Advertising strategies for the Internet automobile industry

There has always been a saying circulating in the Internet advertising industry: "Advertising strategy product managers are at the top of the product manager food chain!" To put it simply, in the Internet advertising industry, advertising strategy product managers can surpass other types of product managers in terms of both job level and salary.

Further analysis shows that the reasons for this phenomenon are easy to understand: strategies never exist independently, they have existed in products since the product planning stage, but compared with easy-to-see pages and interactions, strategies are more reflected in the background logic.

The front-end page, especially when there are similar products for reference, can be completed by a product manager with only 1-2 years of work experience. However, the complex strategies hidden behind the product are not so easy to handle. This is where the value of a strategic product manager lies.

Next, we will use this as a starting point to start a new series to talk to you about various strategies in Internet advertising. Since the author works in the automotive vertical media, after introducing general advertising strategies, the subsequent content will focus on the advertising strategies of the automotive industry . Friends in different industries can use this as a reference and generalize it to their own industries.

1. What is Internet advertising strategy?

In the Internet industry, there are different strategies behind different types of products. For example, the information flow content recommendations that we use most in our daily lives are not only driven by algorithms, but also include a variety of content recommendation strategies.

What content should be recommended for new users without any historical data? This is the most typical user cold start problem in the recommendation system, and to solve this problem, product managers need to design a user cold start strategy.

From the example of content recommendation, it is not difficult to find that the strategies contained in Internet products are essentially systematic solutions to problems that exist in the operation of Internet products.

There are two key points in this definition.

First, there must be a problem during the operation of the product, otherwise there is no need for a solution.

Second, the solution must be systematic. The solution must clearly and accurately define all problem scenarios, and design what measures to take in what scenarios and what is the triggering mechanism of the measures. What is the suspension mechanism? Is it possible for human intervention in the middle? Is there a rollback mechanism if a failure occurs during the operation of the solution?

With the above foundation, we can make a simple definition of Internet advertising strategy: Internet advertising strategy refers to a systematic solution to problems existing in the process of Internet advertising.

2. What are the common Internet advertising strategies?

Internet advertising strategies have always been a relatively chaotic system. There is no clear classification and no one knows how many strategies there are. Here we try to classify common Internet advertising strategies using two different approaches:

Classification by the five elements of traditional advertising:

In traditional advertising, the five major factors of region, time, scale, media and population are issues that advertisers must consider clearly when placing advertisements.

1. Regional strategy

Region refers to the area where the advertiser wants to place the advertisement. On a larger scale, it can be the entire world map, or on a smaller scale, it can be a certain coordinate on the map.

Of course, the purpose of advertisers defining areas has never been to make the coverage wider, but to make the coverage more precise. It is like when we place an advertisement for a certain brand of car in an area without supporting 4S stores. Without a place for users to test drive and experience the car, the possibility of users making a purchase becomes extremely low. It does not make much sense for advertisers to place advertisements in these areas.

Specifically at the strategic level, common regional strategies include: single-region strategy, multi-region combination strategy, and specific geographic location combination strategy.

1) Single-region strategy

This regional strategy is easy to understand, that is, advertisers only target a specific area for advertising. The region here usually refers to administrative regions such as country-province-city-district/county. This strategy is mainly suitable for smaller regional advertisers. The smaller the advertiser, the smaller the desired regional targeting range.

2) Multi-regional combination strategy

Similarly, a multi-region combination strategy is one in which advertisers simultaneously place advertisements in multiple areas that they cover or are preparing to enter. This strategy is usually used in combination with other strategies such as time and scale to achieve more accurate and effective delivery in different time periods and regions.

3) Specific location strategy

A specific geographical location can be understood as a further reduction of a single area. Based on LBS positioning, it can be accurately determined to a certain coordinate point on the map, and then the range of external radiation can be defined based on this coordinate point. For example, WeChat Moments ads support customized radiation targeting with a radius of 500 to 5,000 meters.

2. Time strategy

Time strategy refers to the setting of the advertising cycle. Usually, each advertising is time-limited. Choosing a specific time period to carry out advertising in line with one's own marketing rhythm is a specific time period strategy. Dividing a large time period into multiple short periods for different advertising delivery is called a multi-time period combination strategy.

For example: when a new car is about to be launched, we will divide the entire new car launch process into five stages: before launch, on the day of launch, 30 days after launch, 60 days after launch and 90 days after launch. Before launch, it will be further divided into five small stages: spy photos, declaration, official pictures, release and pre-sale. Different advertising content will be delivered in each small stage.

3. Scale strategy

The scale strategy can also be called the budget strategy, which mainly solves the problem of how much money is needed for advertising and how to spend the money.

The corresponding specific strategies are budget allocation strategy and budget control strategy. The budget allocation strategy can be further divided into overall budget planning, budget media allocation strategy and budget product line allocation strategy. Different budget sizes and different budgets allocated to various media and product lines have a great impact on the final advertising effect.

The budget control strategy mainly solves the problem of how to consume the budget smoothly and efficiently during the delivery cycle. Since budget allocation and control need to be constantly adjusted based on the effectiveness of advertising, a dynamic budget strategy has been further developed. The system automatically optimizes budget allocation and control based on changes in advertising effectiveness.

4. Media Strategy

In fact, media strategy is inseparable from scale strategy. Media strategy mainly solves the problem of which product lines need to be placed in which media. Many media strategies can be derived for different marketing goals in different marketing cycles. The most common strategy can be to choose a certain number of product combinations in one media, or to choose multiple product combinations in multiple media. The strategy combinations are ever-changing and can even be adjusted dynamically according to changes in advertising effectiveness.

5. Crowd Strategy

Advertisements are ultimately shown to humans, so crowd strategy is also very important. According to the different implementation methods of crowd strategies, crowd strategies can be divided into crowd label strategies and crowd package strategies.

As the name suggests, the crowd tag strategy refers to selecting the target population for delivery based on crowd tags, and then delivering the ads directly through crowd tags. There is no need to specify specific people. As long as the user is labeled with the label we selected by the system, he or she will see the ads we deliver.

The crowd package strategy requires identifying specific people and then packaging this group of people into a crowd package. Only when the people in the crowd package come will the advertiser's ads be shown to them. The two strategies can also be combined to form a completely customized population strategy. Advertisers can quickly form a population package by checking tags, or they can upload their own user information to let the system learn the characteristics of the target users and then form the advertiser's own label system for delivery.

From the five strategy categories introduced above, we can find that each strategy is a very simple strategy if taken alone. In actual advertising, these five strategies will appear in one or more combinations.

For example: A certain car model is going to clear out its old inventory, and the inventory is mainly concentrated in four key provinces. The entire operation needs to be completed three months before the new model is launched, and the overall marketing budget is XXXX million yuan. The delivery strategy designed for this situation is:

Combination of multi-regional combination strategy + specific time period strategy + budget allocation/control strategy + multi-media multi-product combination strategy + custom crowd strategy

To sum up, classifying strategies according to the five elements of traditional advertising can indeed sort out the chaotic advertising strategies of the past in an orderly and systematic manner, but this classification method is more suitable for advertisers or their main agencies to manage their own advertising strategies. In the next issue, we will try to construct an advertising strategy classification method suitable for the media platform itself - classification by advertising process.

Author: Everything needs Jingsheng

Source: Everything needs Jingsheng