2022 Brand Online Marketing Traffic Observation

Looking back at 2021, the boundaries between e-commerce platforms and content platforms have gradually disappeared, constantly giving rise to new possibilities in the traffic field. As entrants, brands have become the players who are most able to sense the direction and warmth of the traffic wave. CBNData (China Business Data Center) observed that some leading brands have actively engaged in online marketing , becoming a typical case of reaping rewards as investment goes on. However, there are also brands that have been forced into the market due to competitive pressure and are still in the stage of burning money to gain market share.

At the end of 2021, CBNData and Yigrowth visited and surveyed popular brands in sub-categories such as beauty, skin care, fast food, coffee, and companies in the fields of short video marketing, private domain, MCN, etc., and integrated brand practices and industry analysis to form the "2022 Brand Online Marketing Traffic Observation Report" and a series of interview manuscripts, attempting to provide multiple cross-sections to clarify the traffic ecology.

As the first year of live streaming e-commerce, 2020 has huge uncertainties, but players who dare to enter the market and explore success have received several times the rewards. However, when new players were attracted by the glamorous numbers and entered the market in 2021, the platform's rules of the game had changed, and the traffic field became a red ocean where they needed to fight.

If one channel has a clearly higher return rate, it will gradually catch up with other channels due to the subsequent influx of players. This is what live streaming sales is all about.

Huang He, the founder of Jiao Ge Pengyou, once revealed to the outside world that since the beginning of 2021, Douyin's traffic distribution system has become a 136 gradient sharing system. That is, 10% of the traffic goes to top influencers, 30% goes to vertical influencers, such as clothing influencers, food influencers, and maternal and child influencers, and the remaining 60% goes to brands. In comparison, in 2020, Douyin gave as much as 50% of the traffic to top influencers.

Kuaishou, which is known for its strong private domain and strong relationships, is also taking the initiative to change. At the press conference before the 2021 616 promotion, the platform stated that it would provide brands with preferential policies such as strong exposure to public domain traffic and official investment traffic.

The change in the platform's traffic distribution logic has also led to changes in the live streaming e-commerce ecosystem: there are only a handful of regular celebrity live broadcasts, and battle reports have almost disappeared; it is no longer possible for top influencers to have the cross-platform popularity like Luo Yonghao; the platform has begun to promote the success stories of brands and high-quality agents; few brand merchants have come out to accuse a celebrity or influencer of not bringing in goods; more MCNs have explored agency operations, and even set their sights on TIKTOK overseas.

Brand live streaming becomes the main venue, Douyin and Kuaishou accelerate the introduction of agency operation service providers

In 2021, the two major platforms, Douyin and Kuaishou, are continuing to increase their efforts to attract brand merchants.

The increase in the number of brand broadcasts has also activated agency operations services. According to CBNData's observations, there are mainly two types of companies that provide Douyin (DP) and Kuaishou (KP) agency operations services.

One category is the traditional leading agency operation companies, such as Baozun, Perfect Diary, and Ruoyuchen.

Lirenlizhuang is the earliest service provider to enter the Douyin ecosystem, and its subsidiary Shanghai Zhuangya is the first official brand annual service provider of Douyin in 2020. Baozun’s third-quarter 2021 financial report showed that it has helped more than 20 brands open Douyin stores.

The other type is MCNs that are familiar with platform content and traffic strategies, such as the leading MCNs represented by Jiao Ge Pengyou and Wuyou Media.

Before the Spring Festival in 2021, more than 400 people from the "Make Friends" live broadcast team moved to Hangzhou. When interviewed by Nandu reporters, Tong Wei, vice president of Jiaogepengyou, said that the company's agency operation business was launched after the new year, and NetEase Yanxuan was one of the projects. Jiaogepengyou will help NetEase Yanxuan complete the preparation and construction of e-commerce on Douyin. As of April 2021, the Jiao Ge Pengyou operation team has more than 100 people and is still recruiting.

Image source: NetEase Yanxuan Douyin live broadcast room

CBNData observed that although brand live streaming is in a rapid growth period, some brands have several misunderstandings about the current live streaming ecosystem, which has also caused a lot of trouble for the operators providing services.

The first is to pursue high returns at any stage. In the cold start phase of a brand account, there is a lack of fans and basic data accumulation, but if you only want to deliver conversions or pursue conversions, the results are unlikely to be satisfactory.

The second is to blindly build an account matrix. The CEO of Hongtu Interactive said in "Have brands made money on Douyin in 2021?" 》 pointed out that some brands will allow multiple agency operators to compete with each other in accounts. However, when the brand lacks overall control over the account, the horse racing mechanism will harm the brand itself.

Again, it’s a lack of patience and execution. Some brand accounts had long hiatuses in 2021. These brands are relatively small in size, and due to limited team energy, they are unable to broadcast on multiple platforms simultaneously. Every time they change platforms, they almost have to cold-start again, which makes the brands lose the opportunity to better accumulate fans and cultivate users' viewing habits in the long term.

Allin live? MCN needs to "adapt to the platform and change according to the influencers"

As early as 2020, many short video bloggers under leading MCNs such as Onion and Papitube only briefly tried live streaming to sell goods, and quickly withdrew after trial and error. On the platform side, Xiaohongshu told the story of luxury live streaming and also cooperated with bloggers such as Fu Peng who were very popular at the time, but the stories did not last until 2021.

The latest live streaming trend of selling goods belongs to Bilibili. On September 19, 2021, the day of Bilibili’s membership purchase, Bilibili allowed four top UP hosts to test the waters on a small scale, but it did not cause much splash. In December, Bilibili also conducted internal testing of the live streaming sales service of the shared bike service.

919 Member Shopping Live Picture Source: Bilibili

MCN Tomatoe’s main base is Bilibili and Xiaohongshu, and its members include top fitness UP host Ouyang Chunxiao, top fashion and beauty blogger Nicole Bengbeng, etc. Its co-founder Luo Kai told CBNData, "The abilities of content bloggers and live broadcasters are very different. It is rare to find bloggers who have both abilities. In addition, bloggers must be experts in time management. It is really difficult to balance short videos and live broadcasts."

Luo Kai believes that, taking Douyin live streaming as an example, the products that can sell in large quantities are actually very limited. "Most products are not unique and easy to understand, or they are not unique to international brands, so many products need to be slowly promoted through education. After all, there are limited products to choose from in a scenario where you can sell products by knocking on doors. Of course, e-commerce is definitely a good supplement, but you must not turn the result of taking medicine into the reason for taking medicine."

Bilibili is currently testing live streaming sales on a small scale. At this stage, MCNs or bloggers need to have their own products and supply chain channels. Tomatoe, which has not yet been involved in the e-commerce field, is not good at this. "In the first quarter of 2022, when the platform has a product library for us to choose from, we will see which UP hosts are suitable and are willing to try."

Luo Kai also expressed his views on Bilibili's live streaming sales, "At the current stage, users' paying habits for medium and long video platforms still need to be cultivated, and it is also very important to look at the optimization of the tools themselves and the changes in content logic. In addition, the platform needs to discover more up hosts who are suitable for selling goods, which is also a challenge."

Seizing new opportunities and serving brands going global, MCN explores TikTok live streaming

Similar to the early days of Douyin's development, TikTok has shown good potential for promoting user experience. As of December 31, 2021, the content under #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt# has accumulated more than 7.6 billion views.

Until the first half of 2021, TikTok's e-commerce monetization path was long.

Wang Ruohui, CEO of MCN Orange Global, said in an interview with 36Kr that TikTok in mid-2021 is like "Douyin in 2017." The overly early e-commerce model has forced MCNs to focus on maintaining accounts and occupying positions.

As Douyin's e-commerce president Kang Zeyu took over the responsibility of expanding the internationalization of e-commerce in May 2021, TikTok's e-commerce monetization pace has accelerated.

During the week of Black Friday (November 24-30), TikTok organized a number of live-streaming sales events in the UK, with participating brands including Charlotte Tilbury, MAC, L'Oréal, and shopping website LOOKFANTASTIC.

Nis on the left and founder Charlotte Tilbury on the right

Compared with the domestic e-commerce live streaming which has entered the red ocean stage, overseas e-commerce live streaming is still in its early stages and user consumption habits have not yet been fully formed, but there are already many competitors in this field. Many MCNs have expressed their optimism about the future of TikTok live streaming for selling goods. According to industry insiders, TikTok will open live streaming sales across the United States in the first quarter of 2022, and the consumer power it will release will be dozens of times more than that of the United Kingdom.

Since its development in 2014, the development of domestic MCN has far exceeded its original definition of "Internet celebrity economic operation", and involves multiple business sectors such as content production, product sales, celebrity/star economy, integrated marketing, and e-commerce agency operations. In the new year, perhaps more domestic leading MCNs will increase their investment in overseas business. Among the new players focusing on overseas business, there will definitely be MCNs that grow into industry leaders.

In 2022, in which field will MCN undergo comprehensive evolution? Although the process may be full of hardships and setbacks, we can still have higher expectations for it.

Author: Zhang Chenxi

Source: China Business Network Data Center (ID: CBNData)