What is myTarget?

myTarget is VK Group’s (formerly the Mail.ru ecosystem) advertising platform for buying targeted ads on VKontakte, Odnoklassniki, and partner websites and apps. The name reflects “my targeting” — the advertiser’s direct audience selection in an auction-based cabinet.

In arbitrage, myTarget long served as shorthand for “VK ads” in RU/CIS. After unification with VK Ads, branding merged in places, but the term persists in industry speech, API integrations, and tracker reports.

History

The platform grew inside Mail.ru Group as programmatic and performance advertising expanded in Russia. myTarget combined social inventory and external publishers in one cabinet with a shared pixel and API. After the holding rebranded to VK Group and ad products consolidated, myTarget became part of VK Ads while retaining technical infrastructure (including myTarget counters and events).

Inventory and reach

VKontakte — feed, communities, video, mobile formats.
Odnoklassniki — older demographic cohorts in RU/CIS.
Partner network — mobile apps and sites on VK’s supply side.

Media buyers can reach multiple surfaces from one campaign with unified reporting.

Targeting

Demographics, GEO, interests, behavioral segments, myTarget pixel retargeting, look-alike audiences, and list uploads (hashed identifiers per platform rules) are available. Community subscriber targeting remains strong for niche offers and local e-commerce.

Pixel and conversions

The myTarget counter (pixel) fires on landing pages or via in-app SDK. Events (pageview, lead, purchase, etc.) feed optimization and reporting. In performance funnels the tracker remains the ROI source of truth: clicks and sub_id are recorded on the tracker while signals flow to myTarget for algorithms and reconciliation.

Offline conversions are uploaded in batches (e.g., hourly CSV), which matters for real-time campaign tuning.

Billing and metrics

Models include CPC, CPM, and conversion optimization with enough data volume. Buyers compare click cost to offer payout (EPC, CPA) and CR across creative → landing → offer.