Yandex Advertising in the summer of 2026: what has changed in Direct and Metrica
On September 3, 2026, Yandex collected the main summer updates for Advertising, Direct, Metrics and Tag Manager. There are many changes, but not every one requires an immediate response. For most advertisers, the most important things are new rules for working with a weekly budget, the release of the “Maximum Profit” strategy from beta, call tracking in Direct, and more detailed conversion analytics.
Short answer: Check budget settings and goal quality first, then test new tools on one campaign. Do not connect automatic scaling, payment for calls or profit optimization to the entire account until you have verified the Direct, Metrica and CRM data.
The main thing in two minutes
| Change | Who cares most | What to check |
|---|---|---|
| “Maximum Profit” is out of beta | Online stores and businesses with a complex funnel | Is the income transferred, is the margin calculated correctly? |
| Budget adaptation | Campaigns that regularly hit the limit | Allowable growth percentage and weekly cost control |
| Transfer of budget balance | Pay-per-click campaigns | Is it possible to spend up to 130% of the weekly limit? |
| Call tracking in Direct, beta | Local services and businesses with calls | Where is the number replaced and do calls go to CRM? |
| Combinatorial declarations | Unified performance campaigns | Quality of text, image and video options |
| New Metrics Goals | Online stores and complex forms | Are there any duplicate conversions or false positives? |
| Retention reports | Services, marketplaces, real estate and subscriptions | What source brings returning customers? |
| Detailed offline conversions | Companies with calls, chats and CRM | Why weren't individual conversions linked to visits? |
Budgeting in Direct now requires more careful monitoring
In the summer, two different mechanics appeared that are easy to confuse: budget adaptation and transfer of unused balance. Both can increase your actual consumption next week, but work differently.
Budget adaptation increases the base limit
If the setting is enabled, the strategy can increase the weekly budget by the percentage chosen by the advertiser. According to the official description, this happens when three conditions are simultaneously met over the past week:
- The campaign spent more than 90% of its weekly budget.
- The actual cost of conversion or share of advertising costs did not exceed the target value.
- Changes to settings did not restart strategy training or budget spending.
If the conditions are met for several consecutive weeks, each increase is calculated from the already raised budget. Account for this cumulative growth when planning monthly spending.
Before enabling, commit to an allowable monthly expense, set up a weekly budget notification, and identify the person who verifies the CPA or DRR. If a business is physically unable to process more leads, auto-scaling will only increase the workload and cost of unprocessed leads.
Carrying over the balance does not change the base budget, but it does change the weekly expenses.
For pay-per-click campaigns, unused amounts from the previous week can be carried over to the next week, up to a maximum of 30% of your assigned weekly budget. Balances do not accumulate beyond one week and the base limit does not increase.
Spending in the new week can reach 130% of its set budget: 100% of the current limit plus the carried-over funds. Total spending across the two weeks stays within their combined budgets.
Compare spending across two consecutive weeks and record the carried-over amount separately. This will show why spending in a single week exceeded the usual amount.
What data the Maximum Profit strategy needs
On August 18, 2026, the “Maximum Profit” strategy came out of beta. It received dynamic margin calculation, payment for conversions and optimization for several goals.
Online stores can now calculate margin as a share of the actual revenue from each order. This is useful when order values vary considerably. For this calculation, Direct needs dynamic conversion values from Metrica, a mobile tracker, or an offline conversion source.
Before switching strategies, answer these four questions:
- whether revenue is reported for every purchase;
- whether cancellations, returns and unpaid orders are taken into account;
- whether the specified margin corresponds to real unit economics;
- whether multiple targets are competing for the same order.
Errors in this data distort profit calculations and the strategy's decisions. Correct them first, then run a limited experiment and compare profit with the results under the previous settings.
Where Direct call tracking works
On July 30, Yandex introduced free dynamic call tracking in beta mode. Calls can be used as a signal for optimization, seen in Metrics reports and, in available scenarios, paid for real calls.
As of September 3, 2026, number substitution is available on Yandex platforms. Yandex announced number substitution on the promoted website or landing page for autumn 2026. Before connecting it, check whether the feature is available in your account.
The built-in solution may be enough for a simple pilot if calls come mainly from Yandex advertisements and cards. An external system remains useful when you need to link a call to a CRM, combine multiple advertising channels, use your own pool of numbers, or analyze the entire path to sale.
Before the test, check:
- At what display locations is number substitution available?
- Whether the call is recorded to the correct Metrica target.
- Is the identifier transmitted to CRM or an end-to-end analytics system?
- How short, repeated and untargeted calls are excluded.
Resolve discrepancies in lead data before switching strategies. To check goals and data transfer, use an web analytics and conversion audit.
What's changed in ads, geography and campaign management
Text and graphic ads in the Unified Performance Campaign have been updated to combinatorial ones. Now you can add multiple headlines, text, images and videos in one ad. The system collects combinations from them for display.
Prepare variations with different selling points: price, delivery time, specialization, a guarantee, a case study, or a specific use case. Once enough data has accumulated, compare the combinations and disable weak elements.
Three more changes should be taken into account in the work:
- A single performance campaign can now be created and edited in the Direct mobile app, including strategy, display locations, goals, groups and ads;
- for dynamic places in the search, it is enough to indicate the main page, after which the system can select the relevant landing page automatically;
- geotargeting algorithms began to take into account user movements between locations and other behavioral signals.
After updating geotargeting, compare CPA and conversion by region. For local businesses, it is especially important to make sure that additional impressions do not go to cities where the company does not provide the service. And for dynamic places, check the actual landing pages selected: the search relevance of a page does not guarantee that it has the right price, availability or application form.
Online stores, applications and advertising in messengers
Retargeting has become available for Shopping ads promoting apps. You can return users through audience segments or offer retargeting in beta mode. Such a launch only makes sense after separating new and returning users: these audiences have different messages, bids and performance criteria.
When setting up retargeting place website visitors in separate segments and prepare ads based on their previous actions.
For advertising in Telegram and MAX with automatic selection of channels, the “Maximum conversions” strategy has been introduced. In the Maximize Clicks strategy, you can limit the average cost per click. In addition, in beta mode, the advertiser can independently select channels from the MAX catalog and pay for actual views.
Tag links, check visits in Metrica, and compare placements by target actions. While conversions are scarce, assess session quality and micro-conversions. Wait for lead and sales data before judging return on investment.
User retention and conversion tracking in Metrica
Summer changes to Metrics help answer two questions more accurately: which users return and Why was a separate conversion not included in the report?.
Four retention reports
On August 27, the following appeared in Metrica:
- “Cohort analysis” - accumulation of visits, conversions and income by user groups;
- Retention - the proportion of users who returned in a specific period;
- Rolling Retention - the share of those who returned during the period or at least once after it;
- Retention Dynamics - comparison of retention dynamics of different cohorts.
For businesses with a long transaction cycle, such as real estate, automobiles or complex B2B services, Rolling Retention is especially useful. It helps to see the user's return after a long break, which is poorly visible in a regular weekly report.
Don't judge a new channel based on your first purchase alone. Compare cohorts on repeat visits, claims, and revenue after 30–60 days. You can read more about the basic verification of indicators in the analysis reports and benchmarking Yandex Metrica.
Goals, ecommerce and offline conversions
In Metrica, auto-goals “Auto collection: order placed” and “Auto collection: purchase” have appeared. They capture ecommerce events without manually creating a goal. But before using such a goal in your strategy, compare it with ecommerce transactions and existing goals: one order should not be considered two different primary conversions.
Goals can now be created based on event parameters, and several conditions can be combined into multi-goals. This is useful for forms with different scenarios, but the name and logic of each goal should remain clear. Do not combine an application, downloading a presentation, and viewing contacts into one optimization if their business value differs.
Detailed reports for calls, chats, and offline conversions now show whether an event was linked to a visit and why matching failed. Use this data to find unmatched events and check the identifiers submitted.
Tag Manager and Webmaster: useful changes for the team
Subcontainers have appeared in Yandex Tag Manager. You can create up to ten independent scopes in one container and publish changes separately. This reduces the risk that an ad tag update will affect analytics, product events, or another project.
Triggers can be launched on a specific event and limit the number of triggers per user, page or period. This setting is useful for events that do not need to be sent on every repeat action.
Rights to a site in Yandex Webmaster can now be confirmed through the official tag in the tag manager. This is useful when a specialist does not have access to DNS or a site template, but there is an agreed upon container publishing process.
What updates can be deferred?
Prime banner, expanded targeting and carousel on Connected TV, as well as digital outdoor advertising in new cities are big news for media placements. But a business that now receives applications from search and YAN does not urgently need to redistribute its budget there just because a new format has appeared.
First answer three questions:
- Is there a coverage challenge that current channels are not addressing?
- Is it possible to measure the contribution of a media contact to a brand search, visit or sale?
- Is the budget sufficient for the test without cutting back on existing performance campaigns?
If the measurement is not configured, the new format will add impressions, but will not provide a clear answer about the business benefit.
Ad account verification plan for seven days
- Save the base cut. Unload expenses, conversions, CPA, DRR, revenue and regions for at least the previous four weeks.
- Check budgets. Mark campaigns with balance transfer and, separately, campaigns where budget adaptation is enabled.
- Review your goals. Find duplicates of auto goals, ecommerce events, calls and manual goals.
- Check your ads against your CRM. Compare the number of leads, paid orders, returns and revenue.
- Choose one experiment. Do not include a new strategy, new announcements and a new goal at the same time: otherwise it will be impossible to understand the reason for the change in the result.
- Set up a retention report. Compare at least two sources or two user return campaigns.
- Record your decision. Record the date, setting changed, expected effect, and test stopping criteria.
Evaluate the test by customer acquisition cost and profit. We discuss how to choose metrics in our article on performance marketing. Campaign reviews, analytics checks, and CRM data transfer checks are included in performance marketing NBM-IT.
How to evaluate the results of updates
| Change | Core metric | When to make the first conclusion |
|---|---|---|
| Budget adaptation | CPA or DRR as flow increases | After a full week without restarting training |
| "Maximum profit" | Profit and contribution margin | After accumulating a comparable volume of conversions |
| Call tracking | Targeted calls and sales from calls | After checking records and reconciling with CRM |
| Combinatorial declarations | Conversion and CPA combinations | After enough impressions and clicks |
| Retention reports | Returns, repeat goals, cohort income | Through selected window: 30, 60 or 90 days |
| Offline conversions | Proportion of successfully linked events | After a full cycle of data loading and processing |
Don't compare the week after the change to an arbitrary previous week. Consider seasonality, days of the week, promotions, changes in demand and availability of the sales team.
FAQ
What are the most important Yandex Direct updates in the summer of 2026?
For most advertisers - budget adaptation, transfer of unused balance, exit of the “Maximum Profit” strategy from beta and built-in call tracking. It is also important for online stores to check Metrica’s new ecommerce goals, and for projects with repeat visits to check retention reports.
Can Direct spend more than the weekly budget?
Yes, in a pay-per-click campaign, a single week's spend can amount to up to 130% of the established budget due to the balance carried over from the previous week. The basic weekly budget itself does not change. Separately, budget adaptation can increase the base limit by a selected percentage if the advertiser has enabled the setting and the campaign has met the performance criteria.
Should budget adaptation be enabled in all campaigns?
No. It is suitable for campaigns that consistently spend the limit and achieve the target CPA or DRR. First, set a financial limit, test the sales team's ability to handle additional demand, and test the setup on one campaign.
Does Direct call tracking replace a third-party service?
Not in all scenarios. As of September 3, 2026, the tool is in beta mode, and number replacement directly on the website has only been announced for the fall. End-to-end multi-channel analytics, CRM integration, and in-house number pooling may still require an external system.
Do you need to use new online store autogoals for optimization?
Only after verification. Compare automatic goals with ecommerce transactions and existing goals. Eliminate duplicate order counting and check when each goal fires: checkout initiation, order creation, or a confirmed purchase.
What new reports have appeared in Yandex Metrica?
"Cohort Analysis", Retention, Rolling Retention and Retention Dynamics. They show how users return and create value after their first visit, so are especially useful for subscriptions, marketplaces, real estate, automotive, and B2B with long transaction cycles.
Does everyone need to switch to the “Profit Maximum” strategy?
No. The strategy requires correct income transfer and realistic margins. If returns, cancellations or offline sales are not taken into account, you need to first restore the conversion economics and only then run the experiment.
Sources
- What's new in Yandex Advertising this summer
- “Maximum Profit” Strategy: Exit from Beta and New Opportunities
- Call tracking in Direct: optimization of call campaigns
- Adapting your budget to scale your campaigns
- Carrying over the balance and switching to weekly budgets
- New Metrics reports for retention analysis