Enabling Yandex Direct reports

Yandex Direct users can access a number of additional reports on ad campaigns in Yandex Metrica.

  1. Conditions for getting reports
  2. Access to reports
  3. Calculating Yandex Direct ad campaign expenses
  4. Differences between data in Yandex Metrica and Yandex Direct reports

Conditions for getting reports

To display “Yandex Direct” reports in Yandex Metrica: in Yandex Direct, go to the Edit campaign page. Under Yandex Metrica tags, select the tag installed on your site. If a tag isn't linked to an ad campaign, traffic from ads are assigned in Yandex Metrica reports to the “Third-party campaigns” source.

A yclid tag with a unique click number is automatically added to all ad links. Make sure your site correctly opens links with tags. When a user clicks on an ad, the Yandex Metrica tag on your site tracks the tag and links the session to the specific click.

Access to reports

Yandex Direct, summary and Yandex Direct, sites reports become accessible in Yandex Metrica after you configure your ad campaign in Yandex Direct. To gain access to the Yandex Direct, costs report, you need to enable some special settings.

Calculating Yandex Direct ad campaign expenses

Starting May 27, 2020, Yandex Metrica calculates expenses for Yandex Direct campaigns in the same way as Yandex Direct does by default: without VAT. So the “Yandex Direct” group reports and the Sources, costs, and ROI report display such metric values as CPC, Average CPC, Average goal completion cost, and Average converted session cost without VAT for the current and past periods.

Differences between data in Yandex Metrica and Yandex Direct reports

Statistics for a Yandex Direct ad campaign may differ from data for the same campaign in Yandex Metrica. Yandex Direct statistics reflect clicks that weren't filtered out by the anti-fraud system. Only these registered (valid) clicks are included in Yandex Direct statistics.

The Ad systems report shows the number of sessions for all clicks, both registered and unregistered. The Yandex Direct, summary, Yandex Direct, sites, and Yandex Direct, costs reports show sessions for registered clicks (you can't see sessions for unregistered clicks in these reports).

Furthermore, the number of clicks registered in Yandex Direct and the number of sessions and clicks shown in Yandex Metrica reports may differ. Here are some reasons why a click or pageview might not be counted by Yandex Metrica:

  • The code snippet was placed on the website incorrectly. Check the code snippet.
  • The tag ID wasn't specified in the Yandex Direct campaign settings, or the Tag links for Yandex Metrica option wasn't turned on.
  • After clicking an ad, the user closed the web page before the Yandex Metrica tag loaded (on a mobile device, for example). In this case, the discrepancy between the indicators can reach 25%.
  • Cyclical redirect is installed on the website.
  • Ad blockers that may contain rules for blocking tags are set up on the browser, the user's OS, or a corporate proxy server.
  • The tag didn't load on the site because the user's browser (or the corporate proxy server) has a plugin that prohibits downloading tracking tags.
  • The user's antivirus system blocks the tag from loading.
  • Technical problems — the “remoteness” of the server receiving the tag information and the levels of traffic on the internet provider.

These reasons can't be controlled by Yandex Metrica.

Select a question to find a solution.

“Yandex Direct” reports are missing data
The reports show data for archived and stopped campaigns
Yandex Metrica reports and Yandex Direct statistics provide different data
Other questions

Check that:

  • The tag ID is specified in the Yandex Direct campaign settings, and Tag links for Yandex Metrica is enabled.
  • Tag settings in the Yandex Metrica interface don't have excessively narrow filters set up on the Filters tab.
  • The tag is installed on all the landing pages. To see data for pages that have the Yandex Metrica tag installed, go to Reports → Standard reports → Content → Popular. Data is shown if site users visited these pages. To check whether the tag is installed correctly on any of the site pages, see Checking the tag.
  • The site was functioning correctly during the selected report dates.

Yandex: Unknown means that the session that Yandex Metrica registered couldn't be traced to a specific click on a Yandex Direct ad. Besides the advertising system itself, the rest of the data couldn't be detected either, including the campaign, keyword, and query.

The reason for Yandex: Unknown appearing in a Yandex Direct source might be a gap in time between generating the yclid tag and registering the session in Yandex Metrica. This can happen in the following situations:
  • The user clicked an ad but left the source page open on a browser tab, and later refreshed the page.
  • The user clicked a link from an ad, but then forwarded it to someone else. A repeat visit using this link won't be associated with the click on the Yandex Direct ad, either.

Make sure that the label is formed correctly. A UTM label has five parameters, presented in any order, separated by ampersands (&):

http://example.com/?utm_source=yandex&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=campaign123&utm_content=ad456&utm_term=keyword
If the page URL already contains parameters, the label should be added after an ampersand (&):
http://example.com/?uid=1234&utm_source=yandex&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=campaign123&utm_content=ad456&utm_term=keyword

In addition, UTM labels might not be counted because:

  • The Yandex Metrica tag isn't installed on landing pages or is installed incorrectly. Check how the tag is installed.
  • The ad specifies a URL that redirects to a page that doesn't have the Yandex Metrica tag installed.
  • The ad specifies a URL that redirects to another page, and the UTM labels are lost.
  • The ad specifies an invalid URL that doesn't open a page.

The standard report on UTM labels has a hierarchical structure: utm_source, utm_medium, utm_campaign, utm_content, and utm_term.

If you use every UTM label except utm_content, data for utm_term won't be available in the standard Labels report group report. In order to start showing the labels, remove utm_content from the report.

Label parameters have standardized names: utm_source, utm_medium, utm_campaign, utm_content, and utm_term. You can't change them or create custom names (like utm_keyword or utm_word), because they won't be part of the UTM labels and their data won't be reflected in the “UTM labels” report.

For example:
http://example.com?utm_source=yandex&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign={campaign_id}&utm_keyword={keyword}

where utm_keyword is a custom parameter.

The “UTM labels” report shows information for the utm_source, utm_medium, and utm_campaign parameters. Information for the utm_keyword parameter is only available in the report Standard reports → Content → By URL parameters.


This happens as the reports are by default based on the Last non-direct click attribution model. It helps you calculate the conversion rate more precisely by taking into account the user's session history to select the traffic source.

To remove statistics on a stopped or archived campaign from the report, select the Last click model. In this case, Yandex Metrica detects the current traffic source for each session.

See the reasons why data may differ. If the reasons have been resolved but you still have questions, fill out the form below.