M.Video, a large electronics and appliances retailer in Russia, conducted an A/B test of Yandex's new smart banner format against other Yandex advertising formats from October-November 2015. Smart banners are hybrid contextual/media ads that dynamically insert relevant product offers. The test found that smart banners had lower cost-per-click and cost-per-conversion than other Yandex formats like search and thematic ads, with the exception of search ads for M.Video's own brand terms. Smart banners also generated 12.5 times higher revenue than the advertising budget and had a cost-per-acquisition 6.7 times lower than thematic ads on Yandex. Based on the successful test, Yandex planned to open

1. How M.Video tested out
smart banners

2. M.Video
founded in 1993The leader among retail chains
selling electronics and home
appliances in Russia
www.mvideo.ru
more than 350 stores in 150+
different Russian cities

3. Objectives
1
2
Period:
October 21 — November 4, 2015
Used:
> Yandex.Direct: smart banner
(closed beta testing)
Test the capabilities of smart
banners, an experimental format
of Yandex.Direct.
Compare the results with other
Yandex.Direct formats.

4. Project stages
Filter out 886 products
from the YML-feed with a
sufficient margin
Check the correctness of
the target setting
"conversion to purchase" to
optimize conversion
Check the correctness of the
transfer of ecommerce events to
Yandex.Metrics for retargeting
1
2
Configure the banner's
appearance: download the logo
and specify the seller's information
4
3
4

5. How smart banners work
A smart banner is a
Yandex.Direct advertising format,
a hybrid of context and media
advertising with dynamic content
and one-click payment.
Banner content is automatically
adapted to the audience: the
system inserts a product offer
into the banner's template that
corresponds to the interests of
the user visiting the page.
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Examples of
smart banners in
different formats

6. Results

7. Results
СРС СРА
The cost of clicks and conversions from the smart banner (attribution based on the last meaningful click) turned out to be lower than the ones
with search and thematic advertising on YAN. Only the clicks and conversions of search advertising for "branded" searches ("mvideo", "эм
видео", "vdbltj" etc.), which are used by an obviously loyal and ready-to-buy audience, turned out to be less expensive.
7
0
0,5
1
1,5
2
2,5
Smart banner Thematic advertising
on YAN
Search
advertising
Search advertising —
"brand" searches
0
3
2
1
4
5
6
7
Smart banner Thematic
advertising on YAN
Search
advertising
Search advertising —
"brand" searches
1
1,3
2,4
0,4 1
6,7
3
0,02

8. 3times less than the CPA of
search advertising
12.5times higher income from the
placement of smart banners vis-à-vis
the budget
6.7times less than the CPA of
thematic advertising on YAN
Results
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9. At the time of this presentation, smart banners are
currently in closed beta testing.
You can learn more about the possibility of participating in this testing
from your Yandex manager.
Open beta testing is scheduled to start in 2016.
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