Promotion of an article and a channel in Dzen

Any advertiser who has a Dzen channel and a VK Ads account can launch ads. Technical requirements for the "Promo in Dzen" format

You can launch an advertising campaign optimized for: 

• finishing reading an article
• promoting an article 
• subscribing to a channel

Before launching a campaign, you need to link your Dzen channel and VK Ads account. To do this:

1. Go to the VK Ads account that you will use to advertise Dzen articles.
2. Then go to Dzen Studio in your Dzen channel.
3. In Dzen Studio, go to the "Promotion" section. In the "Your VK Ads account" block, your account ID will be filled in. Click the "Go to VK Ads" button.

After that, your VK Ads account and Dzen channel will be linked.

How to link several VK Advertising accounts and Dzen channels

To add another account:

1. Return to VK Ads and re-authorize: exit the first account and go to the desired one.
2. Go to Dzen Studio again, go to the "Promotion" section. In the block "Your account in VK Ads" the ID of the second account will be filled. Click the button "Go to VK Ads".

After this, the channel in Dzen will be linked to 2 VK Ads accounts. If necessary, link the channel to the third account.

1. In the “Campaigns” section, on the “Campaigns” tab, click “Create”. 

2. Select the Dzen advertising object.

3. In the "Advertised channel" field select your Dzen channel. If several channels are linked to your account, they will appear when you click on the list. 

4. Target action. Determine the desired result from the advertisement: 

• Article promotion — get clicks on the article 
• Subscribe to the channel — get more clicks and subscriptions to the channel. By clicking the button in the ad, users will be able to subscribe to the channel. 
• Full reads of an article — increase the number of full reads of an article

5. Campaign budget optimization. Allows you to distribute your budget between your ads so that you get more target actions.

The algorithm determines which ads work better and allocates a larger share of the campaign's daily budget to them. Thanks to this, the campaign shows better results. Learn more about budget optimization

6. If you enabled optimization, set a bid strategy and budget:

• Campaign bid strategy — you can choose the "Minimum cost" or "Cost limit" strategy. Learn more about strategies
• Budget. The setting limits the amount you want to spend per day or for the entire duration of the campaign. The budget for one advertising campaign for promotion in Zen must be at least 10,000 ₽. Learn more about budget

7. Maximum conversion cost (when choosing the "Cost limit" strategy):

• For an article with pay-per-click (CPC): cost per 1 click on the ad. Average bid: 5 ₽.

Depending on the segment, product, budget and goals of the advertising campaign, you can change the cost yourself to achieve the best result.

8. Dates of execution — the period of the campaign. This setting applies to all ads in the campaign. It is only mandatory to specify when choosing the "lifetime" budget.

If you want to set different dates for different groups, do not use this setting, but set the dates in step 2. Setting up an ad group.

One ad group can include one or more ads united by common settings — work period, schedule, targeting. If you want to advertise several articles within one campaign, create a separate ad group for each article.

At this step, set the following settings:

1. Bid strategy and cost per target action.

If you have not enabled optimization at the campaign level, select a strategy: "Minimum cost" or "Cost cap". The recommended strategy is "Cost cap", because it allows you to limit the maximum bid. Learn more about bid strategies

Also determine the cost per target action:

• For articles with cost per impression (CPM): cost per 1 000 impressions. Bid — from 110 ₽.
• For articles with cost per click (CPC): cost per 1 click on the ad. Average bid: 7 ₽.

2. Budget — specify the amount you want to spend per day or for the entire duration of the campaign.

3. Dates — the period of the ad group. This setting applies to all ads within the group. It may differ for different ad groups.

If you want to set a single period for the entire campaign, go back to the previous step and set the period there.

4. Time of display. To specify the schedule, click "Configure display time" under the group's dates setting.

For most campaigns, we recommend turning off campaign displays at night, but it is important to focus on the time when your audience is most active. You can find this out in Dzen in the "Hourly statistics" section.

5. Display regions are the geography settings where users will see your ad. 

• If the product is federal and there is delivery throughout Russia, you don't have to limit the geography. 
• If you don't want to advertise for the whole of Russia, you can expand the list to several priority regions (including at least one million-plus city) so that your ad gets more impressions. 
• For a very local product with a point geography (for example, a city with a population of less than 500 000 people), the product may not be suitable at the moment, so you should carefully approach the promotion settings.

6. In the "Demographics" section, you can configure the gender and age of your target audience. We recommend choosing several age groups to increase the number of impressions (for example, 18-34 or >25-44). 

7. If necessary, specify the age marking. 

8. “Social advertising” check box. It is needed for non-commercial advertising, for example, charities. 

9. Interests and behavior. Select categories that may be of interest to your target audience.

10. Placements. We recommend leaving placements to automatic. This will ensure your ad gets the widest possible reach.

When you're done, click “Continue”.

The steps to set up your ad will vary depending on the target action you selected when creating your campaign.

If you have selected the target action "Article promotion" or "Article reading completion", then in step 3. "Ads" all your articles from the Dzen channel will appear.

You will be able to promote only those articles that do not violate Dzen's content requirements. Select the article you want to promote.

In the preview, you will see approximately what your ad will look like. The ad itself is generated automatically and is adjusted in format to the ad placement location in Dzen.

The ad can contain the following information from your article:

• cover — the first picture in the published material
• title — the title of the article, up to 70 characters
• ad text — the first 170 characters of the article

When everything is ready, click "Publish". The ad will be sent for verification.

Yes, but you will need to create a new ad with this article.

To make changes:

1. Stop the advertising campaign.
2. Go to Dzen.
3. Make changes to the article. The changes will be reflected in your account in about an hour.
4. Create a new campaign with the edited article.

This procedure is necessary so that the statistics in Dzen for the material are displayed correctly.

If you selected the target action "Channel promotion", then in step 3. "Ads" fill out the advertising card:

• Heading is the heading in large font on the card. Text length up to 40 characters.
• Description is the text under the heading, written in a smaller font. Text length up to 25 characters.
• Media files — image for the card background. File requirements:
  • Resolution: 600x600px, 1080x607px or 1080x1350. We recommend using files no smaller than 1200x1600.
  • File format: png or jpg / jpeg.
  • The image should not be entirely black or white.

The preview does not reflect the actual size of the card. Focus on a 3:4 ratio and use a uniform background.

The "Subscribe" button will subscribe the user to the channel. Clicking on any other part of the ad will take you to the advertised channel.

Make sure that your ad complies with the Rules for Placing Advertisements. After saving, it will be sent for moderation.

The advertised article will continue to gain organic views in users' feeds in Dzen, so you can analyze the statistics on two platforms:

• in Dzen Studio: general statistics (organic and advertising traffic)
• in the VK Ads account: advertising metrics on the dashboard and in advanced statistics

To display metrics for Zen campaigns in the VK Advertising account:

1. Open the dashboard and find your campaign in the list. Hover over → "Statistics".
2. On the left, switch to the group level.
3. Scroll down to the table with campaign results.
4. Click "Settings" → "Configure columns".
5. In the list, mark the desired metrics in the "Dzen" block.
6. Click "Apply".

What metrics are available:

• Result — depending on the selected target action:
  • for the "Article Promotion" goal, clicks on ads are taken into account
  • for the "Channel Subscription" goal — subscriptions after clicking on ads
  • for the "Article Reading" goal — articles read to the end after clicking on ads
• Readings — reading an article to the end after clicking on ads
• Subscriptions — number of subscriptions after clicking on ads
• Views — number of article views after clicking on ads
• Comments — number of comments left on an article after clicking on ads
• Likes — number of likes given to an article after clicking on ads
• External transitions — transitions on links from an article (if the article contains links to external resources) after clicking on ads
• Scroll2site — number of transitions to a site using Scroll2site after clicking on ads
• Scroll2channel — number of transitions to a channel using Scroll2channel after clicks on ads

You can also add a pixel to an article to collect anonymized user data and analyze the portrait of your target audience. Learn more about adding a pixel to an article

We have collected answers to frequently asked questions from users on this page

If you have not found the answer to your question, write to us:

• in the "I am an advertiser" section, if the question concerns Dzen
• in VK Ads support, if the question concerns launching advertising