How to exclude a placement in the Yandex Advertising Network

In Yandex Direct you can ban impressions on selected placements of the Yandex Advertising Network and on external networks. Impressions on Yandex search projects cannot be banned. How to find suspicious placements before that ban is covered in how to find suspicious placements in the Yandex Advertising Network. Here is where the ban is clicked, which list goes where, and why the help page calls a manual review irrational without forbidding the exclusion itself.

Two places, one action

In the “Placements” report you can allow or ban impressions on a placement without leaving the report. A placement that is already banned is marked grey. In one report you can change impressions for several campaigns at once. The same control exists in the report wizard, grouped by “Placement name”.

The second entrance is the campaign parameters. The campaign is opened through the menu → “Edit”. The block “Placements where impressions are banned” excludes sites and apps, entered separated by commas. These pages do not describe one list for the whole account: the list is set on the campaign. Several campaigns at once are switched from the “Placements” report, not by copying one line into every card.

The help page advises deciding on statistically significant data and suggests turning previously disabled placements back on to recheck them. It does not translate “significant” into a number of clicks or conversions. A grey label means “already banned”, not “bad forever”.

Two limits that do not match

The blocked-placements page counts like this: for banners the list is up to 1,000 domains, for video ads up to 100. A site on the list closes both the topical pages and search on that site. An external network cannot be banned as a whole, only individual placements.

The networks questions page says it differently: no more than 1,000 impression places are added to the list of disabled placements, and that limit includes sites, apps, and external networks. Impressions on Yandex search projects cannot be banned there either.

While the help pages diverge, banners and video take the blocked-placements page: 1,000 domains and 100 domains. Apps take the wording about 1,000 impression places, which includes sites, apps, and external networks. In the additional settings of an app-promotion campaign the ban is filled with domains, mobile-app identifiers, or names of external networks.

Excluding placements can narrow the audience. In the campaign parameters the help page warns that an exclusion can make the campaign work worse and cut the audience off. The pages do not calculate how far the click price will rise.

Why a manual review is called irrational

Direct’s help says that going through placements by hand and turning off the inefficient ones is irrational. Instead it offers the “Maximize conversions” strategy or key goals: a lower bid where the conversion forecast is worse. On one or two conversions the price can differ sharply from a stable one.

That is a recommendation for judging efficiency, not a ban on excluding a placement. A worked example, not a report. A placement has two conversions and 6,000 ₽ of spend. The price of one is 3,000 ₽. A third conversion with no new spend would drop the price to 2,000 ₽. The help page is about that spread: one or two conversions do not hold a stable price, and it does not advise turning a placement off for that alone. The ban from the report stays available. A grey row and turning the placement back on to recheck it are ordinary actions on the same page.

An external network cannot be switched off with one checkbox. The list takes individual placements. Yandex search is not on the list, neither on the ban page nor in the networks questions.