Decrypting the traffic distribution mechanism of the live broadcast room

In previous tweets, the editor shared the importance of reviewing live streaming sales and how to conduct effective data review. Many friends agreed and shared after reading it, and left messages in the background to ask questions about the traffic in the live streaming room.

Indeed, for live broadcast rooms that are still in the growth stage, especially brand live broadcast rooms and personal store live broadcast rooms, it is difficult to directly obtain traffic from the platform without the protagonist halo of the anchor KOL. No one is watching the live broadcast room, which has become the primary dilemma faced by many live broadcast teams.

Taking Douyin live broadcast as an example, we will analyze from three aspects: traffic distribution mechanism , factors affecting traffic distribution , and suggestions for obtaining recommended traffic . This article will explain why most brands, stores, and personal live broadcast rooms usually have only a few dozen people online, as well as how to optimize and increase live broadcast room traffic in a targeted manner.

1. Traffic distribution mechanism of platform live broadcast room

Before thinking about why no one is watching the live broadcast room, you must first understand the platform’s core mechanisms and rules for traffic distribution. For the TikTok platform, smart distribution , traffic pool , and decentralization are its obvious features.

1. Intelligent distribution

The Douyin system usually gives four types of traffic recommendations for newly released videos or live broadcast rooms:

(1) First, it is distributed to the followers of the account, because the followers have the strongest relationship link with the account;

(2) The second is the address book friends or people you may know . The prerequisite here is that you need to grant the APP permission to call the mobile phone address book and enable the address book friends to be visible in the APP;

(3) Then there are local recommendations . For accounts in the early stages of growth, local recommendations are the first wave of push notifications.

(4) Finally, there are users with relevant tags . The system will first label each account and content, and then recommend the video or live broadcast room to accounts with the same or similar system tags, and spread it within a small traffic pool.

2. Traffic pool

The first three points mentioned in the above intelligent distribution, whether fans or address book friends, are negligible in number compared to the platform's hundreds of millions of DAU. Moreover, the same-city traffic that the system can recommend is quite limited. Therefore, if you want to obtain more free traffic from the platform, traffic pool recommendation is crucial.

As mentioned above, for newly released videos or live broadcast rooms, the platform will first provide a small traffic pool based on tags to recommend the content to people who may be interested for testing. During the test, the system will evaluate the feedback data generated by the spread of the video or live broadcast room in this traffic pool. If the data feedback is good, it means that the content quality is excellent and users like it. Then the system will expand the recommended traffic pool and the content will be able to get more traffic recommended by the platform. If the user data fed back by the first wave of traffic pool is not good, the system will not continue to recommend the next layer of traffic.

The more important question is what are the data dimensions of the traffic pool test evaluation, which mainly include the following:

Likes, comments, reposts, followers, video completion rate

Knowing these evaluation criteria, we should find ways to increase likes, comments, reposts, and follows when we first release the content, so that users can play the video to the end and stay in the live broadcast room to watch as long as possible. The published content must have a high interaction rate and good viewing data, so that it will be judged as high-quality content by the system and have the opportunity to continuously increase traffic.

3. Decentralization

The so-called decentralization means that for the platform, maintaining the continuous, healthy and balanced development of the entire ecosystem is the most important thing. Therefore, from the perspective of the platform, we do not want to see all the traffic concentrated in a few big V accounts. The platform will limit the distribution of new traffic to big V accounts to a certain extent and distribute more traffic dividends to new high-quality accounts.

This decentralized balancing mechanism will not cause the platform ecology to become unbalanced, and it will be a great attraction for new creators, and will attract more people to participate in the construction of the content ecology. Of course, the most important thing is high-quality content creation.

2. Factors affecting live broadcast room traffic distribution

After understanding the platform’s traffic distribution mechanism, what are the specific factors that affect traffic distribution for live streaming sales? Let's think about it from another perspective.

First of all, it should be made clear that user traffic is the platform’s most core asset. The platform is not doing charity and will not allocate free traffic to you for no reason. Since selling goods in the live broadcast room can get platform traffic recommendations, it must be in line with the principle of maximizing platform interests. From this perspective, we can conclude that there are at least the following influencing factors:

1. Live broadcast room UV value: GMV / total number of viewers

The platform charges fees in proportion to the total sales of the live broadcast room. The larger the GMV of the live broadcast room, the more beneficial it is to the platform. From this point of view, live broadcast rooms with high UV value are more favored by the platform than those with low UV value. Theoretically, the greater the traffic entering the high UV value live broadcast room, the higher the final transaction GMV will be, and the platform's direct profits will be maximized.

2. Interaction rate of live broadcast room: comments, likes, and reposts

In addition to the direct benefits of GMV fees, the platform needs to firmly bind users to the platform from the perspective of long-term development, so the platform will definitely vigorously support and promote content that users like. Users who are interested in the live broadcast room will definitely be happy to interact with it, which is directly reflected in the comments, likes, forwarding and sharing data within the live broadcast room.

3. Live broadcast room conversion rate: number of followers / total number of viewers

Similarly, in addition to users, another core asset of the platform is content creators. In addition to retaining users, creators must also be retained. When it comes to live streaming sales, the anchor team cares most about the growth of fans, in addition to the increase in GMV. On the one hand, a live broadcast room with a high fan conversion rate shows that users like the live broadcast room and enhances user stickiness; on the other hand, the growth of fans can also give positive feedback to the anchor team, prompting them to develop in the platform ecosystem for a long time.

(Data source: Feigua Investment, the above data has been authorized by the customer and anonymized)

4. Paid traffic in live broadcast room

Many people have a misunderstanding about paid traffic in live broadcast rooms, thinking that it is a "pass" paid to the platform, and that since they have paid for advertising, the platform will more or less allocate some extra free traffic.

In fact, the core function of paid traffic in the live broadcast room is to bring seed traffic to the live broadcast room. By operating the seed traffic, it can strengthen and improve their data on interaction, attention, and order conversion in the live broadcast room, turning the live broadcast room into a high-quality live broadcast room defined by the system, thereby obtaining more free traffic distribution from the system. This is the essence of using paid traffic to leverage free traffic.

3. Obtain platform recommended traffic optimization suggestions

Now that we already know the platform traffic recommendation mechanism and the factors that affect traffic distribution, how can we find the right remedy to get free traffic? Here are some optimization suggestions:

1. Optimize live broadcast title and cover

A good title and cover can generate interest and trust in users, attracting them to click and stay for a long time. The increase in user retention time creates space for anchors to carry out other guiding behaviors.

(Data source: Feigua Investment, the above data has been authorized by the customer and anonymized)

2. Guide fans to comment, like, forward and follow

There is no need to explain the importance of fans' reposts, comments, likes and attention data. The live broadcast room can mobilize the atmosphere of the live broadcast room and guide fans to increase interaction through raffles, limited-time flash sales, and distribution of welfare products. For example, if a certain number of fans like the post, a lucky draw will be held, or welfare products will be put on the shelves.

3. Paid traffic delivery and short video publishing to attract traffic

The live broadcast time of brands and personal stores is usually several hours or more than ten hours, so it is inevitable that the number of people online may fluctuate at different times. This requires the live broadcast operation team to set up paid advertising plans in advance based on the habits and characteristics of the live broadcast room and arrange the release rhythm of short videos to attract traffic. Try to ensure that no matter which live broadcast period, there are always a certain number of people online in the live broadcast room who can be used for traffic data operations.

(Data source: Feigua Investment, the above data has been authorized by the customer and anonymized)

As more and more brands, stores, and individuals join the live streaming e-commerce race, competition for live streaming traffic is becoming increasingly fierce, and traffic diversion work will run through the entire live streaming process.

Author: Feigua Zhitou

Source: Feigua Investment