# Paid Search for New Builds in Yandex Direct: Structure and Cost per Lead Author: Ruslan Matveev · Date: 2026-05-08 · Source: https://matveo.com/en/blog/kontekstnaya-reklama-novostroyki · Russian original: https://matveo.com/blog/kontekstnaya-reklama-novostroyki Paid search for new-builds in Yandex Direct: campaign structure, buyer queries, cost per lead, unified performance campaigns, auto strategies, AI agents. ## Why paid search is still the base for a developer After Google Ads left the Russian market, paid search for a developer means Yandex Direct first and foremost. It remains the base of paid traffic because it harvests ready demand: a person typing a query about a new-build in the right district is already actively looking for an apartment. The cheapest people to buy are the ones already searching. Paid search is rarely the only channel, but it almost always serves as the foundation. On top of it sit reach campaigns, property portals ([classifieds](https://matveo.com/en/blog/klassifaydy-dlya-zastroyshchika)) and programmatic, which create demand. But it is Yandex search and the ad network that give the predictable flow of hot enquiries almost every developer starts with. That is why order in paid search directly affects the cost per deal across the whole project. ## Campaign structure for a residential complex The campaign structure for a residential complex is built around the logic of demand, not the convenience of the ad account. At the top level, search and the ad network are separated: these are different types of demand, and mixing them in one campaign does harm. Search catches active demand from queries, while the network catches up with people who showed interest and works on reach and retargeting. Within that, campaigns are split by the meaning of the queries: branded, where people search for your specific project, competitor queries, geo queries for the district, and thematic queries by housing type and purchase terms. This split is needed to see the economics of each type of demand separately and manage bids meaningfully. When everything is dumped into one campaign, cheap branded enquiries mask expensive competitor ones, and there is nothing to optimise. ## Search queries: which ones bring the buyer Search queries for a new-build are grouped by how close they are to a purchase. The hottest are branded queries and queries naming the district and housing class: 'buy an apartment in a new-build', the name of the residential complex, 'new-builds near the metro'. Slightly cooler are queries about terms: mortgage, instalment plans, maternity capital, assignment of rights. Cooler still are general queries about districts and lifestyle. Negative keywords are worked on separately, and in real estate they are half the battle. Queries about rentals, second-hand housing, renovation and construction jobs eat the budget and bring irrelevant enquiries. Clean search queries raise the share of qualified leads and lower the cost of a qualified enquiry more than haggling over bids. The buyer is brought in by a precise query, not by broad reach. ## What a paid search lead costs The cost of a paid search lead depends heavily on the query type. A branded enquiry, where the person is already searching for your project, can cost a few hundred roubles and does not reflect the real work of marketing. An enquiry from competitor and general queries in the comfort segment usually comes in at 1,500 to 4,000 ₽, rises to 6,000 to 10,000 ₽ in business class, and goes higher in premium. These figures are a market guideline, not a promise. The real cost of a qualified enquiry depends on the cleanliness of the search queries, the quality of the landing page and the auction in the specific city. That is why paid search is judged by the cost of a qualified lead and of a deal, traced through [end-to-end analytics](https://matveo.com/en/blog/skvoznaya-analitika-v-nedvizhimosti) and call tracking, not by the average cost per click. Without call tracking in real estate, a significant share of calls drops out of sight and the picture is skewed. ## Unified Performance Campaigns and auto strategies: where they help, where they hinder Yandex is developing automation: the Unified Performance Campaign and auto strategies take over part of bid management and audience selection. On large, clean data they work well and save time. The problem is that they need conversion volume and careful goal tracking, otherwise the algorithm learns from noise. So auto strategies help where order has already been established: goals are set on qualified enquiries rather than any click, deal data flows back into the system, and the search queries are clean. Where the goal is 'form submission' with no link to real sales, the automation honestly optimises you towards cheap, useless enquiries. The machine needs to be given the right goal, and that is a human's job. ## What to hand to AI agents Paid search is the area where [AI agents](https://matveo.com/en/blog/ii-agenty-v-marketinge-zastroyshchika) deliver a quick effect, because it involves a lot of daily routine on large data. The agent recalculates campaign economics every day, switches off burnt-out ad sets, moves budget into the ones that work, and cleans new junk out of the search queries without waiting for a manual check. The human sets the strategy, segments and rules, while the agent executes the routine faster and without gaps. That is how you get more deals from the same budget. At Matveo, in a two-week audit we take apart a developer's paid search by structure, search queries and cost per enquiry, and show what to fix by hand and what to hand to agents so that the cost per qualified lead comes down to the market level or below.