How does a P2P platform choose high-quality channels?

As we all know, the cost of acquiring P2P customers is extremely high.

For high-quality channels like Baidu, the cost for many listed companies to acquire a single investor is over 1,500. Assuming that the user's total investment amount is 50,000, the capital cost is 5%. This capital cost is acceptable, but if the investment amount cannot be increased, the capital cost will be unbearable.

For channels like Guangdiantong and Toutiao , the cost of acquiring investment users is lower due to their lower CPC, averaging 500~1000, but the total customer investment is lower, with an average total of less than 20,000, and the capital cost is not low.

Others like some third-party alliances, rebates, and long-tail apps have lower single registration and investment costs, but the user investment amount and renewal rate are extremely low. The final ROI is very low and the capital cost is very high, generally above 10%.

As for the wool channel, the data looks okay in the short term, but when the financial report is prepared at the end of the year, it will be found that the losses are huge. A certain platform cooperated with a third party to swipe funds at a 1:50 ROI. The capital cost in the first month was 2%. However, in the second month, after the one-month contract purchased expired, everyone left, and the capital cost became frighteningly high, almost infinitely high.

But if you use a real channel and invest 100,000 yuan, assuming that you bring in 100 investment users in the first month, with an investment amount of 1 million yuan, the ROI is 1:10; the next month, the channel adds 10 new investment users, and the original users plus the new users continue to invest, with an additional investment amount of 1 million yuan, then the total ROI is 1:20; and so on after three months. Since real channels bring users with higher retention and reinvestment rates, the platform's capital costs will gradually decrease over time.

In addition, from an operational perspective, real channel users can continue to increase their total investment amount through operations and guide them to invite friends to increase new users, but wool channel users can neither increase their total investment amount nor guide them to invite friends, because once the investment period expires, the wool will leave immediately. What they are looking at is not your interest, but the short-term high commission behind it.

Therefore, a prerequisite for establishing high-quality channels is to give up the wool channels. If you really need to increase the total investment amount, then organize activities and lock in users through longer-term products.

Different companies have different approaches to channel selection. For example, some companies tend to outsource to third-party advertising companies, some companies tend to recruit their own people such as SEM managers, DSP managers, ASO managers, and some companies directly conduct business matching based on the results. These three approaches depend on the company's funding, talent, and emphasis on marketing . The cost of recruiting a SEM manager is not low. If the SEM budget is limited, it is not suitable to set up a separate position and you can directly let a third-party optimization company take over the management.

Next, I will talk about how to choose high-quality channels based on the different situations of some companies.

First of all, we need to make a clear concept. Whether we follow CPS or CPA, the channel party must achieve the platform's KPI and exclude the situations of brushing funds and wool-gathering parties. It must be exposed through traffic entrances and then bring in registered users, investment users, and investment amounts. Its essence is media. That is to say, when cooperating with any channel, I need to see the media behind you, including the advertising space placed on this media during execution, and monitor it regularly.

Based on this, our preferred channels are generally various mainstream Internet media, such as Baidu search, portals, navigation, video sites, Weibo, WeChat , and various mainstream apps.

The advantage of choosing these channels is that you don’t have to worry about traffic fraud, and they generally have standard bidding advertising platforms that charge by CPC or CPM, can track data in real time, and optimize advertising in a timely manner. The disadvantage is that the competition is fierce and requires professional optimization personnel to operate.

Let's take Baidu as an example. In the past, when I took over a project, the cost per user was over 1,500. I brought two senior SEM engineers to tackle the problem. We continuously adjusted the keyword strategy, improved the marketing pages, and optimized the conversion paths, including cooperating with operations to develop various new products. Eventually, the cost per user was reduced to less than 500. If we calculate based on an average monthly investment of 500,000, and the cost is reduced by half, the advertising fee saved can be used to hire 10 senior SEM specialists.

In mainstream channels, regardless of product and brand factors, provided that operational support is in place, the key to reducing customer acquisition costs and achieving a higher promotion ROI lies in advertising optimization. Some companies were fooled by third-party companies into buying Baidu product ads. In fact, you don’t have any brand traffic, maybe less than 100 per day on average. Based on the 1 million brand ads, the average daily advertising fee is close to 3,000, and your average CPC is as high as 30, which is not cost-effective. So many P2P platform bosses asked me, why is our Baidu cost as high as 3,000? If you don’t have brand traffic, the cost of buying product specials will of course be high.

Advertising optimization is a field that requires a high level of professionalism. It not only involves search word selection, DSP materials, and targeted pricing, but also the speed and timing of delivery. For example, when competitors are shutting down, you can step up your efforts to seize the opportunity to make a profit. During the bonus period, you have to work harder and exert your strength.

In general, for mainstream high-quality channels, the key lies in your advertising optimization capabilities. If you don’t have much funding, you can cooperate with a third-party optimization company; if you have more funding, hiring people is undoubtedly cost-effective. If you are willing to spend high advertising fees, why not hire a few people?

In addition to mainstream channels, there are others such as WeChat accounts, various vertical apps, maternal and child apps, fitness apps, dating apps, etc.

The forms of cooperation for this type of channels include CPC, CPA, and fixed fees, such as WeChat big accounts.

When cooperating with these channels, I still follow the previous basic principles. There must be a clear traffic entrance, and there must be real advertising space at the traffic entrance to display my products.

On the basis of meeting this principle, it is important to formulate reasonable cooperation rules. For large WeChat accounts with fixed fees, including fixed advertising space in some third-party financial forums, you need to carefully study their real traffic and user stickiness, and then evaluate the approximate investment cost and ROI. Try to do short-term tests with as little money as possible. If the retention and reinvestment rates are good, you can continue to invest more.

For channels that can accept CPA or ROI, the key at this time is to formulate CPA or ROI cooperation rules. If the price is set too high, the channel will not make money and the volume will not increase; if the price is set too low, the cost will be too high. Generally speaking, the platform can reversely calculate ROI and CPA based on the capital cost it can afford, and then make appropriate adjustments upward or downward on this basis. If there is a shortage of volume, the requirements will be lowered to allow the channel to grow quickly. If there is no shortage of volume, the requirements will be raised to allow the channel to run slower.

For example, the ROI of many platforms is as high as 100. This data is relatively OK because it is accumulated continuously, which may be one year's data. Users continue to invest, so the data looks good. Some P2P platforms calculate activity data. The ROI of a rebate activity may be as high as thousands. For example, if you invest 100,000 and get a 0.1% coupon, the ROI is 1,000. For example, in a new user acquisition campaign, 50 yuan in cash is given for each user brought in. If the user invests 100,000 yuan, the ROI is as high as 2,000 yuan. Some P2P platforms also count new natural users based on total data, so the ROI will naturally be very high. AppStore cannot distinguish between the sources of paid and free users. For example, you did some ASO and spent RMB 10,000, but the IOS channel added 5 million new users today. You said the ROI was 500, but in fact most of them were naturally added users.

Many first-tier platforms have a daily increase of 100 million, and the daily advertising budget is at most 500,000, so is the ROI 200? It’s not actually calculated that way.

Back to channel cooperation, when we talk with third parties or the media, we must formulate cooperation rules based on the platform’s existing channel effects. For example, your Baidu promotion ROI is 1:50, and Guangdiantong ROI is 1:30. In the first month of promotion, Baidu ROI is 1:20 and Guangdiantong ROI is 1:15. When you cooperate with a third party, the required ROI cannot exceed 1:15. If the requirement is too high, the third party will definitely falsify it because its media will not be very good. Even if it is in a traffic value trough and has a lower cost than Guangdiantong and Baidu, you are negotiating cooperation based on the effect. If you do not leave a certain profit margin for the other party, the other party will not be able to do it, or will not be able to increase the volume.

In general, when a P2P platform selects high-quality channels, the key is to control several key principles:

1. There must be a traffic entrance and my advertisement must be displayed.

2. Establish reasonable cooperation rules to avoid falling into the trap of false orders.

3. Different traffic entrances have different requirements and budgets. There should be more mainstream media, medium long-tail media, and as few rebates and third-party platforms as possible.

4. If the budget is large, professional advertising staff is crucial.

For some companies that lack professional channel personnel, cooperation with third-party agency companies is also essential, especially for some companies that have great demand for channels. For example, the loan business requires a large number of business channels to tap into various traffic pools, and the personnel and management costs are high. It is obviously more reliable to find a few professional agency companies to cooperate with.

But no matter what the situation is, try to avoid being too eager for quick success and instant benefits, avoid increasing funds for short-term performance, and avoid cooperating with wool-pulling companies. Eventually, when the annual report is issued, the data will be ugly and the business may be unsustainable.

As regulation approaches, the P2P industry will gradually get back on track. Investors will not have to worry too much about whether the platform is safe or whether it will run away. For the platforms, the difficulty in acquiring customers will improve, but they still need to face the challenge of how to stand out in the homogeneous competition. While innovating products and building brands, being able to identify high-quality traffic channels and maximize their effects, as well as acquire user funds at low cost, will also be an important competitive advantage for future P2P platforms.

Mobile application product promotion service: APP promotion service Qinggua Media advertising

The author of this article @刘渝民 is compiled and published by ( Qinggua Media ). Please indicate the author information and source when reprinting!