squeeze out of special placement.
Secondly, the use of a push-up in itself increases costs, as you begin to operate with large rates.
Well and thirdly, you can easily "fly into", if you do not have time to change the rate. Your bid can suddenly become passable for a variety of reasons, from disabling competitor campaigns to changing bids or even CTR ads. Therefore, if the push-up is not a one-time nature (as is the case with the punishment of a negligent advertiser), but constant (for example, brand wars), then you should use contextual advertising automation tools — bid managers that automatically control the rates .
In addition, since now the majority of advertisers use the “Show in a block at the lowest price” strategy, you cannot pin down any one of the competitors - you are pressing everyone who is in the special placement block at once.
Automation
Let's take the example of eLama.ru to consider the settings that need to be set in the bid manager, if you decide to preload competitors, turning a blind eye to ethical considerations.
In order for the push-up to work, we need to constantly set the rate close to the price required to enter the special placement, but a little less. Therefore, in the bid manager we use the following algorithm for calculating the rates: the cost of entering the special accommodation is minus 0.03 ye.
In this example, we created two rules: for working and non-working time, with different maximum bid limits, in order to insure yourself against overpayment per click.
We hope this article will help you to better understand the principles of the work of contextual advertising, and you will never have to put this knowledge into practice into practice. We are for a peaceful context.
PS For skeptics: if you think that when using the “Show in block at the lowest price” strategy, the push-up cannot be used, then simply create two accounts in Yandex.Direct and create exactly the same ads in them (the same keywords, same texts), but with different links, and see how the threshold for entering the special placement will change when you raise the bid in one of the accounts.
PPS This is the second version of the article about crawling in contextual advertising, especially for Megamind. Original article (first version) in the blog eLamy.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/291566/
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