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Advertising is a process of selection

Advertising is actually a process of selection. Optimizers use experience and data analysis, and system models learn and train to select the people who are most likely to convert, and then show ads to them. Users choose whether to click, download/activate, and pay based on their own preferences.

Ad Choices – Who to Show to

Ad selection: Toutiao’s advertising backend provides advertisers with various targeting methods to lock in the target audience for this ad, and through ECPM competition, displays ads to designated groups of people.

User choice – whether to convert

User choice means that after the ad is displayed to the user, they choose whether to click, download, activate, pay, etc.

At this point, optimizers should focus more on whether the creativity of the advertisement and the landing page can touch the hearts of the core group of people. The quality of the creativity and the quality of the landing page play a crucial role in both gaining volume and subsequent recycling.

During the optimization process, in terms of volume and cost, optimizers do not need to pay too much attention to the average click price, which does not make much sense. Instead, they can focus on CTR, CVR, and work harder on advertising materials.

01. Bidding principle of Toutiao

First of all, we will protect the user experience through frequency control and review, on the premise that the user experience is guaranteed. The ad with the highest ECPM will be displayed; and ECPM is determined by CTR, estimated CVR and bid. The estimated CTR and estimated CVR will be affected by the characteristics of the targeted population, the plan itself, and post-validation results.

ECPM = estimated CTR estimated CVR bid * 1000

In order to improve the ECPM of the advertising plan, we need more reasonable targeting, better-quality advertising materials and copywriting, creative classification labels that are more in line with the advertising plan, better-quality landing pages, etc. Of course, you can also directly increase your bid.

The size of the targeted population of the advertising plan will also affect the running volume. The narrower the targeting, the less traffic it can explore, and it will be more difficult to obtain a large amount of volume.

02. Account establishment

As mentioned earlier, you need to plan the delivery plan and conduct delivery tests before launching the campaign. Only after finding the optimal delivery combination can you carry out regular delivery. So how do you set up an advertising account when launching an ad?

First of all, we need to know that Toutiao's plan relies on the advertising plan group, and the advertising plan group relies on the account, as shown in the figure

Frequency of updates to ad groups and campaigns

Optimizers will face a question: How many advertising plans should be created under an ad group? Some optimizers have one plan for each group, while others have dozens of plans for each group. Having too few plans under an ad group will waste manpower, while having too many plans will make analysis and management difficult.

First, we encourage you to create multiple ad groups for testing. Because information flow materials decay quickly, they need to be constantly updated to gain traffic. But the plan cannot be made blindly, it must be purposeful. The purpose can be to test materials, copywriting, targeting, or even various elements such as bidding and budget.

As for each advertising group, 3-10 plans are recommended, with 3-5 creatives in each plan, which is convenient for management and conducive to subsequent advertising delivery.

03. Plan settings

1. Orientation

Toutiao’s advertising bidding backend provides advertisers with 14 user targeting functions to help advertisers target their audience.

When advertisers check multiple targeting options, the system will target the audience at the intersection of each condition. Reasonable use of the targeting function is not only conducive to the screening of the target population, but also makes population testing more effective.

The general settings are mainly for general casting, and other directional settings can be tested and used. In addition to the basics (gender, network), it is not recommended to add too many targetings to multiple plans at the same time to avoid the difficulty in running the plan due to too narrow targeting.

First, don’t target too narrowly

When using user targeting such as DMP and interest keywords, be sure not to target too narrowly. If you don't test the target audience of thousands or tens of thousands closely, it will be difficult to increase the volume and waste manpower. It is recommended that users target coverage above one million.

Second, do not use the same narrow targeting for multiple plans in the same account

The targeting is too narrow and the population coverage is not large. If multiple plans of an account use the same narrow targeting, it is easy to cause competition among different plans. If you want to test this narrowly targeted group of people, just set up 2-3 plans.

Third, it is not recommended to use multiple orientations crosswise, except for basic orientation

The cross-use of multiple targeting methods, such as DMP, interest classification, and new user targeting, may not only lead to too narrow a user base, but also be detrimental to testing targeting functions. It is recommended to test each orientation separately to find the most suitable people for each orientation.

2. Bid

Adjusting bids is the most direct means to influence planned delivery, but it is often overused by optimizers: if the cost exceeds the limit, the bid is adjusted immediately; if the volume decreases, the bid is adjusted again immediately. The model needs to be re-explored after each bid adjustment. Therefore, adjusting the bid too frequently will affect the stability of the model and is not conducive to the long-term healthy growth of the plan.

First, bid reasonably to meet the industry situation and advertiser needs

The bid must not only meet the advertiser's cost requirements, but also the industry situation. If you are not clear about the industry level, you can communicate with relevant personnel to understand it, or you can debug it based on the advertiser's needs.

Second, during the cold start phase, you can try to increase the bid by 20%-50%

If there is a great demand for volume in the early stages of the campaign, or if it is difficult to increase volume, you can increase the planned bid appropriately to gain higher competitiveness. After the new plan has been launched for 2-3 days and has accumulated at least 20 conversions, gradually adjust the bid to the expected level based on the conversion cost.

Third, price increases should be drastic, and downgrades should be steady.

When the planned volume is not running at an ideal speed and you hope to stimulate the plan by raising prices, it is recommended that the adjustment range should not be less than 10% of the current bid. When the planned volume is stable and you hope to gradually reduce costs, it is recommended that the adjustment range should not be higher than 10% of the current bid.

Fourth, do not adjust your bid too frequently (no more than twice a day)

Adjusting bids for the same plan multiple times a day is not conducive to crowd exploration. It is recommended that advertisers clearly specify the time for back-end data to be sent back in real time. The centralized return of data will also lead to a surge in costs during a certain period of time. In this case, it is best to extend the time frame to observe the data for a whole day.

3. Creativity

Creativity is divided into material creativity and copywriting creativity. Creativity is king in information flow advertising. High-quality creativity can generate more sales and make advertising more effective. It is recommended to spend more energy on creative conception and copywriting exploration.

True: I will exchange my true heart for your true heart

Even if copywriting and materials that over-promise, pay, and blindly pursue hot topics can get users to click, download, and install, they cannot achieve better retention and payment.

Good creativity can truly reflect the characteristics, gameplay, style, feelings, etc. of the game. CG materials generally beautify the game moderately, but their content will not deviate completely from the game itself.

Accurate: grasp the pain points and highlight the selling points

Accurately grasp the user's pain points, know which game features the user cares about, and highlight and emphasize these features in the materials. For example, brotherhood, leisure upgrades, nostalgia, etc.

Highlight the game’s biggest features to attract users. An excellent game always has various features that attract users, which can be the gameplay, style of painting, etc.

Show: Fantastic ideas, originality

Excellent materials have no fixed pattern and are difficult to customize according to a unified template. They require inspiration and skills, an open mind and unconventional thinking.

You can try to improve the quality of the material by imitating popular user videos, adding current hot topics, and adding a humorous style.

4. Time period

The time period function is often overlooked, and sometimes optimizers choose to manually pause or start advertising plans.

Proper use of the time period function can not only reasonably allocate the budget, but also minimize the impact of the pause period on the system model.

First, when the budget is sufficient, try to run it all the time

Unless there are special circumstances for the advertiser, it is recommended to deliver the ad at all times as much as possible.

Second, when the budget is limited, focus on the time period with high conversion rate.

Advertisers can allocate their main budgets to high-conversion periods based on their budget situation and actual delivery data. If advertisers have a tight budget in the near future, they can also adjust and allocate the budget according to the time period.

If you have a plan with good performance, but need to suspend it due to budget or other issues, you can use the time period pause function to suspend the plan's delivery to avoid affecting the model due to manual suspension of the plan.

5. Creative classification & creative labeling

Creative classification and creative label are the identification of system advertising creativity, which needs to match the game type.

First, the creative classification and creative label should be appropriate to the game type.

Choosing categories and labels that are different from the game type itself is not conducive to the system's recognition of advertising creativity and affects the system's population exploration model.

Second, creative labels are mainly based on general nouns.

Creative tags should be based on broad nouns, such as: Xianxia, ​​PRG games, certain legends, etc., and avoid verbs and medium and long-tail words. Large-category nouns are more conducive to the system's understanding of creativity and advertising placement.

04. Optimize the use of tools

1. DMP Crowd Package

DMP can be used to target or exclude target groups. Historical remarketing of high-quality groups of other games, game paying group packages, industry data group packages, various theme groups (mobile phone model groups, high-spending groups, Tik Tok groups) and expansion groups (new expansion and friend expansion), etc., can all accurately target the target group.

2. System recommendation targeting

According to the planned delivery stage and delivery effect, determine the audience group that meets the targeting of a certain plan and make intelligent targeting selection.

3. Delivery method

Three different delivery methods: priority on quantity, balanced delivery, and priority on low cost, to meet different needs.

4. Programmatic Creativity

Save manpower, as long as one set of plans passes the review, it can be put into operation, making it easy to implement high-quality plans.

5. Extremely fast download service

Faster download speeds increase conversion rates.

Author: Guaniu

Source: Information Flow Workplace Circle