Social APP Traffic Monetization Guide

Introduction: Due to the existence of "hate, racial discrimination, violence and other inappropriate content" on the platform, many brand giants including Coca-Cola, Starbucks, Unilever and Procter & Gamble recently announced that they will no longer place digital advertisements on social media such as FACEBOOK and TWITTER for a considerable period of time in the future. Undoubtedly, this has dealt a heavy blow to many foreign social media companies that rely on advertising revenue, and their stock prices and market capitalizations have plummeted...

As we all know, advertising monetization is not only the core monetization model of foreign social giants, but also remains one of the indispensable profit models for domestic social platforms.

So, in response to this brand’s suspension of overseas social media advertising, what warnings and reflections should domestic social apps draw from this? And how should they optimize their commercialization strategies to obtain longer-term and greater advertising monetization benefits?

Focusing on social apps, today we provide some practical commercial execution ideas and strategic suggestions for relevant traffic owners.

Mobile social industry market status & trends

According to incomplete statistics, nearly 50 new mobile social products were launched in 2019 alone, which shows that the mobile social track still exudes infinite vitality and tension; in addition, QuestMobile data shows: As of 2019, the user scale of the mobile social industry has exceeded 1.1 billion, and it has become a must-have application for everyone; as for the use of social apps, although the proportion of user usage time is declining, it is still the industry that occupies the most user time. It also shows the status and characteristics of strong user stickiness and relatively high daily usage frequency.

Pain points of advertising monetization in the mobile social industry

How to obtain more advertising revenue without destroying the user experience or damaging the media image; how to highlight the unique media value and media marketing value in the fierce industry competition to attract more advertisers' budgets; how to explore and innovate more advertising display scenarios and styles... These are the key and difficult issues that social apps urgently need to solve.

Advertising monetization solutions for the mobile social industry

In order to effectively solve the appeal points and pain points in the process of social APP advertising monetization, combined with the above-mentioned "stop event" and rich advertising monetization service experience, the following commercial suggestions are put forward:

1) Be a media that highlights social value

Why are many brands currently pressing the pause button on their overseas social media campaigns? The reason is that these social media transmit inappropriate content such as violence, hatred, and discrimination. Therefore, if brands continue to advertise on these platforms, not only will they not add value to society and people, but they may also seriously affect people's impression and favorability of the brand.

Based on this, the editor suggests: As it deeply penetrates into people's lives and becomes an important way for people to understand social hot spots and increase their knowledge, the influence of social media is more far-reaching than other types of media. Therefore, social apps cannot exist simply to achieve commercial goals and make profits. Instead, as their size and voice grow, they should have a stronger sense of responsibility and convey more positive values . While enriching the user relationship chain, strengthening the content form, and creating fancy gameplay, they also need to use technology + manual review to strictly avoid and eliminate the spread of all improper content, and realize the positive role of social media event recording center, public opinion transmission center, and rumor crushing center .

Only in this way can it help to shape a good media image and build a more solid foundation for development, which in turn can better feed back to the smooth development of advertising monetization!

2) Make advertising more precise and interesting

The "China Social Media Impact Report" released by Kantar shows that the vast majority of social users will choose to watch advertisements.

Among them, the first factor affecting the choice is whether the advertisement is "humorous and interesting", which shows that advertising creativity is the most important factor affecting the effectiveness of social advertising communication; and the second influencing factor is whether the advertisement is "related to the audience itself or their interests", which shows that the accuracy of the advertisement is also a key factor affecting the effectiveness of social advertising communication.

Therefore, in order to maintain the user experience and make users more receptive to advertising, Meishujun recommends that social apps use technological innovation and enrich advertising methods, while selectively giving priority to high-quality advertisers and their creative materials ;

In addition, big data technology is needed to accurately profile the user groups on social platforms in order to gain insight into their unique consumption demands and interests, and intelligently recommend the most appropriate advertising content to them, so that consumers and brands of interest (and their products) can be efficiently connected in social apps, ensuring the best media experience for users while making each advertising exposure more valuable!

3) Make better use of native ad styles

For social apps, the most native advertising style should be "information flow advertising".

In fact, information flow advertising is indeed the most common, most important and most necessary advertising style in social apps. Through "embedded" dissemination (advertisements are seamlessly embedded in social environments such as WeChat Moments and QQ Space), it will not appear too abrupt and will be easier for users to accept.

However, in order to maximize the monetization effect of information flow advertising, Meishujun recommends that you first try to ensure that the advertising style and content are consistent with the overall style and content style of the application , so as to help advertising penetration be more friendly while protecting the user experience to the greatest extent;

In addition, social apps can actively explore and develop cooler and more novel ways to play information flow ads based on user attributes and the display environment of information flow ads . For example, refer to the first comment function ad and long-press interactive card ad launched on WeChat Moments (Figures 1 and 2) to attract users' attention and interest by creating new and creative ways to play.

Finally, it is recommended that social apps do not frequently insert too many information flow advertising slots in pursuit of excessive profits , which may cause serious user interference, damage to the media image, or user loss.

(Figure 1)

(Figure 2)

4) Appropriately enrich the advertising display scenes and forms

In order to increase the richness of advertisements to expand the profit space of APP, under the premise of fully ensuring that the normal user experience is not excessively disturbed, it is recommended that in addition to conventional advertising styles, social APPs can consider combining their own attributes, user attributes, user usage preferences, etc., and actively try to add traffic realization scenarios and styles - for example, some social applications have mini-game entrances, so it is recommended to consider creating incentive video advertising scenes as appropriate, so as to improve the fun of the product and increase user stickiness and activity, and also achieve both user experience and advertising revenue;

For example, some social applications have a "search" entrance. It is recommended that the media consider turning it into the best advertising scenario to connect user needs and brand services, and carefully design the most eye-catching advertising format that best suits user preferences (refer to WeChat's latest search ads), so as to achieve higher marketing efficiency and maximize monetization effects.

(WeChat “Search” advertisement)

5) Control the frequency of ad display

Social products should pay more attention to user experience, so it is recommended to strictly control the frequency of advertising display to avoid excessive advertising implantation that may cause user loss and damage the image and interests of social media (which may lead to lower CPM).

For example, if social media is paid, it is recommended to distinguish between user groups with a propensity to pay and user groups with a propensity to use free services. For user groups with a propensity to use free services, add more advertising scenarios and advertising guidance, and for user groups with a propensity to pay, reduce advertising interruptions, improve user experience, and guide payment consumption.

In addition, the optimal number of impressions for different ad types is different. It is recommended to find the optimal number of impressions for this product through experiments;

Finally, the editor suggests that social APPs can consider implementing new customer protection, that is, for new users, try to place as few or no advertisements as possible. When user habits and loyalty are cultivated, personalized advertising can be placed for them as appropriate to improve user retention and expand traffic scale.

Author: Meishujun

Source: Meishu Technology