How to place and optimize information flow promotions such as Toutiao, Guangdiantong, and Baidu?

The outline is as follows:

1. What is information flow advertising? What is an information flow optimizer?

2. What are the information flow advertising promotion platforms?

3. Toutiao (including TikTok) information flow advertising placement and optimization

4. Guangdiantong (including WeChat Moments) advertising placement and optimization

5. Advertising placement and optimization of Baidu information flow (including its products)

6. Comparison of the advantages and disadvantages of major information flow platforms and suggestions for placement

What is information flow advertising? What is an information flow optimizer?

Before talking about information flow advertising, let me first tell you what the second-category e-commerce is, so that you can understand it more easily when reading the text later.

As for the second type of e-commerce, you can simply understand it as being different from the well-known first type of e-commerce such as JD.com, Taobao and Vipshop. Another most notable feature is cash on delivery, and its main target audience is middle-aged and elderly people in third-, fourth-, fifth- and sixth-tier cities.

Hey, doesn’t the above description look a bit like the TV shopping of the old days? Not 998, not 888, just 88, order now. To be honest, this is how I understood it the first time I came into contact with it, hahaha.

What does it have to do with information flow? Because these second-tier e-commerce companies no longer advertise on TV, but instead promote and advertise on Toutiao/TikTok, Tencent Guangdiantong/WeChat Moments, Weibo, etc. to get orders.

What is information flow advertising? To understand it, let’s first talk about information flow. Well, it means literally, the messages scroll by one after another. For example, when you browse Weibo or TikTok, turning the pages or swiping up and down feels like the flow of water.

The advertisement appears while you are scrolling, making you click on it without realizing it. To put it simply, the so-called information flow advertising is to make advertising like content. Different from search bidding ads and video interstitial ads, it is more natural.

What is an information flow optimizer? We call the specialists who engage in information flow advertising information flow optimizers. For example, the people who work on search engines, such as Baidu website ranking optimization, are called SEO optimizers.

What is the main content of the work of an information flow optimizer? If you are working in a company with a detailed division of labor, the main job of an information flow optimizer is to place and optimize accounts for each channel. In simple terms, this is how to spend the least money and get the most orders, which means getting a better ROI.

What are the information flow advertising promotion platforms?

This is the question I had to understand on the first day when I joined my previous employer, a company that focuses on operating second-tier e-commerce platforms. By the way, my position when I entered the company was a senior SEO expert, hahahaha.

If you are a newbie who wants to get into the business of information flow advertising, then you should understand the basic knowledge and also have a general understanding of the characteristics of each information flow advertising platform.

What are the information flow advertising promotion platforms? They are roughly as follows, ranked in no particular order:

1. Toutiao’s Big Data Engine

The company behind Toutiao is Bytedance, which is the parent company of TT (tiktok) that was recently banned by the United States. To be precise, this promotion platform should be called Lu Ban, oh, not the carpentry god Lu Ban, nor the little Lu Ban in Honor of Kings, hahaha.

Of course, this Luban merchant needs to pay a deposit to move in, which will be explained in detail below. In addition, when you watch a few videos on Douyin (it seems to be no more than 5), an ad will pop up, which is also submitted and placed in this background~

2. Tencent Advertising

To be precise, it is called Tencent Guangdiantong, but according to the plan, WeChat Moments advertising does not belong to the channels under Guangdiantong, they are separate. Oh, the advertisement in the public account article (in the middle or at the end of the article) belongs to the GuangDianTong advertising space.

Let me talk a little about advertising space in Moments. Everyone thinks that only BMW and Mercedes-Benz can afford to advertise in Moments, but in fact, that’s not the case, hahaha. As long as you have opened a WeChat advertising account, you only need to recharge 5,000 yuan for the first time.

Of course, according to the current GuangDianTong, core cities: 100~600 yuan/1,000 exposures, key cities: 60~400 yuan/1,000 exposures, other cities: 30~400 yuan/1,000 exposures, 5,000 may be gone in just a few hours. Of course, if you set it precisely, you may be able to invest longer, hahaha.

3. Baidu Information Flow

You read that right, it’s Baidu! Many people think that Baidu only has Baidu bidding ads. NO, Baidu information flow is now one of the three major mainstream information flow platforms. When I invested in Baidu's information flow second-category e-commerce in 2018, Baidu had just entered the second-category market not long ago. Anyone who uses it knows the backend experience, hahaha.

4. Other platforms

Information flow advertising entrances of Weibo Fans, Sina Fuyi, Qutoutiao, Phoenix Fengyu, Ali Huichuan, 360, Zhihu, etc. and various other APPs.

There are so many information flow promotion platforms that it’s dizzying. Let alone investing in all of them, I really don’t know which one is the best? Here I will tell you the next principle: you need to think about where your main users are before making any judgment.

For example, take Toutiao, Tencent and Baidu. Don’t listen to what others say which one is better. Toutiao’s information flow recommendation has a pretty good accurate positioning, and its main audience is indeed middle-aged and elderly people. However, if it invests in Douyin, it will be a little younger.

As for Tencent, it has social attributes and a higher level of natural trust, so many second-tier e-commerce companies have invested in Tencent Guangdiantong. The biggest advantage of Baidu information flow is that it can combine active bidding, so each has its own advantages.

Toutiao (including TikTok) information flow advertising delivery and optimization

1. Toutiao advertising delivery process:

Sign up and open an account - top up - account structure planning - landing page creation - create an ad group - create an ad plan - create ad creatives - set up ad testing - start advertising - monitor data changes - optimize and adjust ads (or increase, pause, or close)

What? I don’t even know who to contact for the first step of signing the contract and opening an account? You can contact us at Qinggua Media.

What if you don’t know how to create an advertisement, a plan, or an idea? You can find an agency to operate the product, and you only need to provide the product and handle the sales (shipping, returns, exchanges, etc.). Of course, if you want to do it yourself, then hire an information flow optimizer.

What? You said you just want to learn how to become an information flow optimizer. What should I do? That's fine too. We actually learned from scratch. First, go to Toutiao's official course center:

https://school.oceanengine.com/

First, learn. Second, find some people who have done the investment and learn from them.

2. Key points for Toutiao advertising optimization:

Before I talk about the main points (of course, this is only the main points as I understand it), let me tell you a little story. When I first submitted the Toutiao article, I accidentally got the wrong type, and within a minute, several thousand dollars were gone from my account. I am grateful to my former employer for not asking me to pay for it, as I should have.

The key points of Toutiao’s optimization are as follows:

A. The first one is advertising copy. (In fact, Guangdiantong and Baidu are similar). Because of good copywriting, the designed advertising images can attract users to click.

How to write good copy? I suggest you read more good marketing copywriting books or advertisements. The fastest way is to see how good advertisements are written by your peers. You know what I mean, hahaha.

B. The second is the diversification of material forms. What's the meaning? You will know it when you actually invest, for example, various sizes of picture materials are needed in the background, and videos are also required. The size of the video should also be designed for horizontal and vertical screens. At the same time, you need to make multiple sets of tests.

C. Pay attention to the delivery time. For example, the evening peak of headlines is 9-11 pm, so you need to arrange it about 1 hour in advance. Of course weekends are different.

D. The orientation must be more precise. Unless your campaign itself is too small and has little traffic, it is recommended not to choose too many traffic words that are irrelevant to you.

E. The core of Toutiao optimization is that your advertising material testing must have a cycle, such as three or five days at most. If it does not work, you may need to change the product. Of course, if it is your own product, you should consider changing the materials.

To optimize Toutiao, first check whether there is any exposure, then check the number of orders, and then check the order conversion rate. This group of advertisements will be judged and handled based on the actual delivery situation, whether to maintain, greatly increase, pause, or close.

Guangdiantong (including WeChat Moments) advertising delivery and optimization

1. Guangdiantong advertising delivery process:

A. Contact Tencent or its agent

B. Provide relevant enterprise qualifications to open Tencent advertising promotion account for review

C. Sign the contract and recharge the Tencent social advertising promotion account, usually 5,000 yuan

D. Set up a Tencent advertising account

E. Design creative materials for Tencent advertising

By the way, many people may ask, what is the difference between finding an official license or an agent? In fact, both Tencent and Baidu have authorized them to agents, and there are first- and second-level agents.

The so-called agent account opening is a convention that everyone understands, and there will be rebates if the consumption is high. I won’t disclose it. The rebates on each platform are different, and they are also different from your consumption amount. You can understand the difference between group buying and individual buying. Therefore, this is also a source of income for the agency operation company.

2. Key points for Guangdiantong advertising optimization:

Points A, B, and C in the headlines above are similar. You also need to understand, for example, Guangdiantong and the time when users of Moments mainly spend time.

In addition, let’s talk about the fourth point. Tencent Guangdiantong’s advertising detection is more detailed than Toutiao’s. When I was at my previous employer, we required to check data changes every 30 minutes. So as to avoid unnecessary consumption of our advertising.

In addition, because technology has enabled automatic batch uploading of materials, it actually reduces a lot of repetitive work for information flow optimizers. For example, if I want to test the effect of placing the same material in different positions at the same time through Guangdiantong, then this little tool will be great, hahahaha.

There is another core point in the optimization of Guangdiantong information flow, that is, the volume has increased. This product is actually worth investing in, hahaha.

In short, remember one thing: be bold and careful. Only if you are brave enough, will you run with the orders in large quantities without being afraid of losing control. You have to be careful, because every investment involves money, hahaha.

Of course, I am not saying here that the authenticity of the order and the return and exchange must be considered if the advertisement is placed, whether it is by yourself or by an agent. We also have a special company for calculating the maximum advertising placement. I will not disclose it here as it is an internal secret.

Advertising placement and optimization of Baidu information flow (including its products)

1. Baidu information flow advertising delivery process:

Signing an account - Recharging funds - Account building - Creative production - Landing page production - Data analysis - Delivery optimization

If you have invested in SEM, it will be much easier to invest in Baidu information flow. I won’t talk about opening an account. Let’s talk about account building, which mainly involves planning, unit building and targeting, and bid setting. Target here, you need to prepare keywords in advance, there are 1,000 of them.

In the early stage of account launch, we chose to run keyword targeting. The established model is accurate and will hardly deviate after entering the second stage, and the volume is not small. When you find that the amount of material is decreasing, you can gradually increase the interest/interest expansion orientation. Remember to add slowly and don't select all interests at once.

In addition, interest targeting in Baidu bidding has something different from other platforms: interest expansion. The amount of single interest expansion is relatively large, so in terms of interests, you can try: interest combination, single interest expansion, interest expansion combination.

Regarding bidding, you can place bids based on the market recommendations and then adjust and optimize.

2. Key points for optimizing Baidu information flow ads:

(This picture is not very clear. If you need it, I will ask the Baidu official colleague I contacted before)

A. Observe CTR: Generally, when the exposure is 5000-10000, CTR will be of reference value. If the CTR is too low, you can set a time period/next day delivery to see if there is any change. If it is still low, close this ad.

What, what is CTR? In plain words, it is the click-through rate, which is the actual number of clicks divided by the number of impressions.

B. Observe the front-end conversion: Generally, an advertisement will be observed for 3-5 days. If it has not entered the second stage within 3-5 days, it means that the targeting is too narrow/the conversion cost is too high/there is a problem with the landing page, etc., and it needs to be closed. If you have entered the second stage but the conversion cost is high, continue to observe and make a judgment.

C. Observe the back-end conversion: If the front-end conversion is OK, then observe the back-end conversion. If the backend conversion cost is high, there may be a problem with the ocpc code embedding point on the conversion path. Ask the developer to reconnect it to a more reasonable position. The closer the conversion between the frontend and the backend is, the smaller the error.

What is ocpc? Simply put, it is a smart bidding model. Well, it is a little smarter than CPC. To put it simply, you can set it according to the order quantity. In fact, headlines and other websites all have this. Baidu's OCPC, as I said, charges are based on clicks, hahaha.

Comparison of the advantages and disadvantages of major information flow platforms and suggestions for placement

Note: The following comparison content is from the Internet and is for your reference only.

1. GuangDianTong

Its advertising products include: Tencent Video, Tencent News, QQ Space, browser, mobile APP native, QQ chat window, WeChat public account, WeChat Moments, Tiantian Express, etc.

Advantages: large number of users, wide coverage, high user stickiness, suitable for brand promotion, and also good for second-tier e-commerce investment! It focuses on young users and supports oCPM model.

Disadvantages: Because it is a social platform, I heard that products related to social media are generally not allowed to be posted there.

Advertising suggestions: Identify the user group of your product, clarify the product tone, and target the target group.

2. Weibo Fans Channel

User characteristics: active group, relatively young, mostly female users, easily influenced by public opinion, gossip

Advantages: You can specify the user group that interacts with blog posts and daily life. At the same time, the proportion of daily active users on mobile devices reaches 91%. It can be flexibly used in multiple forms such as blog posts, applications, accounts, videos, pictures and texts, and nine-square grids, and native communication can be achieved through mobile social networking!

Disadvantages: High cost and requires high maintenance cost. (I haven’t put this out yet.)

3. Sina Fuyi

Sina Performance Advertising is an advertising marketing system under Sina that charges based on performance, mainly including the advertising trading platform SAX and the advertising delivery platform Fuyi. Traffic sources: Sina News app, Sina wap traffic and alliance traffic. User characteristics: Most users are male, older, and have a higher level of education.

Advantages: Users are relatively older and have strong purchasing power.

Advertising suggestions: Most of the products are targeted at men, so you can advertise in stocks, finance, games, cars, men’s health, etc.

4. Baidu Information Flow

Now Baidu's information flow is getting better and better, integrating the resources of Baidu Mobile, Baidu Tieba, and Baidu Browser. Its main products: Baidu Mobile, Baidu Tieba, and Baidu Mobile Browser.

Advantages: It has a search basis, more accurate keyword targeting, and can target Baidu Tieba

Disadvantages: The delivery system is similar to SEM, and the delivery operation is more complicated. Currently, the traffic and cost are relatively unstable. It still depends on your own delivery optimization capabilities.

Advertising suggestions: With a wide user coverage, most products are suitable for advertising. Combined with search ads, it can better reach the target users.

5. Toutiao

Toutiao is a recommendation engine product based on data mining and is still one of the largest information flow advertising platforms. Main advertising products: Toutiao, Xigua Video, Huoshan Video, Douyin, and Pangolin. User characteristics: The group is broad, mostly from second-tier, third-tier, fourth-tier and lower cities.

Advantages: The algorithm is mature, the targeting options are sophisticated, and it supports the oCPM model. The Douyin short video advertising format is novel and has good effects.

Disadvantages: The information flow cost of Toutiao APP is relatively high. (Of course it depends on your product, whatever you can accept is fine)

Advertising suggestions: Finance, life, games, apps, etc. Try oCPM bidding method, Douyin has a lower cost.

6. Video platforms

The main video platforms are iQiyi, Tencent, and Youku. User characteristics: iQiyi and Tencent are both relatively young and pursue fashion. Youku is more life-oriented, with some instant hot spots.

Advantages: Rich resources and a wide range of people

Advertising suggestions: You can promote brand awareness, reinforcement, or promotional information. Increasing bids to obtain high-quality traffic can sometimes improve ROI.

OK, I wrote from three to seven in the afternoon, and it has already reached more than five thousand words. I know about the optimization of information flow delivery of Toutiao, Tencent Guangdiantong and Baidu, but if you have not delivered it yourself, there is really not much you can understand.

Let me say a few more words. Whether you are investing in the information flow of second-tier e-commerce, or investing in public accounts to increase followers, investment and franchising, education and training, home decoration, games, apps, novels, finance, etc., the most important thing is that you have to understand the characteristics of that information flow channel, that is, the user attributes, and whether it is suitable for your product.

Author: Bai Yang

Source: Baiyangseo