On September 14, 2018, Qutoutiao was listed on the Nasdaq in the United States. This startup company, founded in June 2016, has accumulated hundreds of millions of users in just two years, with monthly active users growing by more than 500%. It has successfully attracted investments and attention from major companies from all sides, and its valuation has reached 1.6 billion.

The development process of Qutoutiao

Qutoutiao relies on a user growth strategy centered on social fission and adopts a user sinking approach, that is, abandoning users in first- and second-tier cities and focusing on harvesting users in third- and fourth-tier cities and rural areas. It is called the "Pinduoduo of the information industry."

As a new-era content information APP that has seen explosive user growth, what operational strategies has it adopted? This article will deeply analyze the user incentive system behind the Qutoutiao APP.

1. Community Financial System

– New users will receive red envelopes upon registration

Qutoutiao is positioned as an information APP that can make money, focusing on earning income by reading news. Through the actual benefit inducement - cash red envelopes, a wave of users were quickly captured, which indirectly drove users to spread word-of-mouth, paving the way for the first step in user growth.

Qutoutiao uses the gimmick of 18 yuan red envelopes to attract users to register, but receiving red envelopes is a probabilistic event, and most of the red envelope amounts received are relatively low. For example, I only won a prize of 1 yuan, but this 1 yuan cost brought about registration conversion. From a marketing perspective, it is undoubtedly a conversion channel that can achieve the purpose of attracting new customers and save costs.

New user registration conversion path: Download - Open APP - 18 yuan red envelope pop-up window - Open red envelope - Guide registration - Click to receive money

It is also worth mentioning that the red envelopes received by new users after registration can be withdrawn directly through WeChat or Alipay without any threshold. This withdrawal method can quickly gain user trust and once again prove that Qutoutiao is indeed an APP that can make money. Previous Internet games also used red envelopes to achieve registration conversions, but most red envelopes were virtual coupons used for cash discounts. Marketing methods such as red envelopes that can be withdrawn without any threshold are not common. Judging from the current data from Qutoutiao, this is a successful model.

– Invite friends to get red envelopes

In the early days, Qutoutiao adopted the fission method of recruiting apprentices and providing subsidies to attract new users, and successfully obtained the first batch of seed users. The model of using subsidies to attract new users has become a standard for Internet platform operations and is a very common growth strategy. For example, the taxi war between Didi and Uber, the bike-sharing war between ofo and Mobike, and the food delivery war between Meituan and Ele.me all acquired users by burning money on subsidies, and eventually proved that this was feasible.

Different from the popular advertising subsidy model, Qutoutiao focuses on the social circles of acquaintances of users in third- and fourth-tier cities, driving user growth through introductions from acquaintances. That is to say, a low-cost method is used to give each user the role of an external operator, and it is an intimate role that can have an impact. It is conceivable that this new user acquisition model can easily make new users settle down and become loyal users.

2. User Task System

– Sign-in task : When a user enters the task page, the sign-in function is triggered. Combined with the platform’s own gold coin system, users can earn gold coins by signing in. The purpose of setting up sign-in is to stimulate user login behavior, thereby generating activity and improving user loyalty.

It is worth mentioning that Qutoutiao has also clarified the user conversion path after signing in, integrating sign-in into the task system. Users can directly see the task completion status after signing in, which can stimulate users to perform the next task.

– Novice tasks : one-time tasks. You can get gold coins by completing the tasks. The main tasks include questionnaire surveys, following WeChat accounts, etc. This operation can effectively increase the activity of new users and help them establish deeper connections and trust with the platform.

- Daily tasks : This is also Qutoutiao’s powerful gold coin system, which is divided into inviting friends, opening treasure chests, showing income, awakening, commenting, etc.

1. Invite friends: A step-by-step task cash reward method is adopted, and different levels of cash rewards can be obtained according to the number of users invited.

2. Open the treasure chest: The treasure chest is opened once every 4 hours, and the gold coins obtained each time are different. The way to earn gold coins from the treasure chest has been maximized, using gold coins to induce customers to share, that is, to attract new customers.

Gold coin incentive sharing path:

1. Show your income: Share the content with friends. After your friends recognize the QR code, they will get a chance to flip the card and get gold coins.

2. Wake up: Wake up friends is based on the mechanism of inviting friends, and silent users are recalled through wake up.

3. Comments: Users can get gold coin rewards by reading and posting high-quality comments. High-quality comments need to be reviewed by the background, but how to define high-quality comments requires a question mark. For the time being, we can judge that this audit method can encourage users to interact and save gold coin costs.

– Medal Task : After completing certain specific operations, a virtual “medal” is usually awarded, with the purpose of giving users honor incentives. For example, if you complete the 7-day continuous sign-in task, you will be awarded the title of "Sign-in Master".

- Reading tasks : There is a very obvious progress bar red envelope on the details page of each content to remind you that you can get gold coins every 30 seconds. If you read for 60 minutes or more on the same day, you can get extra rewards. This can encourage users to read for a longer time and improve user retention rate.

3. User Level System

Qutoutiao divides users into 10 levels. The levels can gradually rise with the accumulation of experience points. The main way to obtain experience points is through browsing and sign-in behaviors. From the user's perspective, the role of levels is to obtain various exclusive rights and interests and satisfy the sense of comparison and vanity of content, such as experience value rewards, gold coin rewards, identity identification, etc. From the perspective of an operator, the level division allows users to follow the preset path, promotes user activity and retention, and can also help differentiate users and tap into the value of core users. For example, Lv5 requires reading for 30 minutes in seven consecutive days. Users who reach this level have a certain degree of stickiness to the platform and require key maintenance.

Level of rights and interests guide behavior

The purpose of setting up hierarchical benefits is to stimulate users to log in and browse, and these two behaviors happen to be the key factors for user activity and retention of Qutoutiao as an information platform. Overall, this is a relatively complete user level system that is worth studying in depth.

Summarize

In summary, a few points can be made:

1. Qutoutiao has a total of three user incentive systems, namely the community financial system, user task system, and user level system.

2. The incentive system needs to be continuously adjusted and optimized based on data and user conditions.

3. The incentive system is a means to promote activity and improve retention, bringing value to the company and users!

Related reading:

1. Review: How to effectively build a user incentive system!

2. Advanced operations: Analysis of the underlying logic of the user incentive system!

3. How to build a user incentive system to enhance stickiness?

4. Random draw, an addictive way to motivate users!

5. Case analysis: How to build a user incentive system?

6. From an operational perspective, let’s talk about the user incentive system of financial products