Information flow advertising: characteristics and trends!

Feed ads are ads that are inserted into the updates of social media users’ friends, or in the content streams of information media and audio-visual media. This form of advertising was first introduced by Facebook in 2006.

What is information flow advertising ?

In an over-commercialized market, users' tolerance for advertising is decreasing. In addition, the format of advertisements has limited changes, making them increasingly easy for users to detect and often pre-emptively eliminate them from reading targets, resulting in a significant drop in the amount of attention that advertisements can receive. Information flow ads, on the other hand, strive to "mimic" themselves and become part of what users read. It’s interspersed across social media and browsing pages, and is almost indistinguishable from any other content you see. You can even like and comment on it. At the same time, information flow advertising also attempts to provide value to users through multi-dimensional targeting such as interests.

This type of advertising interspersed in the content stream provides a relatively good experience for users, and advertisers can use big data and user tags to deliver ads relatively accurately.

1. The communication advantages of information flow advertising

Compared with previous advertising forms, information flow advertising has better dissemination advantages based on the support of big data and billions of traffic:

• Huge user traffic, calculated in billions
• Rich in form, including text, pictures, links, etc., you can choose to present more prime locations
• Big data collection, precise targeting, and relatively accurate user portraits
• The user experience is good and the degree of disgust is relatively low, such as the Moments ads on Tencent WeChat.
• The price is relatively cheap, and there is no price requirement on each platform. Compared with other media, it is up to you to spend as much or as little as you want. Only WeChat Moments pays more attention to social privacy, and the starting price for advertising is 5 million.

The Internet platform combines big data and AI for precise delivery, which can meet the needs of both brand exposure and effect acquisition. According to the attributes of the platform, it can be divided into: social category, such as Tencent; information category, such as UC Browser APP; video category, such as Douyin, etc. In terms of display and sorting: there are chronological order, popularity order, algorithm order, etc.

2. In content production, advertising and information are highly compatible

Some people think that information flow advertising is a type of native advertising. In fact, native advertising has not been particularly clearly defined so far. IDEAinside summarizes the following characteristics of native advertising:

1. Value of content: Native advertising provides audiences with valuable and meaningful content, rather than simply advertising information. Instead, the content can provide users with information that satisfies their lifestyle.

2. Originality of content: The implantation and presentation of content should not destroy the harmony of the page itself, rather than being presented abruptly to grab consumers’ attention and destroy the harmony of the picture.

3. User initiative: Users enjoy reading, sharing and participating. Rather than simply "stop at me" advertising, it is an interactive sharing-based communication where every user can become a diffusion point.

So some people think that native advertising and information flow advertising are inclusive: information flow advertising is one form of native advertising. Compared with other forms of native advertising, information flow advertising is more common. Native advertising is a soft form of advertising that is embedded in consumers' Internet lives in an all-pervasive way.

Judging from the presentation of the mobile interface, the degree of fit between advertisements and other content is high. During the dissemination process, information flow advertisements are mixed with content. In form, they are the advertisements that look the least like advertisements, so they are also called the advertisements that look the most like content. If you don’t pay attention to the words “promotion” and “advertisement” that appear around them, you may not even realize that this is an advertisement.

The advertising content is deeply integrated into the user's search information, and you cannot confirm that it is an advertisement unless you read the entire message. Currently common information flow advertisements include Baidu Information Flow, Toutiao, WeChat Moments, Weibo Fans, etc.

The question and answer about Sanya tourism in the above picture is the content of information flow advertising in 360 search, disguised as content sharing of consumer experience. Information flow advertising is gradually developing towards the information production model of native advertising, or the content production of information flow advertising.

The mainstream advertising format of the future

From search ads in the PC era, information flow ads began to emerge, and now mobile marketing accounts for 98% of Facebook's marketing. In early 2015, WeChat Moments was connected to information flow advertising, and Toutiao, Weibo, and Baidu information flow advertising were embedded in it!

In recent years, the Internet has gradually changed from traffic-oriented to content-oriented. More and more people are creating content, and information flow advertising that matches the high-density content is now a big piece of cake. In 2018, Toutiao APP's advertising revenue was approximately 29 billion yuan; Douyin's advertising revenue was 18 billion yuan, totaling 47 billion yuan, and almost all of the revenue came from advertising.

From traditional giants to emerging forces, all have joined the information flow advertising war, such as: Tencent, Alibaba, Baidu, NetEase, Sina, Toutiao, Xiaomi, 360, Zhihu, Mayu, bilibili, Kuaishou, Douyin, etc.

WeChat has begun to pay attention to user experience and emphasize privacy and social interaction, and has gradually begun to test the waters with Moments advertising. WeChat is relatively restrained, and its information flow is not as rampant as that of apps such as Toutiao and UC Browser, but it is also showing a trend of gradual increase. WeChat Moments advertising is said to start at 5 million. In the Internet age, the threshold price for advertising is relatively high. It is fundamentally difficult for WeChat to strike a balance between protecting user rights and economic benefits. This is a very difficult angle to choose.

Apps such as WeChat, Toutiao, and Douyin have become the main entrances for traffic. Information is disseminated mainly in the form of information flow. News aggregation apps such as Toutiao and UC push and disseminate information based on personal tags. WeChat Moments mainly disseminate UGC content. The platform rarely pushes information actively. WeChat has relatively well adhered to the attributes of a social platform. However, information flow advertising has still become the treasure trove of this mobile Internet era and the most mainstream advertising communication model on mobile terminals.

Future development trend of information flow advertising

According to a report released by iResearch Consulting, 43.2% of users believe that too many recommended ads are the biggest shortcoming of information flow ads, followed by unattractive pushed content, unsightly interface, and the presence of bad information. The number of advertisements, content quality, and interface aesthetics are related to user experience and product satisfaction. Controlling the number of advertisements and increasing the interest of content have become new directions for differentiated development of enterprises. From this we can see the future improvement space and development trend:

1. From the perspective of platform distribution, further blur the boundaries between information and advertising to reduce interference with users

Information flow advertising is the platform's main profit-making method, but the platform does not want advertising information to affect the user experience and ultimately lose users. This is not worth the loss. The best way is to further enhance the story of the advertisement and convey advertising and brand information while delivering interesting and informative information. Make the information flow ad into a piece of content - like a friendly reminder to users, like a belated notification, like a fun new message or like an interesting story.

We need to further blur the boundaries between information and advertising, reduce the edges of advertising, and reduce user resistance. For example, in the picture below, the same advertisement looks completely different when placed in different columns and information. Relatively speaking, the car advertisement on the right is more easily accepted in the car information flow, but it will feel abrupt when appearing in the news channel on the left, and it will fail to achieve the subtle harmony.

2. Enhance the sense of design and increase the attractiveness of advertising content

The design of information flow advertising must conduct in-depth research on the characteristics of the target consumer group. Before selecting the push tag, the statistical information and information preferences of the target consumers should be understood. Topics, knowledge and news should be planned in a targeted manner around the interests of the target group, and good titles should be designed. Although we must clearly oppose "clickbait", good titles can indeed effectively achieve communication goals.

In addition, the angle of approach of the copy is also critical. Try to minimize blunt advertising indoctrination and introduce it through stories or life situations, which is a more acceptable way. In information design and production, enhance the sense of design, make the interface beautiful, and ensure that pictures and titles are rigorously coordinated.

In iResearch's report, the most attractive sentence for users is "I think the story of the advertisement is more interesting", which emphasizes the design sense of the advertising information. From the plot of the story to the processing of details, it can effectively enhance the user's sense of involvement and bring better conversion rate.

3. From the perspective of quantity: control the density and frequency of placement on the same interface

As the relationship between users and the Internet becomes closer, the personal information they leave on the Internet becomes more complete. From basic demographic information such as gender, age, and region to in-depth personal information such as interests and frequently browsed information, all can be accurately calculated as user data, allowing users to generate personalized character labels. Based on this, WeChat information flow advertising conducts targeted marketing to users. The scams of selling private information derived from the context of big data bring great anxiety to users.

From the platform's perspective, portraits can be used to push information, but attention must also be paid to the scope of privacy and the establishment of an ethical bottom line for communication. Paying attention to the audience's concerns about privacy leaks has become an issue that must be faced by information flow ads, which are based on big data.

Author: Zhang Jiansong

Source: BBI Brand Think Tank (ID: bbippzk)