After reading this, do you still dare to say that you are doing information flow advertising?

It is an indisputable fact that the entire Chinese mobile advertising market is ruthlessly eroding the advertising budget that should have belonged to traditional media, reaching 103 billion in 2015 and 163 billion in 2016. Some institutions have predicted that this "giant baby" will exceed 220 billion in 2017. Behind this terrifying growth, the booster role is played by an "old engine" - information flow advertising .

The reason why it is called "old" is that as early as ten years ago, Facebook proposed the concept of information flow advertising in the field of mobile marketing . This advertising product from ten years ago unexpectedly ushered in a new round of "explosion" in 2016.

Information flow market

Very big! Very big!

According to the latest data released by eMarketer, the revenue of various types of information flow advertising in China in 2016 was approximately 24 billion yuan, and by 2017, the same figure is "conservatively" estimated to exceed 36 billion yuan. It is even more likely that for every 5 yuan of budget you spend, 1 yuan is contributed to Feeds AD.

Information flow advertising will be a huge piece of cake, and this view seems to have become the consensus of all Internet advertising practitioners. Among the representatives, in addition to Toutiao , there is another giant that cannot be avoided in the field of Internet advertising - Baidu.

Baidu has an annual revenue of over 60 billion yuan. Its information flow is still a newborn internally, but it carries "unlimited" expectations.

Regarding this future core commercial product, Huang Yan, senior director of Baidu's display advertising, said, "In 2015, information flow advertising and traditional display advertising each accounted for half of the U.S. market. After that, there will be a golden cross between the two, and it is estimated that by 2018, the proportion of information flow advertising will reach 65%. This year, the overall market for information flow advertising will grow by nearly 100%. And Baidu's information flow market volume and share will also soar to the surprise of everyone."

It has to be said that Baidu holds a good hand when it comes to information flow. Baidu has the largest reserve of Chinese content on the Internet; traffic is naturally its core competitiveness, not to mention the team of more than 100 creative optimization service experts behind Baidu products. Combined with the artificial intelligence that Baidu is focusing on, Baidu is trying to help advertisers directly hit the "most vulnerable line of defense" in the user's heart from the intent end.

Information flow advertising has become

Things that must be done

The most core feature of information flow advertising is “information finds people”. To be honest, I really like this summary. It is 100% efficient. If we use the mindset of a science student to break down this sentence, there are three words in total, and all three words are key: "information", "search", and "people".

"information":

This content-based product is also the inevitable choice in an era when traffic is becoming increasingly expensive and every company is striving to obtain new advertising dividends from the content side. Information = content.

"try to find":

The unchanging topic in digital marketing, whether it is data or algorithms, is just to “get it right”. However, this time the path is reversed, with “information” coming first and “people” coming second.

"people":

In marketing, wherever there are people, there is your world. Now, where people’s attention is, there is your world.

The corresponding translations of these three words for information flow are “information”, “search” and “people” are “content”, “precision” and “Eye-catching”.

These three basic principles seem simple, but they are extremely difficult to achieve. To put it bluntly, it all depends on the accumulation of user portrait data. When it comes to the online advertising market, the company that cannot be avoided is naturally Baidu. In Q4 2016, after the giant Baidu announced its entry into the information flow market, everyone was taking a wait-and-see attitude. The reason was that Baidu's previous business model was "people looking for information", but now its content distribution has taken a completely opposite path.

After talking for so long, what is so special about Baidu's information flow advertising, which has been online for 200 days, that it can win the unanimous favor of advertisers? We can get some clues from the following cases.

"The Great Wall" information flow targeted promotion

Content, content

The perfect closed loop of information flow has led to a rise in both word-of-mouth and box office

Total exposure: 300,000,000+

Content marketing + information flow advertising two-pronged approach

200% increase in conversion rate

In traditional film promotion, celebrity roadshows have always been the mainstream method used by film producers to spread word of the film and increase theater screenings. However, the creators often travel all over the country, but the number of users they can ultimately reach is very limited. With the combination of AI technology and the film industry, film promotion and marketing now have the option of a "one-stop intelligent solution".

Take Zhang Yimou's film "The Great Wall" as an example. Before its release, Baidu used 2 million user tags based on 1 billion active users and traceable data to comprehensively profile users, screen out heavy movie lovers, overseas blockbuster fans and war movie fans, and deliver targeted advertisements to these three groups of people.

During the release period, Baidu connected the underlying data of Nuomi, Sogou and Tieba to facilitate direct purchases by users. At the same time, it also helped the film form a new round of word-of-mouth communication by intelligently capturing high-quality original film reviews from Tieba and Nuomi, creating a perfect closed loop.

Mercedes-Benz AMG launches voice interaction

Eye-catching

Black technology smart manufacturing possible experiential marketing online

730,000+ people participated in the interaction within one week of launch

Click-through rate exceeds the automotive industry average by 50%

You may have seen advertisements with pictures and texts, but have you ever seen an advertisement that can be played? When Mercedes-Benz joins hands with Baidu information flow and combines voice recognition technology to bring about a contest between "sound" and "speed", you may fall in love with this advertisement.

After clicking on Mercedes-Benz's information flow ad and entering the interactive interface, users can shout "Start the challenge" to experience the passion of speed; "Pass the curve" to control precisely; "Sprint, sprint" to feel the car's surging power... This series of smooth and cool voice interactions allows users to experience the kingly spirit and extraordinary speed of AMG in an immersive way.

Data shows that within just one week of the ad being online, the number of participants exceeded 730,000+, and the click-through rate exceeded the automotive industry average by 50%. If the barriers of time and space make the car driving experience a dark sea, then Baidu's intent engine and artificial intelligence technology are the innovative forces that cut through space and transcend time.

In addition, Baidu's information flow ads can also support cutting-edge technologies such as smart AR , game development, and micro-film implantation to create immersive experience advertising, so that the brand is no longer a cold LOGO, but something that can be touched, perceived, and even able to express emotions autonomously.

New Oriental cooking information flow delivery

People's Stories

Big data intelligent analysis of the secrets of popular advertising

The average daily form data is over 1000

Online consultation button clicks 25,000+

The cost per lead is less than 100, much lower than other channels

The channels of traditional companies have collapsed due to the new lifestyle brought about by mobile Internet . The change in the sources of information obtained by young people has made the market lose its sensitivity to consumers. This may be a common anxiety among marketers . A wrong understanding of the target group may cause a brand to adopt wrong marketing methods and ultimately become a loser.

Against the backdrop of increasingly elusive consumers, New Oriental Cooking School and Baidu’s information flow advertising fought a beautiful campaign. According to in-depth data, New Oriental’s target audience aged 18-25 are more interested in “fresh meat” and “beautiful girls”. Therefore, Baidu’s information flow ads adjusted the title accordingly, “I heard that all the students who come to New Oriental to learn cooking are young and handsome people born after 1995. Come on board, I’ll go anywhere,” and received more clicks than expected.

Before optimization

After optimization

Imaginative copywriting always needs to hit the pain points of consumers. In the presentation of the copy in the information flow advertisements, Baidu seized on the target audience's curiosity about the campus environment and created suspense to attract the public to find out more about New Oriental.

In addition, Baidu also matched the information flow ads with advertising pictures that include school atmosphere and learning status to cater to the psychological insight that "everyone is a visual animal." Precise strategies bring high visits. After New Oriental Cooking’s information flow ads were launched , the number of clicks on the online consultation button reached 25,000+, and the search cost was much lower than other channels.

AI

Can it really help?

It is not difficult to see from these three cases that information flow advertising now and in the future actually tests technical capabilities. As early as last year at Baidu's MOMENTS conference, Zheng Zibin, vice president of Baidu's big business system, mentioned that Baidu's information flow advertising is an "immersive" native advertising that is interspersed in Baidu's information flow with the help of Baidu's big data, intent targeting, intelligent delivery and other leading technologies.

Behind this is the Intent Engine, which has three major capabilities: user profiling, knowledge graph, scene recognition and local services. It can accurately target audiences, intelligently predict and stimulate users' potential needs, and make communication between brands and users generate real value. This is also one of the advantageous weapons of Baidu's new business brand "Intelligence and Power".

Today, marketing has entered the era of artificial intelligence, and the competition will be about who can better understand users' minds and provide more immediate and personalized feedback and solutions. "Currently, Baidu is exploring a marketing method that combines information flow with hot topics, celebrity entertainment, and localized services. Based on artificial intelligence data analysis , it can cater to user preferences and give consumers more 'resonance', thereby enhancing brand favorability." Zeng Hua, general manager of Baidu's large customer department, said. It can be foreseen that with the further development of artificial intelligence technology, Baidu will bring new imagination space to intelligent marketing.

As for the future of information flow, we are not just looking forward to it, we are creating history; as for the future of Baidu's information flow, we are not just looking forward to it, we are witnessing history.