A brief analysis of the commercial monetization strategy of automotive apps

The editor has received a small request for interactive optimization of the search function these days, so I recorded the analysis and experience. Since I am mainly responsible for commercial monetization work on a daily basis, there may be some shortcomings in the article. You are welcome to discuss and correct me.

It also provides some work ideas for friends who are doing competitive adjustments or function optimization. Before analyzing the differences in their search product interaction strategies, let’s first take a brief look at the past and present of these two apps.

1. Autohome VS Dongchedi

1. Autohome

Founded in June 2005, it originated from the Autohome Forum in the PC era. Later, by defining various standardized car selection tools, it built the most complete car garage system in the Internet field, attracting a large number of car consumers and car enthusiasts.

Through years of hard work, in the automotive field where brand manufacturers are strong, we have gradually completed the layout of the market from pre-sales to after-sales based on "auto media, auto e-commerce, auto finance, and auto life." It has successfully cultivated the user mindset of "going to Autohome for viewing, buying and using cars" and has occupied a dominant position in the field of Internet cars.

2. Dongchedi

It was launched in August 2017. It originated from the automobile channel of Toutiao. In the early days, it obtained rich media resources through the traffic and technical support of Toutiao. It launched the Emperor's Plan to recruit automobile KOLs from the entire network to further consolidate its advantages, and gradually completed the construction of the car model library. Its vision is to become the most trusted automobile information and service platform.

It is not difficult to see from the above brief introduction that although both products are leading players in the field of Internet cars. However, when DoCar entered the market, Autohome was already the industry leader and had successfully captured a large number of brand manufacturers and C-end users. DoCar had to find another way to enter the market.

Autohome defines its mission as "helping consumers buy and use cars", while DoCar.com defines its mission as "enjoying cars".

In other words, Autohome is an automotive app that focuses more on efficiency, while DoCar.com focuses more on entertainment interaction and information sharing. The commercial emphasis of a product often determines its style, and the following comparative analysis of the search functions of the two apps will confirm the above conclusion.

2. Search function entry

Both companies layout the search entrance at the top of the homepage, displayed in the style of a search box. Here we can see the importance of the search function for automotive apps. It is worth mentioning that although Autohome displays 3 recommended phrases in the search bar, the search recommendation phrase of Dongchedi will have one more advertising exposure.

However, every time Autohome is cold-started, the search bar first displays "Please enter keywords" for about 5 seconds, and then changes to a recommended phrase display in a loop. Through a brief prompt, while ensuring business monetization, it can also clearly guide novice users on the usage scenarios of this function.

3. Search Page

The overall layout of the search pages of Autohome and Dongchedi is basically the same, mainly divided into the following three modules:

1. Search page—search bar and recommended words

In the search bar and search recommendation words section, Autohome puts the highest-weighted recommended word in the search bar displayed in the previous step into the search box. Quick search can be performed using the search button on the keyboard or the search button in the upper right corner.

While DoCar.com puts the most heavily weighted recommended phrase displayed at the search entrance into the search box, it also adds two more recommended phrases into the recommendation column based on the site-wide search recommendation algorithm.

The designs here have their own merits, and the editor prefers the design interaction of Autohome. There is no clear guidance for the display interaction of the recommended words of Dongchedi, and users cannot concisely understand the reasons for the display of the last two words. Of course, this may be caused by Dongchedi’s different monetization strategies here.

2. Search Page - Search History

When looking at the search history section, at first glance, the designs of the two apps are basically the same. The only difference may be in the display space.

Autohome displays one line of historical records by default. Clicking the expand button will display the full amount, with a maximum of three lines of historical data. However, DoCar displays all historical records by default, with a maximum of two lines. The difference in the size of the display area comes from the overall layout of the page.

The search and discovery modules of Autohome are mostly displayed in the style of information flow, so the display area of ​​the search and discovery will be increased as much as possible on the first screen to increase the exposure space; while the search and discovery modules of DoCar are displayed in the form of a list, and the required display area is smaller, so other modules are needed to supplement the display area to meet the visual richness of the overall page.

3. Search Page - Search Discovery

The two apps have obvious differences in their product operation strategies in the search and discovery module:

Let’s first look at the search and discovery module of Autohome. This module consists of four tabs: "My Subscriptions", "Search Discovery", "Search Index", and "Real-time Hotspots". The "Search Discovery" tab is displayed by default.

• My subscriptions and searches revealed that the main content is high-quality advertising articles from manufacturers and agents, which aim to monetize shopping and efficiently provide users with guidance on car purchase decisions.
• Search Index: When the selected attention list, new car launches, and price reduction list are the three most important factors that influence users' car buying decisions, they cater to users' mindsets when looking at and buying cars. The selected list of car home authors and the number of clicks on hot forum posts cater to manufacturers and agents, increase their exposure, and enrich the overall content dimension of the list.
• Real-time hot spots: Compared with the other three tabs, the content of this tab is relatively useless. It mainly uses articles about new car product launches and sudden hot topics in the past three days as the carrier, interspersed with advertising soft articles and live broadcast entrances.

Autohome focuses on efficiency-oriented APPs, so users use the search function more often in business scenarios of selecting and buying cars. Therefore, it is more reasonable to display a large proportion of information on this page to provide users with guidance in car purchase decisions.

Another important reason is that Autohome has accumulated resources in the industry for more than ten years, which enables it to produce hundreds of thousands of high-quality soft articles per week, providing strong resource support for its intelligent information flow display on search pages.

The search and discovery module of DoCar.com consists of six tabs: "Search and Discovery", "Hot Search List", "Best Selling List", "Program List", "Author List" and "User List". The "Search and Discovery" tab is displayed by default.

• Search discovery and hot search lists can be classified into one category, both of which are tabs for strong monetization operations. The content found by search mainly includes the latest advertising articles, advertising activities, and exposure positions of brand advertisements, while the hot search list is the hot search history ranking of advertising articles found by search;
• The best-selling list and the program list can be classified into the same category, both of which guide car buyers to make purchasing decisions through the herd mentality. It also provides brand exposure for manufacturers and agents. The best-selling list is a regular list of e-commerce transactions, which provides users with guidance on car buying decisions. The program list provides users with guidance on car buying decisions through popular program KOLs in the industry.
• The author list and user list can be classified into one category, both of which are to establish the authority and expose the KOLs in the industry forums. The author list is used to expose KOL users who produce content within the product, thereby promoting stable output efficiency. The user list is to expose KOL users who consume content within the product, promoting a steady increase in user stickiness.

Although DoCar.com is also planning a commercial monetization strategy for its search and discovery module, it is not as strong as Autohome. This may be because Dongchedi positions itself as a car enjoyer, focusing more on entertainment and information sharing rather than an efficient tool for buying cars.

Another important reason is that Dochedi started late and did not have the strong resource support of Autohome, which produces 100,000 stickers per week.

4. Search Results Page

The search results page is the most important part of the entire search function. This article will only analyze the product display strategy of the search results page, and will not analyze the search completeness and precision. Autohome and Autohome both use multiple tabs to classify the result content in the display layout of the search results.

It is not difficult to find out from the priority of classification that, in addition to the comprehensive tab, the first priority of Autohome is still the high-quality advertising articles of manufacturers and agents. The high-quality articles on special cars can provide users with more efficient and accurate judgments on car purchase decisions; and the main priority of DoCar.com, in addition to the comprehensive tab, is to find cars and video resources.

There are two reasons. The high priority of the car search tab is because the display of result content in the comprehensive tab focuses more on information sharing and interaction, rather than the efficient tool display of Autohome. This part will be analyzed in detail in the following content.

The reason why video resources are prominent is that Dongchedi is backed by platforms such as Toutiao, Douyin, and Xigua Video, and its video resources are much richer than other content types.

There are many strategies involved in the result page. The following article will only briefly analyze the content display strategies of the result comprehensive tab for the two main search scenarios: searching for brands and searching for car series/models.

1. Comprehensive tab for brand search results page

When the search term is determined to be a certain car brand, the comprehensive tab of the search results page of Autohome and Autohome.com is displayed as shown in the following figure:

The content display of Autohome’s comprehensive tab can be divided into five modules: commercial advertising group, brand tool group, content matrix group, business entrance group and supporting information flow.

1. Commercial advertising group: The manufacturer advertising group placed at the top consists of 1-3 manufacturer advertisements and 4 advertising style templates. The display is divided into brands, car series and models according to the strength of cooperation with manufacturers. Expose high-value car models through advertising to increase lead conversion, i.e. monetization;
2. Brand Tool Group: Although the visual style here is very similar to the brand site in the ad group, the positioning is different. This module is more tool-oriented, and its purpose is to help users obtain search targets more effectively. The brand car series displayed through algorithm sorting and the increase of inquiry and monetization entrances can increase the number of lead conversions;
3. Content matrix group: Since the first screen is mostly displayed in the form of car purchase realization, the second screen and above will display content results based on the search terms. Types include related articles, videos, pictures, short videos, and hot topics. Each small module occupies no more than one screen area. It can more effectively meet users' needs for search direction. Improve the breadth and depth of search accuracy;
4. Business entry group: After the search content is displayed, it takes over the corresponding entrances of each sub-module. Provide effective assistance for attracting traffic to business scenarios, mainly including relevant recommendations, dealers, used cars, and 10% down payment.

The content display of the comprehensive tab of Dochedi can be divided into three modules: brand tools, live broadcast entrance, and content matrix. The strategies of the brand tools and content matrix are similar to those of the corresponding modules of Autohome, while the live broadcast entrance is the core resource advantage and industry entry point of Dongchedi.

2. Comprehensive tab for car series/model search results page

When the search term is determined to be a certain car brand, the comprehensive tab of the search results page of Autohome and Autohome.com is displayed as shown in the figure below.

The content display of Autohome’s comprehensive tab can be divided into six modules: commercial advertising group, vehicle model tool group, quotation matrix, content matrix group, business entrance group and supporting information flow. The comprehensive tab displays of commercial advertisements, business portals, content matrices and brands are similar and will not be repeated here.

• Vehicle model tools: Move the core parameter types that affect the car purchase decision to the result page, such as the suggested price, production method, vehicle type, header image, and models on sale, and set up an inquiry entrance. It is convenient for users to quickly complete the inquiry operation after understanding the vehicle model information. Improve lead conversion.
• Quotation Matrix: When users are purchasing a car, one of the biggest factors that influences their car purchasing decision is price. Displaying prices by business scenario allows users to obtain target information more efficiently and quickly, and promotes the conversion of car purchase leads.
• The [Follow] [Micro Chat] [Get Lowest Price] buttons in the floating bar at the bottom are used to coordinate with the content information of the above six modules. After the user obtains the search information, a quick entry is provided for the user to inquire about the price. The closed-loop design from finding a car, selecting a car, to buying a car has been completed.

In the car series/model search scenario, the display logic of the comprehensive tab of DoCar.com is basically similar to that in the brand word search scenario, so I will not repeat it here.

V. Summary and Thoughts

From the above analysis, it can be found that Autohome is more concerned about the efficiency of commercial monetization. The information provided under the comprehensive tab is mainly aimed at quick monetization or providing users with efficient car purchase decision assistance. Especially in the search scenario of car series/models, there will be a certain loss from the search results page to the model details page.

Autohome moved the key data and functional modules from the vehicle details page to the search results page, thereby reducing the possibility of user loss. However, since DoCar.com is backed by a traffic platform and started late, its monetization methods are limited by its industry position and business scope.

The content it provides is currently more entertainment-oriented and fragmented, which results in its value in providing auxiliary information decision-making in serving car-buying users.

As for automobile community products, content interactivity is not the focus of users' attention, but the ability to provide users with sufficiently comprehensive car-specific content and reference value for car purchasing decisions.

Author:Wonder

Source: Wonder