1. Background

When talking about headlines, we have to talk about the development history of information flow.

Information flow advertising is a commercial product in the mobile Internet era. It is an advertisement located in the friend updates of social media users, or in the content streams of information media and audio-visual media. It is a form of commercialization of information flow.

It first appeared on the Facebook social platform in 2006, and entered China in 2012. It was introduced and used by companies such as Tencent, Sina Weibo, and Toutiao. This marked the beginning of a wave of Internet advertising dividends.

In 2016, companies such as Baidu and UC Toutiao also joined in, and at the same time, content on the PC began to appear in the form of information flow.

By 2018, the commercial value of PC information flow gradually emerged. At present, the development of domestic search platforms such as Baidu, 360, Sogou, and Shenma also tends to develop information flow. Is Toutiao going back to the old ways by launching search ads at this time?

I personally think that Toutiao launched search ads for three reasons:

1. Toutiao’s information flow has accumulated a large number of users, and the natural search traffic has gradually expanded, so search advertising came into being. To put it bluntly, Toutiao wants to get a piece of the search advertising pie;

2. The competition for traffic in the domestic Internet advertising market is increasing, and advertisers are looking forward to the introduction of new traffic;

3. The precision marketing capabilities of Toutiao’s information flow have reached the leading level in China, and it is attempting to find new breakthroughs.

◆ Currently, headline search ads have four characteristics:

1 advertising backend: together with information flow ads, unified operation and delivery in the Toutiao AD delivery backend;

2 bidding methods: bidding by click (buy word bidding); bidding by conversion (unified bidding);

3 pricing methods: Support three pricing methods (CPC) (OCPC) (OCPM);

4 creative forms: large picture + copy, small picture + copy, group picture + copy, video + copy;

The ad position is in the second position on the search results page of Toutiao APP, as shown in the following figure:

2. Advertising Differences

Currently, the advertising settings in the search platform launched by Toutiao are basically the same as traditional search advertising settings: account level → advertising group → advertising plan → keywords → creativity.

1. Advertisement Group-Purpose

Different from traditional search ads, the advertising placement of Toutiao search ads is based on the settings of Toutiao information flow. It can be divided into different promotion purposes, such as landing pages and APP applications. Different placement purposes correspond to different placement settings.

At the same time, the setting of the delivery budget is the same as that of the traditional search advertising background, which can only be set at the account level and group level. The current minimum daily budget for Toutiao search is 1,000 yuan, as shown in the figure below;

2. Advertising plan-targeted audience

When creating an advertising plan, in addition to setting the delivery area and delivery time like traditional search platforms, you can also conduct precise crowd targeting based on dimensions such as gender, age, interests, platform, and APP behavior based on the promoted products, as shown in the figure below;

In addition, the advertising plan of Toutiao Search can also set two different delivery goals: click volume and conversion volume . The one with click as the delivery goal is charged based on CPC, while the one with conversion volume as the delivery goal is charged based on OCPC or OCPM. The second method requires tracking the conversion effect.

3. Keyword-matching method

Compared with other mature platforms, uploading keywords in the Toutiao search backend is not convenient enough at present. Only 1,000 words can be imported at a time, and they must be consistent with the platform's template. Therefore, it is not recommended to copy search accounts from other channels to Toutiao search accounts for delivery in the early stage;

In addition, there are only two ways to match Toutiao search keywords: phrase matching and broad matching , as shown in the figure below.

Since my personal launch, the traffic brought by phrase matching is seriously insufficient. It is recommended that students who are doing early testing set up broad matching to obtain more traffic and provide sufficient traffic data for analysis and comparison.

If CPC is used as the pricing method when creating a plan, you need to set bids for keywords. oCPC does not require setting bids for keywords.

4. Creativity - Combination of pictures and texts, and video delivery

The creative ideas of Toutiao search ads follow the creative delivery of reference information flow, combining traditional creative copy and pictures as well as creative copy and videos.

I personally think this is the biggest highlight of Toutiao search ads compared to traditional ads. In Baidu or 360 search ads, the combination of pictures and texts can only be achieved after the advanced styles are released, and placing videos in search ads is also a big attempt.

3. Tips for placing ads

From internal testing to current launch, I would like to share with you some tips on launch:

1. Buying Words Guide

Invest in small amounts, more short words, and fewer long keywords. The maturity of new products must go through multiple updates and adjustments, so the overall traffic of Toutiao search is not large at present. Students who want to test the effect of the delivery should try to use more short keywords.

2. Keep up with the latest trends in creativity

For example, a certain sports advertiser owns the main football copyrights in the market: La Liga, Premier League, Bundesliga... We predict that Wu Lei's transfer to La Liga Espanyol is a possible hot search, so we can follow the hot spots.

3. How to choose between CPC plan and OCPC/OCPM plan

a. Conversion bidding can automatically adjust keyword bids based on conversion goals, eliminating the trouble of frequent price adjustments; however, it cannot meet advertisers' needs for advertising on specific keywords (such as brand words);

b. Click bidding allows you to bid for each keyword, which has a higher degree of freedom in operation, but it cannot be optimized automatically. Advertisers need to accumulate data and optimize on their own.

4. How to bid for OCPM and OCPC plans

It is recommended that the initial planned cost be set to 3-5 times the information flow cost. Search ads are different from information flow ads. A high price in the cold start phase generally does not exceed the cost, so you can bid with confidence. If you are worried about over-cost, you can control the plan and start by doubling the price and gradually increase it.

Summary: It is recommended to make choices based on actual conditions. For example, when adding keywords in large quantities, use conversion bids; for identified high-conversion, high-competition keywords or other key words, use click bids to ensure more exposure.

Related reading:

1. How to set up advertising accounts for Toutiao, Guangdiantong, etc.!

2. With today’s headlines advertising, how to plan creative advertising for the wedding industry?

3. The process of setting up a Toutiao information flow advertising account!

4. Get the operation guide of Toutiao game advertising quickly!

5. Comprehensive inventory of Toutiao products and practical sharing of strategy optimization!

6. Creative material styles for Toutiao’s high-conversion information flow ads!

author: Fatty Rong

source: Fatty Rong