Toutiao Advertising Manual, let your information flow ads be on the "headlines"!

Recently, CB Insights, a well-known American venture capital research institution, released the "Global Unicorn Company List", and Toutiao became one of the 42 new startups shortlisted worldwide this year. This global "unicorn" company has been attracting much attention since it announced the use of algorithms to recommend information. Last year, it announced an investment of 1 billion to subsidize the creation of short videos . In August this year, there were rumors that it "signed more than 300 Zhihu big Vs in one go", which can be said to have been constantly making headlines.

Toutiao is a recommendation engine product based on data mining, which recommends content of interest to users based on technical algorithms. Currently, Toutiao has more than 700 million registered users, and 60% of Chinese smartphones have installed Toutiao. More than 150 million monthly active users; 66 million daily active users; the average user launches the app more than 9 times per day, with an average usage time of 76 minutes per day; and an average daily reading volume of more than 2 billion.

Toutiao’s recommendation mechanism is somewhat similar to the working principle of programmatic buying. Both generate user portraits through data calculations and then accurately match information with users. The only difference is that Toutiao recommends information, while programmatic buying pushes advertisements. When Toutiao uses the algorithm for recommending information to recommend advertisements at the same time, its "advertising native" advantage becomes even more obvious.

Toutiao's advantage also lies in the fast updating of its user model. It uses algorithms to interpret the social behaviors of users' Weibo, WeChat , QQ and other accounts, outlines user interests in 5 seconds, and updates the user model within 10 seconds, allowing it to perceive user interests more quickly. Through machine recognition and learning of people, environments, and articles, user tags can be adjusted in real time to understand the user’s current thoughts and reduce promotion miscalculations.

So, what are the characteristics of the Toutiao platform? What issues should we pay attention to in operation and promotion ? Today I will share with you the placement and operation of Toutiao.

Android accounts for as high as 75% of Toutiao's users, with 19 first-tier cities and above accounting for 27.51%; 177 second-, third- and fourth-tier cities accounting for 61.79%; and 132 fifth-tier cities accounting for 10.70%, most of which are concentrated in populous provinces with developed coastal areas or prosperous economies.

User composition: Male users account for 61.61% of Toutiao's users, and they have strong purchasing decision-making power; users aged 24-35 account for more than 50%, and they are the most dynamic young backbone group in society.

User usage habits: mainly concentrated at noon and in the evening; there will be a small peak in reading at 12-13 o'clock; it will gradually increase after about 18:00 in the evening, and the highest peak will be at 21-22 o'clock.

Toutiao is presented in the form of native information flow advertising , supports bidding, has multiple interactive forms such as sharing and liking ( video ads support automatic playback in WIFI environment), and supports third-party data monitoring. Advertising displays are divided into small pictures, large pictures, picture groups and videos.

1. Landing page :

Click the ad area to jump to the landing page, which supports Deeplink and sharing of the landing page. Landing page is the most common supporting form of information flow advertising. It can provide a more detailed introduction of the brand and can realize the functions of collecting accurate customers such as event reservation, registration, and consultation.

2. Make a phone call:

It is displayed directly below the advertisement in the form of a dial button. It is a new feature added based on the landing page. It breaks the cumbersome communication process between users and merchants, and has a higher and more direct conversion rate . It supports multiple button style selections and subtitle beautification, but does not support video ads.

3. Application download:

We can understand it as a combination of landing page and phone call, except that all jumps on the landing page are turned into APP downloads here, and the phone call button is also turned into an application installation style. An advertising form specifically provided for APP promotion . Android applications support direct download of installation packages, while Apple users need to jump to the App Store to download and install. It will be automatically installed after downloading and support application landing page display.

1. User base targeting: supports user base targeting by gender, region and age group. The region can be targeted to province, city, or district; the age groups can be divided into 0-17, 18-23, 24-30, 31-40, and over 40 years old.

2. User environment targeting: supports user environment targeting such as operator, network type, device type, mobile phone brand, and operating system.

3. Channel targeting: supports channel targeting for 6 homepage positions: recommendation, hot spots, video, local, social, and entertainment; supports interest channel targeting for 8 user tags: health, finance, sports, automobiles , military, technology, international, and pictures.

Advertisement review is believed to be a headache for many advertisers and operators. Long review times and failed reviews will have an impact on advertising plans. Let’s take a look at Toutiao’s review mechanism and restrictions.

Industry restrictions: Involving industries with strict Internet regulation, such as medical care, beauty, and finance; involving e-commerce industries such as WeChat business, second-category e-commerce , and franchising; involving social software such as dating and live video, and other illegal industries such as gambling, drugs, and religion.

Content does not meet restrictions on landing pages: ad titles, images, and landing pages are irrelevant, and landing pages cannot be accessed

Copy restrictions: Words that are overly stimulating or tempting

Material restrictions: overly revealing, pornographic, adult content, suggestive images

False Restrictions: Exaggerated, false, or unsubstantiated claims

Infringement restrictions: Unauthorized use of trademarks or character portraits

Special character restrictions: repeated punctuation, special characters, or containing "Toutiao" brand words

Other restrictions: GIF format ads are not accepted, etc.

1. Gaming industry:

NetEase Onmyoji uses "picture set + H5 landing page" to set up different types of advertisements such as card drawing, shikigami, two-dimensional, cute girls, picture quality, and plot. Through targeted WiFi environment and iOS system users under 30 years old, the average click-through rate reached 2%.

2. Online Ticketing:

Piaoniu is an online ticketing platform that targets high-spending people aged 18-40 in Beijing through "large pictures + H5 landing pages". After 10 days of promotion, the average click-through rate reached 2%, exceeding customer expectations.

3. Automotive aftermarket:

Tuhu Auto Maintenance targeted the 24-49 year old group through “picture set + H5 landing page”, highlighted the key needs of customers in the copywriting materials, and increased the ROI by 100% compared with other platforms in one month.

Today, Toutiao has covered 60% of China's smartphones, with products constantly being updated and more and more content producers of higher and higher quality. In terms of advertising, the targeting dimensions are constantly being subdivided and becoming more precise, making it the mainstream information flow promotion channel chosen by advertisers.