Yandex Direct CRM integration: the real cost of every lead

The cost per click in Yandex Direct changes every day: the auction, the season, competitors. Without a Yandex Direct CRM integration, spend doesn't reach the CRM and is estimated from an average cost per visit, so the cost per lead in the report differs from the real one. The budget is then split by the wrong numbers, and the marketer spends hours on exports and spreadsheets.

The Yandex Direct integration automatically imports the actual spend by day and campaign. “Website analytics” puts it into “Ad costs” and recalculates cost per lead and per deal, profit and ROI by itself. ROI shows how well your ads pay off, as a percentage. Next to it are the deals and payments from the CRM — this gives you marketing ROI tracking for Direct. So you can see which campaign brings money, not just leads.

The integration is included in the “CRM + Telephony + Automation” plan and higher, at no extra cost and without separate end-to-end analytics services. You no longer need to export reports from Direct and match them with sales.

Watch the two-minute video, and below you'll find the step-by-step connection.

Why businesses need it

• The owner sees the real cost of a lead and a sale for every Direct campaign, not an estimate based on the average cost per click.
• The marketer doesn't need to export spend by hand: it updates by itself every hour.
• A car service or a clinic with a dozen campaigns immediately sees which ones bring appointments and payments, and which only spend the budget.
• An agency connects an agency account with the client's login. The client's campaign spend gets into the report the same way as with a regular account.

How Direct spend gets into the report

1. You grant access to your Direct account.
2. The system loads the list of campaigns and the spend by day — on connection, right away for the last 365 days.
3. You link the analytics campaigns (their utm_campaign tags) with Direct campaigns.
4. For the selected period, the page puts the spend of linked campaigns into “Ad costs”. Cost per visit, per lead and per deal, “Profit” and “ROI” are recalculated — for the campaign, the source, the “Ad sources” branch and in “Total”.

A linked campaign gets the “Direct” tag next to its name. Below the table header is a note, for example “Ad costs from Yandex Direct: 5 campaigns”.

How to connect Yandex Direct to your CRM

1. 1
   Open the window

   In “Website analytics”, click “Yandex Direct” in the header. Connections are collected in the “Accounts” block.
2. 2
   Sign in to Yandex

   Click “Sign in with Yandex”. In the new tab, sign in with the login that runs the campaigns and grant access.
3. 3
   Paste the code

   Copy the confirmation code from the Yandex page into the “Confirmation code” field.
4. 4
   Agencies: the client's login

   If it's an agency account, fill in “Client login (agency only)”. A regular account doesn't need this field.
5. 5
   Connect

   Click “Connect” right away: the code is valid only for a short time. An account card appears with the “Collecting costs…” status.
6. 6
   Link the campaigns

   In the “Campaign matching” block, choose the pairs and click “Save links”.

Matching Direct campaigns with UTM tags

First, choose the “Ad source” — the source your Direct ads run under. The page suggests a source by itself if its name contains yandex or direct, in Latin or Cyrillic.

Below are the pairs: on the left, “Campaign in analytics” with its utm_campaign tag; on the right, “Direct campaign”.

• “Match by ID and name” links campaigns by itself when the tag or name matches the ID or name of a Direct campaign.
• Choose the rest from the list by hand. “Not linked” means no link.
• “Save links” — the costs in the table are recalculated right away.

If the ad links have utm_campaign={campaign_id}, “Match by ID and name” finds the pairs by campaign ID. That's how the UTM builder builds links with the “Yandex” template. A single campaign can also be linked in its “Campaign settings”, in the “Direct campaign” field.

Several accounts and a Direct agency account

• To add another account, use the “Connect another account” link. With several accounts, the login is shown next to the Direct campaign ID.
• Reconnecting the same login refreshes access; no duplicate is created.
• The client's login can also be set later with the “Client login” button in the card. When the login changes, the collected spend and links of this account are deleted and collected again.
• The connection belongs to the project: all employees with the “Analytics” right in this project can see it.

How often Yandex Direct costs are updated

• The first export pulls spend for the last 365 days and can take up to an hour.
• After that, the last 3 days are updated every hour, and the last 30 days once a day: Direct adjusts spend retroactively.
• The list of campaigns is updated once a day.
• “Update now” in the account card loads the campaigns and fresh spend right away, but no more than once every 2 minutes.
• Spend is taken including VAT, the way Direct charges it.

The card shows the status: “Collecting costs…”, “Updated …”, “Update error” with the reason, or “Reconnect the account”.

When Direct spend isn't applied

• Spend is applied only when the filters contain just a period or there are no filters at all. With other filters, the table shows “Direct costs are not applied: filters other than the date are selected”. Direct doesn't split spend by city or page.
• Spend is applied to campaigns and higher up the tree. For keywords and on the “Dynamics” chart, costs are calculated as without the integration.
• Unlinked campaigns are still calculated by “Cost per visit”.
• Direct spend is visible only on this page: other reports in your account don't take it into account.
• Campaigns not in rubles: spend is shown as the same number, as if in rubles, and the account card warns you about it.
• If the period starts earlier than the collected data, the note shows “costs known since …”.

Read also: Marketing ROI tracking: which ads pay off and which drain your budget, UTM builder: how to tag your ads and track ad spend, Yandex Metrica offline conversions: let Direct learn from sales