What it is and why
Yandex Metrica is free web analytics with no traffic cap, plus the unique Webvisor (session recording: watch a real person move their mouse around your site) and click and scroll maps. It's a Russian service and the data stays in Russia. Take it for any site or landing page in the Russian web — to see traffic sources, goals (conversions) and watch with your own eyes where people get confused and leave.
How to do it (step by step)
- Create a counter at metrika.yandex.ru and enter your site address.
- Install the counter code on the site: in Tilda, Craftum or Bitrix24 there's a "paste Metrica code" field in the settings; on your own site, put it in
<head>. - Turn on Webvisor, click maps and scroll maps in the counter settings.
- Set up Goals: form submitted, payment button clicked, "thank you" page visited. Without goals your analytics are blind.
- Link it to Yandex Direct (if you're running ads) — you'll see which ads actually bring conversions.
- Read the reports: Sources (where traffic comes from), Conversions (by goal), Webvisor (recordings of problem visits).
- E-commerce (for stores) — pass purchase data through for revenue reports.
- Consent and policy. Publish a cookie notice and a privacy policy (152-FZ).
Ready-made recipe
Finding where leads leak away: the landing page (Tilda) has Metrica with a "form submitted" goal → the report shows traffic arriving from Direct ads but conversion is low → you open Webvisor and watch 10 session recordings → you notice people never reach the form, or get confused at the pricing block → you fix the landing page → the goal conversion rate goes up. Ads + Metrica + Webvisor = a data-driven improvement loop.
What it costs (honestly)
The logic: completely free, with no traffic cap — a big plus over paid foreign tools. Yandex monetizes through the ecosystem (Direct). There are no "plans" as such; only the feature set changes.
When it fits / when it doesn't
- Fits: sites and landing pages in the Russian web; you want free analytics with no limits; you want Webvisor and click maps; you advertise on Yandex Direct; you want data stored in Russia (a plus for 152-FZ).
- Doesn't fit: you need deep product analytics for an app (PostHog); you don't want to hand data to Yandex on principle or you need self-hosting (Plausible/PostHog); you want privacy without cookies (Plausible).
Risks and responsibility
152-FZ: Metrica collects visitor data and sets cookies → you need a cookie notice, consent and a privacy policy on the site. Webvisor records actions, and it must not record fields holding sensitive personal data (mask password and payment fields in the settings). The data lives with Yandex (in Russia — good for localization, but it's not self-hosted). See the section disclaimer.
🤖 Prompt helper
You are a web analyst working with Yandex Metrica. The site is "{what / landing page}", the goal is {leads / sales / signups}. Help me: (1) decide which Goals to set up for my funnel; (2) work out how to use Webvisor and click maps to find where visitors drop off (what to look at); (3) pick the 5 reports to open every week; (4) list what I have to publish on the site under 152-FZ (cookies / policy). Step by step, for a beginner.