Does your oCPC advertising really work?

oCPC is now a familiar concept. You may not have invested in it, but you must have heard of it.

oCPC is actually the abbreviation of Optimized Cost Per Click. It uses conversion as its optimization goal, and the billing method still uses CPC click deduction. Advertisers and media platforms, through data docking, machine learning and other processes, implement dynamic intelligent bidding based on the expected CPA goals (download, activation, registration, form submission, etc.) set by advertisers, and charge according to clicks.

Friends who are familiar with advertising know that when running performance ads, the biggest worry is that the CTR is not high and the money is spent but there is no conversion. At this time, advertisers must very much hope to be charged according to CPA (Action, conversion action), even if the bid is higher.

But the media dare not agree. After all, the advertising effect does not necessarily depend on the quality of traffic. It is also closely related to the advertiser's products, landing pages, etc. Using CPA charging is equivalent to guaranteeing the advertiser's advertising effect. For the media, the risks far outweigh the benefits. Therefore, there are few media in the market that charge according to CPA.

The game relationship between advertisers and media platforms

When CPC and CPA cannot satisfy advertisers and media respectively, oCPC comes into being.

Through data accumulation and intelligent algorithms, it calculates the audience form that is most likely to convert for advertisers, greatly improving the conversion rate, thereby getting as close to or even exceeding the advertiser's CPA target as possible, achieving cost control, and laying a good foundation for the advertiser's high ROI; at the same time, it expands traffic through lookalike groups, achieves steady growth in high-quality traffic, and improves media eCPM, achieving a win-win situation for advertisers and media.

oCPC, from unique to mainstream

As early as 2012, the oCPC advertising bidding model was born on Facebook. He introduced the concept of "optimization objective" into his advertising system, changing the system's push mechanism from pushing to "users who are more likely to click on ads" to pushing to "users who are more likely to achieve this optimization goal." This type of advertising was named "Action-optimized CPM" by Facebook. Later, Facebook's advertising system was repeatedly optimized, but the basic logic has been used to this day.

Subsequently, domestic information flow advertising platforms such as Guangdiantong, Toutiao, 360, UC, and Momo followed the trend and launched the "o" series of products (oCPA, oCPC, oCPM, etc.), and popularized this model to the majority of information flow advertising practitioners. oCPC has become the mainstream model of performance-based advertising.

However, at present, most of the "o" series products are concentrated on mobile terminals. Is there no platform that can take into account both mobile and PC terminals?

The author compared the "o" series products launched by major media platforms and found that 360 has rarely launched an oCPC product that is suitable for both mobile and PC advertisers. To this end, the author carefully read the official documentation of the 360 ​​Dianjing platform about the oCPC product, and conducted a survey of advertisers who have used the product. It was found that the highlights of this product are far more than that. The author summarized the two key words of 360oCPC: security and systematization.

Keyword 1: Safety

According to a recent research report by iResearch Consulting, the top three perceptions of 360 are "safe", "reliable" and "professional". It can be seen that 360's product image is very clear and unified, which can give users sufficient trust in its products.

Screenshot of 360's content shared on Golden ROI Awards

For ordinary users, "safety" is deeply rooted in their minds, and this is no exception in advertisements targeting advertisers.

The first thing oCPC needs to accomplish is the data connection between advertisers and media platforms, which can be achieved through API and code. At present, there is a risk of data leakage or even abuse between advertisers and media through API docking (Facebook is recently imprisoned due to such speculation). There are indeed some unscrupulous people in the market who illegally trade corporate user data at high prices.

In the API connection between 360 and advertisers, the data is encrypted and there will be no problem of data leakage. Because the relevant data does not require advertisers to make any specific explanations, 360 itself does not know the specific content of the data received. It is equivalent to covering all the data with a mask. The platform only knows which goals the advertisers want to optimize (which can be activation, registration or others), but does not know what this goal is specifically. 360 will not store or process the data it obtains, so advertiser data will not be leaked or abused.

Keyword 2: Systematization

From the information I have learned, systematization has two main meanings. First, traffic + algorithm form a system. Second, marketing tools form a system.

• Traffic system

360 is the king of the PC era. With the advent of the mobile Internet era, its business has also occupied an important position in the mobile phone and even the Internet of Things field. Compared to some platforms with single products and serious advertising "overload", the 360 ​​platform has a rich product matrix, sufficient advertising resources, large room for development, and reliable traffic.

In a research report by iResearch Consulting a few days ago, we found that the users of 360 products are mainly young and middle-aged people in first- and second-tier cities. They are highly educated, in management positions, have stable family structures, are keen on financial management and travel, pay attention to quality of life and health, and are highly receptive to advertising. At the same time, data shows that among users of 360 products, 55% of users obtain further product information after seeing the advertisements.

360 Existing Product Matrix

• Algorithm system

The key to whether oCPC can play a role lies in whether the platform has a set of efficient and accurate algorithms. In this process, the machine needs to accumulate data and locate high-conversion users to achieve accurate exposure. At the same time, it must actively expand the scale based on similar groups of people. If there is no excellent algorithm in this entire process, the so-called oCPC will only be a formality and an empty name.

After all, 360 has accumulated advertising data for many years. At the same time, with the help of multiple data sources gathered by 360 big data, as well as comprehensive user portraits recorded by cross-screen products from user behavior trajectories to interest preferences, the platform has a set of accurate and efficient algorithms.

• Marketing tools are systematic

It is understood that 360 and oCPC have many mobile products that form a "combination punch", such as: "DMP" that helps advertisers to target the audience in the early stage, "dynamic creativity" that assists in the rapid batch production of advertising materials, "interactive advertising" that solves the conversion of landing pages, and "mobile website building". By providing systematic commercial product tools, the effect of 1+1>2 can be achieved.

In a survey of some advertisers, we found that Sina News achieved a more than 2-fold increase in download volume through 360's oCPC, while stabilizing download costs. After using the dynamic creative function, CTR increased by more than 50%, and the conversion rate also increased significantly.

Conclusion

oCPC has become the norm in performance advertising. Every optimizer is talking about it. Some have made a fortune with it, while others are still stuck in the first stage and unable to get into the state. The conversion rate needs to be increased several times at any time. If such a requirement is not achieved through efficient and accurate machine algorithms but purely by manual labor, I don’t know how many optimizers will be killed.

Source: Aichi SEM