He Pengde, former BD director of Sohu and Baidu, talks about app promotion: How to help the App promotion team save 30 million promotion budget every year!

He Pengde

Former wireless BD director of Sohu and Baidu, with over 10 years of experience in the mobile Internet + IT training industry. With a promotion budget of hundreds of millions and experience in app promotion for more than 200 million users. He is currently the BD director of GSX, and is mainly responsible for traffic operations of PC, App, H5, manufacturer pre-installation, SEO , and SEM .

Choice of promotion channels: App store is the core, and all four channels should be grasped

Today we will discuss App promotion, which involves both startup products and mature large company products. Their promotion strategies are slightly different. Generally speaking, the channels of APP promotion teams are mainly divided into two types: online and offline. In terms of the large promotion system, it is divided into four channels: app store, mobile advertising alliance , pre-installation, and flashing. To sum it up in one sentence: the app store is the core and all four channels must be grasped.

>>Online channels include app stores, mobile advertising alliances, mobile browsers , super apps, etc.

The app store is the most core channel for promoting online apps. Its advantages are large download volume and high activity. The core channels include: App Store, Baidu Mobile Assistant , Tencent App Store , 360 Mobile Assistant , PP Assistant , Xiaomi Store, Huawei Store, OPPO, VIVO Mobile Assistant, etc. At present, the cooperation models of mobile application stores are mainly CPC, CPT, and CPS. The cooperation models of different types of products are different. In summary, large products are suitable for CPT, such as video or reading apps; small products are suitable for CPC, such as the vertical products of a large number of startups; and game products are suitable for CPS.

App stores are gradually shifting their business model to CPC, which is similar to Baidu Fengchao's paid ranking. Under this general trend, when entrepreneurs choose the direction of App, they should try to cover more people and avoid choosing vertical niche Apps to avoid huge waste of promotion funds.

Mobile advertising alliances are also high-quality online promotion channels. The more representative channels include Tencent Guangdiantong , Baidu Alliance, WeChat Moments Advertising, Toutiao, Sohu Huisuan, Sina Fuyi, Duomeng, etc. Most mobile advertising alliances charge based on CPC or CPA. As they belong to the traffic aggregation platform of BAT or super apps, advertising alliances often have huge traffic and are suitable for products with large budgets and a relatively broad user base.

Personally, I do not recommend that startups with niche products put a large number of ads into mobile advertising alliances. The products are too vertical to attract much traffic, and there is not enough money to invest. Startups still need to work hard to improve product experience while expanding their user base. Let me give you a simple example to illustrate why small products are not suitable for affiliate promotion. Suppose someone has an ad space that is displayed 1,000 times a day, and the promotion of Sohu Video has 50 activations a day, each activation costs 1 yuan, and the total income is 50 yuan. The number of activated copies of your small product may be 10, and you must pay an activation cost of 5 yuan to have a chance to compete for this position. If the cost is too high, you will not be able to compete.

Mobile browsers and super apps are also high-quality online channels, but we will not discuss them in detail due to limited time.

The personnel of the online team are generally divided according to platforms and channels. For example, iOS, Android, and Windows Phone are each managed by several people, and each person is responsible for several different channels. The benefits of this setup are:

First: It is convenient to conduct quantitative KPI assessment based on channels and assign KPI responsibilities to individuals.

Second: The core channels can clearly identify responsible persons and work tasks can be quickly advanced.

>>Offline channels include pre-installation by mobile phone manufacturers, pre-installation by operators, flashing by dealers, flashing by chain stores, etc.

As early as 2011, I was in charge of online pre-installation at Sohu, and at that time we were competing for this market with Youku and iQiyi. This industry has now become very mature and commercialized. All the big players are involved, and there are not many opportunities for small and medium-sized apps.

Pre-installed apps by mobile phone manufacturers refer to apps that have been built into the mobile phone before the factory, which were previously divided into international and domestic. In recent years, domestic mobile phone manufacturers have grown rapidly and become stronger. Huawei, Xiaomi, Lenovo, OPPO, VIVO, Meizu and others have achieved huge shipments. If the mobile phone App is in the top 3 of the category and has a wide user base, this cooperation model has great room for development.

The difference between flashing and pre-installing is that ROM flashing is the one that is circulated through the channels after leaving the factory, while pre-installing is the one that is circulated before leaving the factory. There are four major flashing companies in the industry, including Tianyin, Ashida, and Dingkai United. In addition, mobile phone stores are also relatively large channels for flashing phones.

Pre-installing and flashing mobile phones are relatively commercial forms of cooperation. At this stage, most channels must pay, so many small companies and small products can be excluded. Not every app from a large company has the chance to be pre-installed. Manufacturers need to consider the app’s industry ranking, whether user coverage matches the model, budget, bug status, etc.

>>Summary

If it is a product of a startup company, it is recommended to focus on online and the core is in the store. If it is a company with money and resources, it can promote in the order of stores, browsers, alliances, super apps, pre-installation, and flashing.

Practical tips : Spend money wisely, these few suggestions can save 30 million

>>Word-of-mouth marketing is very important, downloads and comments are increasing

We have talked about some high-end promotion methods before, but we didn’t talk about how to save money. For some startups, it is really annoying when the product is just launched and there is no brand awareness, download volume, or comments, and occasionally there are a few bad reviews. Here are a few things you can do:

First: write a PR press release. This PR should be eye-catching, the topic should be enough to become the focus of social attention and challenge existing cognition, but don't make up stories at random. Design a hot spot so that others can see that this can be done this way? I believe that attracting the attention of many people in the industry will bring you a lot of popularity.

Second, increase the number of downloads and 5-star reviews to improve your image. There is often such a joke in WeChat groups : Nowadays, the number of downloads of apps in a certain store is tens of millions. If you don’t have millions of downloads, you are embarrassed to say hello to others. Although this is a bit exaggerated, it does reveal a reality: apps without millions of downloads are basically drowned out.

Suppose you are a video app, and your competitors are in the same category, you should first monitor the download volume and ranking of your competitors in the store. Assuming the other party has 100 million downloads, then you must at least achieve 50 million or even more. If you have money, just spend it hard. If you don’t have money, you have to find a way to make it like this.

>> Budget control is important, and spending efficiency should be improved

For large products, it is normal to have an App budget of over 100 million per year, but how to spend the money well is more important. There is no way to expand on this, so let’s just give a small example.

Pay too much attention to the return point and ignore the professional capabilities of the service provider. For example, many people place information flow ads, paying special attention to the return point. Let’s take an example. If 3 million is spent on Guangdiantong every month, agent A will get a 3% return and agent B will get a 5% return. However, agent A can achieve 1.5 yuan/CPA through optimization, while agent B can only achieve 3 yuan/CPA. At this time, no matter how many rebates you get, it is meaningless, so by improving the effectiveness of spending, one channel can save tens of millions.

>> Location selection for store advertising

If it is placed in a store, the effect brought by the first or second screen position will generally be better than that of a banner image, because banner images usually slide frame by frame, and the position of a picture may vary from 4 to 8 frames. In this way, the effect will be greatly reduced even if it is positioned at the front. But there are some special cases, such as PP stores, where the banner will be more effective.

>>First, the timing

In the past few years, the first release would give a very good position, but now that stage has passed, so I suggest choosing the former between quick release and first release. For example: a product is tested and packaged before the end of get off work on Friday, but you scheduled the first release date for next Wednesday. So do you need to wait for the five days in between? I don’t think it’s necessary to wait. A team of dozens of people is working overtime on this product. It’s finally out and should be iterated quickly.

>>The core is product quality

How can an APP stand out from the competition? I think the most important thing is product quality, and promotion channels are just icing on the cake. The products are the same for rich and poor companies, and everyone starts from the same starting line. The video industry is a truly content (money) driven industry. Whoever has the copyright is powerful. For example, popular dramas such as "The Voice of China" and "The Legend of Miyue" can bring in tens of millions of new users. However, some people have successfully counterattacked by relying on low-cost self-made dramas, such as "Diaosi Nanren" and "U Can U Bibi". Good products are the foundation of Internet companies.

Pay attention to details: some advice to remember

Suggestion 1: Be careful with banner images and other materials

Many online channels, especially information flow ads and advertising alliances, have a large number of operating positions and require graphic designers to design banner images. These images should be updated every 2 or 3 days. If the image captures the user's pain points, and you spend a little time making it, the cost can be reduced by 30% compared to not spending any time on it. Assuming that your company has a budget of 30 million to invest in information flow advertising, if the materials and creativity are good, you can save at least 10 million. However, this is a dirty and tiring job. It is difficult to evaluate the results if you don’t understand the business, and your boss won’t even notice how hard you’ve worked.

Suggestion 2: Outsource all the review work and don’t waste your time

You can just outsource the review process. Don't send emails to all employees asking them to write positive reviews. This is too inefficient. The most frightening thing is to be busy for nothing, not getting any results and wasting a lot of time.

Suggestion 3: Major iOS bugs can be reviewed quickly

When a major bug occurs in an iOS product, it can be reviewed quickly . I often see some companies’ products have serious bugs and take two weeks to resolve, but if they are quickly reviewed, they can be put online within 24 hours.

Suggestion 4: 80% of the startup team’s budget should be placed online

This is only applicable to startups and niche vertical products, not large products. My advice to startup products is that when you don’t have the pre-installation capability, you should consider whether to put 80% of your budget online, especially in stores and boosting downloads.

Recommendation 5: Big products should pay attention to Windows Phone

Companies with strong capabilities can pay attention to Windows Phone. In fact, there are still millions of shipments every year. Because WP is relatively closed, if you do it well, it is relatively easy to achieve thousands of activations per day.