Let’s talk about Douyin’s advertising business

The new generation of Douyin users are becoming the target of businesses' gold rush. After Baidu's bidding advertising, how to optimize the delivery of Toutiao ads has once again become a difficult problem for businesses. This article will start from Douyin and talk about Douyin’s advertising business from four aspects:

• The form and pricing of Tik Tok ads
• ByteDance after the Tik Tok ad
• Douyin advertising business outside ByteDance
• Suggestions for Douyin’s closed-loop advertising ecosystem

one. The form and pricing of Tik Tok ads

1. Splash screen ads

Splash screen ads are a form of strong exposure. They refer to the full-screen ads that appear immediately when the App is opened. They have a stronger visual impact and are commonly seen in applications with high traffic and daily activity.

Display rules: The duration of static, dynamic and video ads is 3, 4 and 5 seconds respectively, supporting display and landing page jump.

Pricing method: CPT (charge by time), advertisers bid according to the delivery time, not affected by the number of exposures; CPM (cost per thousand), generally priced according to the purchased user tags, with the starting price for bidding per thousand exposures being 4 yuan.

2. Information flow advertising

Information flow ads are pushed based on user interests and contextual browsing. Compared with high-exposure advertising, they are more native and more accurately targeted. Their interactive nature also helps users deepen their brand impression.

Display rules: It usually appears in the 3rd or 4th position, and is divided into the following three categories according to the text link jump.

1) Landing page ads: jump to H5, commonly seen in training courses. Advertisers generally use forms to obtain user information to improve conversion rates.

2) Download page ads: jump to the app download page, commonly seen in games and educational apps.

3) Shopping page ads: jump to e-commerce platform stores, commonly seen in clothing, beauty, mother and baby brands, etc.

Pricing method: CPC (cost per click), the starting price for bidding is 0.2 yuan; CPA (cost per actual delivery), charging is based on the number of telephone consultations, App downloads, and form submissions.

3. Challenge Advertising

The Tik Tok Challenge is customized and promoted according to the needs of advertisers, similar to topics, but with a dedicated topic page. Common challenges often attract users to shoot and upload videos using designated stickers, and use creativity and interaction to rank and give out prizes, which are common in food products.

Display rules: There are special challenge topics and interfaces, and collection is supported

Pricing method: Customized price

4. Advertising by influencers

Initially, influencers’ sales promotion was limited to video implantation or pure soft advertising. After the opening of Douyin stores, it has become more convenient for influencers to promote products. You can enter the store on the main screen and complete the order conversion. Compared with the previous types of advertisements, the conversion rate of product-selling advertisements is more direct.

Display rules: video placement or redirection to Douyin store

Pricing method: 1) Contact the influencer directly, the pricing is determined by both parties 2) Contact the influencer through a third-party platform, the pricing is based on the number of fans

two. ByteDance after the Tik Tok ad

1. Trading platform - Big Engine

In the advertising ecosystem, the advertising exchange platform is oriented towards advertisers, and advertisers can complete the advertising purchasing process on the platform. Bytedance first served the advertising of Toutiao. After Toutiao's territory expanded, the marketing resources of its subsidiaries such as Douyin, Xigua Video, and Dochedi could all be traded through Bytedance.

Relying on the huge user base of Toutiao and Douyin, Bytedance has accumulated a rich targeting system, dividing users into 9 targeting dimensions and more than 1,000 population types, which is conducive to more accurate delivery for advertisers.

On ByteDance, advertisers can directly complete the three types of advertising transactions mentioned above: splash screen, information flow, and challenge. In this case, the advertisers will generally undergo corporate certification, publish advertisements through official accounts, and mark the videos in the information flow as "advertisements".

2. Matchmaking service platform - Juliang Star Chart, Jihe platform

If advertisers have their own advertising ideas, they can of course use them for direct delivery. But what if they don’t? What if you want to embed native advertising but don’t have the resources to directly contact influencers or MCN agencies to negotiate cooperation? Toutiao also provided a solution under the Bytedance Engine.

One of them is JueLiang Star Map, which is used to connect advertisers and influencers. The transaction is about the "influencer" service, which corresponds to the above-mentioned influencer-led advertising. On the one hand, the demander can place an order based on the official star chart index, number of fans and expected playback volume of the influencer. The payment method can be based on actual conversion effect or cooperation with the influencer on a fixed quotation. On the other hand, suppliers such as influencers or MCN agencies can register on the platform and accept orders. This platform is often used by influencers to promote e-commerce products such as beauty, food and beverages. The video materials are produced by the influencers, so it can also be used with components such as shopping carts and landing pages.

Taking advertisers as an example, they can filter influencers based on content type, quotation, number of fans, eCPM and payment method, and then enter the settlement page after selection.

The second is the instant platform, which is used to connect advertisers and video creators, and the product traded is "video material". The Jihe platform provides packages of different prices such as 500, 1500, and 2500 yuan. The content and conversion effects are as follows:

• The 500 yuan package features a short and fast creative method, real people appearing on camera, and product function explanations. The click-through rate is +117%, the conversion rate is +68%, and the conversion cost is -21%;
• The 1,500 yuan package includes a variety of creative forms such as product explanation style/hand-painted style/multi-camera precision shooting/scenario interpretation, with a click-through rate of +146%, a conversion rate of +54%, and a conversion cost of -47%;
• The 2,500 yuan package covers multiple fields such as sand painting/animation/live-action short films/micro-films, with a click-through rate of +212%, a conversion rate of +97%, and a conversion cost of -35%.

Because what is traded is video material, the ones chosen by advertisers on the Jihe platform are actually advertising studios.

3. Small store service platform - Doudian, Juliang Luban

Similar to the role of Taobao Express, Douyin Store can also complete promotion and traffic expansion in the Doudian merchant background. In the advertising scenario described here, every merchant is actually an advertiser. Advertisers can choose videos under their current account for promotion and select the desired item of "driving traffic to small store products". After selecting the products to promote, they can choose the target audience based on region, gender and age group.

Merchants need to recharge the promotion fees in advance, and the estimated duration and number of people covered can be displayed based on the recharge amount. The fees are deducted on a daily basis. After creating an ad, merchants can view data such as ad spending, number of ad plays, and revenue.

What is mentioned above is actually the self-service advertising for small stores to quickly promote sales of single products. For the sales of single products, the huge amount of Luban under the huge engine can rely on the marketing resources of Toutiao to launch it. Compared with self-service advertising, the services provided will place more emphasis on conversion data such as CTR and ROI.

4. Creator video promotion platform - Douyin+

Dou+ is a secondary promotion tool for creators, and is essentially also a form of advertising, with creators being the demanders. After the creator selects an existing video, he or she can choose the desired improvement target, delivery duration, targeting method and delivery amount. The platform will then provide subsequent effect evaluation data such as fan increase click rate, interaction rate, etc.

three. Douyin advertising business outside ByteDance

1. Data Management Platform

Programmatic advertising trading has also spawned businesses such as data trading platforms and management platforms. The rapid spread of Tik Tok has made the data of influencers and product selection increasingly important. There are many such platforms. Here we take "Dou Dou Xia", a data platform that has rapidly increased its popularity by relying on Luo Yonghao's live streaming sales data, as an example.

(1) Broadcaster portrait

Doudouxia can provide portraits of Douyin’s current popular broadcasters, including their number of fans, likes, comments, reposts, and fan growth trends, etc., providing advertisers with a reference for advertising placement.

(2) Product image

Doudouxia currently provides data on sales, views, number of recommended broadcasts, number of related videos and number of likes for popular products in the product ranking list, providing a reference for merchants to select products and influencers to promote products.

The above two categories are also the profit sources of this type of data platform, which makes profits through services such as expert resources and promotion plans.

2. Advertising Company

Douyin has a large number of creative and instant platforms that produce or match advertising services. In addition, there are also one-stop platforms for channel cooperation, such as comprehensive advertising companies such as Weiju, which provide integrated marketing services.

In fact, in addition to being affiliated with Toutiao, many small advertising companies have also gained a lot of business by producing Douyin advertisements.

Four. Suggestions for Douyin’s closed-loop advertising ecosystem

1. Advertisers

Advertisers are the financial sponsors. In a narrow sense, advertisers refer to brands. However, with the influx of live streamers and influencers, creators need to put in more effort if they want their videos to be seen. Therefore, merchants and creators on Douyin are also demanders of advertising services. Here we only refer to advertisers in a narrow sense.

Advertisers want to get real returns instead of false data after investing money, so data management is very important. It was previously revealed that a big V’s live streaming sales data was falsified, and the advertisers paid the slot fees but could not even recover the costs. In such incidents, both the big V’s reputation and the advertisers’ financial investment are actually at a disadvantage. Therefore, advertisers cannot just rely on Douyin or third-party data platforms as a reference for results when placing ads. Optimizing their own inventory management backend for Douyin is also icing on the cake.

In addition, when choosing a pricing method , advertisers should also choose a cost-effective payment method based on their own advertising purposes. For example, for products with high conversion rates, advertisers can choose CPM, but for products with low conversion rates, such as courses, they can choose CPA.

From the perspective of the channels through which advertisers contact influencers , it can be divided into self-contact, platform contact, MCN agency contact, or other third-party agency contact (such as the data platforms mentioned above). The latter three will actually provide more comprehensive data feedback to advertisers, which has the advantage of measuring effectiveness, but if you have the resources to do it yourself you can actually gain the greatest cost advantage.

2. Creators

In the era of big data, the abilities of creators and talents can already be quantified one by one, and can even be directly used for transactions. Therefore, more and more creators' videos are beginning to have a more obvious purpose of increasing fans, and Douyin+ is even a platform that serves this purpose. Through targeted fan attraction, the value of creators' videos has been improved, the number of fans has increased, and the value of advertising orders or account monetization has increased accordingly.

From this perspective, creators do benefit. But the prerequisite is whether the video being promoted again has the ability to attract fans again, or whether the host can really achieve the goal of increasing fans through multiple releases. What creators need to realize is that high ROI is not something that everyone can achieve.

3. Platform

Douyin and the big platform behind it have actually connected multiple roles such as advertisers, creators, MCN agencies, advertising channels, etc., and relying on the huge engine, it is slowly taking over more links related to Douyin. The third-party data platforms and small advertising companies mentioned above are also struggling to survive in the cracks. If one day the huge engine can open up more data and cooperate with more companies, perhaps the small companies' wishful thinking of making profits through advertising will be frustrated. (Volume Engine is indeed growing very fast)

The advantage of small platforms is that they provide service support outside of the official platform, but to stand out from the many small platforms, they also need differentiation or the right timing. The Dou Dou Xia mentioned above is a good example. In terms of differentiation, it can provide services such as Douyin account valuation that the official cannot provide. In terms of timing, it cleverly took advantage of Luo Yonghao’s live broadcast, and the influx of viewing data on that day even caused the server to crash.

Of course, small platforms are also working hard to expand their businesses. For example, many data platforms and advertising companies jointly provide dual services of video materials and data, and jointly list product selections with e-commerce merchants. The higher the professionalism of the main business and the more comprehensive the business, the better the user base will be.

In the short term, the coexistence of large and small platforms is still worth looking forward to.

Author: 47

Source: East Fence ( all_matrix )