The core operations and optimization ideas of bidding promotion!

Bidding promotion is the most mainstream and common form of advertising in current performance advertising. Although with the increasing popularity of information flow and short videos in recent years, the status of bidding promotion has been continuously "downgraded". But in terms of performance advertising, the quality of customer acquisition through bidding promotion is unmatched by other forms of advertising. We all know that bidding promotion is an active search by users with stronger intentions, while information flow advertising is recommended by the platform and users browse passively to find people through information. At a time when marketing promotion is constantly upgrading and innovating, companies are using performance advertising, and bidding promotion + information flow promotion have become the only way for companies to break through performance and increase customer acquisition.

The development of bidding promotion in China has a history of many years. It has gone through the embryonic stage, growth stage and golden stage. Now it can be said to be a transition period. On the one hand, the product itself is being upgraded, and on the other hand, the market structure is also constantly changing. Will there be more new business models in bidding advertising in 2020? How can we break through and innovate the “traditional” marketing method of bidding promotion? Let’s use numbers to explore the new landscape of bidding promotion in 2020.

1 new delivery method

With the development of mobile Internet big data, advertising is now more intelligent. Take the OCPC product which has grown rapidly in recent years. At present, five search engine bidding advertising platforms have launched ocpc, some of which are full-scale and some are still in internal testing. Among them, Baidu OCPC is a typical example. Baidu search OCPC, although it is far from being a mature intelligent delivery product, it allows us to see: the future of optimizing complex advertising conversion effects through AI. OCPC uses machine learning to achieve intelligent price adjustment, which essentially liberates human hands. This is a long-term trend.

Optimizing OCPC is a necessary and likely long-term challenge on the road to smart delivery. In particular, the products and technologies of various platforms are far from mature, with rapid functional updates and frequent changes. If marketers cannot deeply understand the optimization logic behind them, they will not be able to grasp the value and limits of "human operations" and it will be difficult to make relatively good decisions in a market with so many uncertainties.

For practitioners, the first thing we need to understand is the principles and logic of ocpc. After understanding its principles and logic, it will be basically clear which links require manual participation and which links can only be run by machines. We can also understand it this way: oCPC undertakes high-intensity algorithms that humans cannot complete, and captures higher quality traffic according to the established framework; humans are responsible for feeding the OCPC model with enough "feed" and observing "environmental changes" at any time to make appropriate adjustments.

2 bidding methods (deduction methods)

In 2020, when intelligence is popular, there are two main bidding methods for competitive bidding promotion. One is the traditional CPC model, and the other is the OCPC model (also including click-through bid coefficient control, also known as ECPC). The former is charged based on clicks, while the latter is charged based on conversion bids. In theory, it is paid based on conversions. The two bidding methods determine different delivery strategies. No matter which bidding method is used, there are pros and cons.

In bidding promotion, doing A/B testing is a very good method. In terms of bidding strategies, you can also compare the two to find a bidding method that suits you better, or combine the two, which is also a way to achieve improved results.

In addition, Baidu's big search ocpc has launched dual bidding, and the future adjustment direction will be information flow.

3 types of matching

Among the current five search auctions, except for Toutiao, the other four generally use three types of matches - exact, phrase and broad. In the phrase, it also includes include, synonyms and core. But these are just differences in details. In general, there are three types of matching. The corresponding ranges of these three types of matches are from small to large, the traffic is from little to much, and the traffic accuracy is from high to broad. Different matches and prices together constitute the essential elements for advertising.

How to control the flow? In traditional CPC bidding, it mainly relies on matching and bidding. The accuracy of the matching method determines the quantity and quality of the traffic. The optimization of matching is mainly based on the matching degree between the exhibition point consumption data and the search terms. In the case of ocpc bidding, it is now possible not only to break through the match, but also to break through the negative words, which is a new improvement in controlling traffic. As an advertiser, in 2020, in addition to adapting to and optimizing ocpc bidding, you must also continuously optimize traffic quality while achieving volume expansion.

4 levels of control

In bidding advertising, the entire account structure is divided into four levels: account/plan/unit/keyword and creative. First of all, there are many settings at the account level. To do bidding, you need to control each setting. Taking Baidu as an example, the Baidu account level settings include:

Assistant side: daily budget, promotion area, IP exclusion, and independent violation verification;

Web page: account level (the higher the better), activation time, search cooperation network, Baidu Tieba traffic, target customer follow-up, smart creativity, advanced creativity (pictures, sub-links, texts, videos), same-stage display, clues (returning customers, dynamic copywriting, smart consultation pages and consultation links), data analysis reminders;

Planning layer: budget, planned bid ratio, time period, region, promotion business, negative words, creative display form;

Web page: Personalized recommendations

Unit level: negative word, bid, unit bid ratio, sub-matching coefficient

Keyword layer/webpage address: bid, PC and mobile link, match, sub-match bid coefficient;

Creative layer: title, description 1, description 2, device preference, PC access URL and mobile access URL, PC display URL and mobile display URL;

When doing bidding promotion, you need to have perfect control over every level. For example, keywords at the unit level usually need to be constructed in a more detailed manner. Generally, the number of small unit words is 1-30, and the number of large unit words should be within 200. If there are too many words in a unit, some small troubles will inevitably arise. Therefore, the structure of the entire account should be planned from the early stage of account establishment.

5 channel implementation combinations

Baidu, 360, Sogou, Shenma and Toutiao are the five current bidding advertising platforms, and each channel has its own characteristics. The first four are similar at the operational and adjustment levels. Toutiao SEM advertising is a new bidding advertising platform. Although its delivery operation is similar to Baidu, there are many differences in the optimization ideas. The essence of headline bidding is still the information flow gene, intelligent price adjustment and conversion.

There are corresponding methods for the 5 channels, whether it is single selection or combination delivery. And in terms of channel selection, there is also a combination of single-household and multi-household. The combination of channels is a long-term trend. The volume from a single channel is too single, and it is necessary to expand the volume through multiple channels in order to calmly cope with future competition and meet the company's increasing demand for customer acquisition.

6 processes to achieve closed loop

When it comes to bidding promotion, the link is actually very simple, from the upstream account-promoter-Jimuyu-Aifanfan-customer service to the downstream telemarketing team , forming a closed loop of traffic conversion. An account is an essential element of bidding promotion, followed by promoters and switchboard operators, plus Jimuyu and Aifanfan that carry the conversion, and finally the sales team that realizes the conversion.

In the link of carrying conversion, Baidu actually started to lay out a closed loop of traffic in 2018. From merchant accounts to Jimuyu, from Baidu Business Bridge to AiFanFan, from DouJin to DuXiaodian, Baidu has been constantly improving its product system to control traffic in its own closed loop. Jimuyu has realized page hosting, and AiFanFan has realized CRM hosting. Baidu's products can solve all links in the entire marketing process. Whether it is a forced move or in line with the trend, Baidu's marketing chain as a whole is very complete and powerful.

7 Dimensions of Analysis

Account reports analyze account development and consumption, and are used to prepare daily, weekly, 10-day and monthly reports;

The plan report can mainly analyze the plan direction. If your plan is clearly divided, for example, in medical treatment, plans are often used to divide diseases, such as gynecological abortion plan 1 plan 2 plan 3 inflammation plan 1 plan 2, etc. If you want to see your disease consumption structure, then you have to look at the plan report;

Unit report: Units are generally used to classify parts of speech. Unit reports mainly look at the consumption trend of parts of speech and whether it is reasonable.

Keyword reports are very important. They mainly look at the account's keyword consumption, ranking, etc. They are mainly used for account adjustments, so they are very important.

Search term report, very important. It is usually used for negative words, and can also be used to judge the matching situation of the account. If the overall match is not good, it means that there is a problem with the matching settings of the account. Search term reports should generally be downloaded and analyzed every three or four days;

Basic creative report is an analysis of creativity. Because account analysis is mainly based on keywords, creative analysis is less important than keyword analysis. Component reports are mainly for advanced creative leads, which are also important. Advanced creative reports are more important and can be used to view the display and click status of advanced creatives in your account.

Real-time data mainly refers to the real-time consumption of an account. Real-time data can show your consumption and ranking. You can also see how your spending compares to yesterday. You can see it in the background. The role of real-time data for us is that you can control the current consumption trends. If consumption is too fast or too slow, you can control consumption by adjusting the coefficient. So as to avoid the budget being exceeded prematurely or not being fully consumed. It's still quite important.

In the entire data report section, keyword reports and search term reports are the top priorities, followed by plan reports and account reports. There was a ranking report before the upgrade, but it is no longer available.

These seven reports are mainly used for account analysis and adjustment. They are very important daily data and need to be analyzed and reviewed frequently to be familiar with the data indicators and meanings of each report. This is used for optimization adjustments.

8 conversion components

The conversion component is the most critical link in lead conversion, so the conversion component must be set up well. There are 8 common conversion components:

1. Online consultation

2. Form Submission

3. Add followers on WeChat

4. Phone calls (including web page callbacks)

5. Download the app

6. SMS consultation

7. Discount Cards

8. Event Lucky Draw

Other marketing components include fan attention, such as adding fans to public accounts or Baijiahao, etc. I won’t go into details here.

Among them, the first five are regular components and the last three are auxiliary components. Especially for consultation, it is mainly represented by big search; for forms and app downloads, it is represented by information flow; for adding fans on WeChat, it is mainly related to some gray industries or health products; for phone calls, there are many big searches and information flows. SMS consultation, discount coupons and event draws are only used occasionally to increase leads.

The settings of the consulting tools include: online icon, invitation box, dialog box, message board, and bottom-absorbing component. Among these, dialog boxes are more useful, and bottom-absorbing components are more useful for mobile devices. The online icon and invitation box can be omitted. The message board is required when the customer service is not online.

The page can also include phone numbers, SMS consultations, WeChat QR codes and forms to increase customer acquisition rates. In addition, if you have an e-commerce store, you can also link to your e-commerce store on the page. If you have a public account, you can also add a QR code to the page to facilitate traffic and conversion.

The consulting tool allows customers to write their contact information in the introduction, making it easier for customers to add it. Then the consulting tool can also add telephone dialing and WeChat copying functions to facilitate customers to call or add directly.

There used to be a page for calling back offline treasure, but it is now offline. You can use Kuai Shangtong instead of offline treasure. Or use Jimuyu's current web page callback.

9 details settings and operations

The first detail is the setup.

Detailed settings mainly refer to settings at the account level, plan level, and unit level. Especially small channel traffic, such as Tieba coefficient, search cooperation network, etc., are generally closed.

The second detail is the coefficients.

As mentioned before, there are many coefficients in the account, and the final keyword deduction of the account is multiplied by the bid coefficient, so the setting of the coefficient is very important. You should check it frequently. You can check it at the keyword level in the background through the keyword bid coefficient calculator.

The third detail is participle.

Words are usually segmented according to their parts of speech. The more detailed the segmentation, the better. A unit should not exceed 300 words. It is better to spend some time to set up a clear account than to save time and set it up casually.

The fourth detail is matching and negation.

Generally, the matching is set according to the display. In addition, the words should be checked frequently, and the best time is 3 or 5 days. You can't say no every day, as this will increase the workload and also result in the loss of a small part of the quantity. In short, bidding without negative words is not a good bidding, and bidding too frequently with negative words is not an excellent bidding.

The fifth detail is the bid.

There are two types of bidding: CPC and OCPC. For cpc bidding, is it based on keywords or units? Is it a basic bid or a price set by point matching mode? These are all things to pay attention to. In addition, there are many forms of ocpc bidding (low threshold, data accumulation, 0 threshold, ecpc, etc.), and you must be familiar with each one. Control the accuracy of your bid.

The sixth detail is the picture.

The pictures include basic creative pictures and advanced creative pictures. It is recommended to strive for perfection in the pictures, and generally do not turn on the background's smart picture matching. If the picture is well done, the click-through rate will be high.

The seventh detail is data indicators, especially display clicks and average price.

Data indicators are the key to analysis, and there is a lot of data in the account. From the front end, the basic and primary factors are the click-through rate, average price, etc. In terms of display and average price, increasing display can lead to more clicks, while lowering the average price can lead to more conversions. Specifically, you can increase exposure by increasing prices or expanding matching methods. For example, after downloading for two months, the precise information that is not displayed can be changed to short phrases, and the short phrases that are not displayed can be changed to smart cores. For example, if your bid is 50 cents but it doesn’t show up, then increase it to 80 cents. First adjust the words that are displayed in the account, and then adjust those that are not displayed. This can increase the account display.

Average price, under CPC bidding, lowering the average price is to increase clicks and increase the number of leads. Lowering the average price mainly means lowering the prices of inflated words, lowering the prices of intent words, and lowering the prices of non-conversion words. By taking a two-pronged approach of reducing low-conversion words and increasing high-conversion words, the average price can be gradually reduced. Then, expanding matching + lowering prices and precise positioning (ranking 2-4) are also effective ways to lower the average price.

The eighth detail is the setting of ocpc.

There are many details about ocpc, which I will not go into here. There will be more detailed articles writing about the details later, so I will just give a general idea here. Its details mainly include: bidding method, bound port, bound plan scope, tracking plan, bidding setting, intelligent word addition, whether to break through the direction, Jimuyu page production, data verification, account diagnosis adjustment, etc. Each of these details is very important and must be understood clearly before being put into practical use.

The ninth detail is the details of making reports.

Indicators are very important. The more detailed the analysis, the more dimensions and the clearer it is. Generally speaking, when making a worksheet, important data indicators include: display, clicks, click-through rate, average price, book consumption, cash consumption, consultation, phone calls, forms, number of leads (the sum of phone calls + forms), cash cost, account currency cost, lead conversion rate (number of leads/clicks), rebates, online rate (phone calls/number of leads), call set rate (phone calls/consultations), etc.

Make reports, and you can also put daily, weekly, ten-day and monthly reports together. This can usually be achieved using a formula.

10 points for improvement

First: do more practice. You need to be bold and careful, try various settings yourself, but you also need to be careful. If you are not careful, you are likely to make mistakes and waste money. Don’t be afraid of new things, be brave to try them, as long as you are careful enough.

Second: To improve your bidding ability, you still have to choose a large industry. The so-called big industries refer to industries with larger investment budgets, such as medical care, education, franchising, finance, games, tourism, e-commerce, etc.

Third: Choose a big company. Bidding is the art of burning money. Small companies simply cannot afford this money, and the improvement of bidding ability requires growth through consumption. Therefore, if you want to learn and improve, you must first choose a large company.

Fourth: Go and study. Even if you have one or two years of experience, you still need to study hard. If you just think that you are good enough, you won’t grow much. When you encounter problems, you still have to study hard.

Fifth: Learn more and ask more questions. Here are a few good learning platforms I recommend: Aiqi SEM, Souwai.com, Tencent Classroom, etc. If you don’t understand, ask friends in this industry for advice.

Sixth: There is still a big difference between bidding thinking and information flow thinking. But some things are common, such as smart bidding. This is what is common. We can use the same operating methods and thinking to solve problems in common areas.

Seventh: Future competition will be about improving conversion rates, which involves creative elements and landing page elements. This is also the core of information flow. Creativity can increase click-through rate, and the landing page takes on the function of carrying and achieving conversion. Therefore, the focus in the future will be more on improving creative production levels (especially short video creativity) and page planning and production capabilities.

Eighth: full-link marketing. The platform is creating a closed loop of traffic, and for enterprises, it can also create a closed loop of data operations. Taking Baidu as an example, Jimuyu + Aifanfan + Guanxingpan can be used together to connect the promotion + connection + sales ends. It will be much more convenient. For example, for Toutiao, you can use Orange Website Builder + Xiaoliu + Feiyu to achieve a closed loop. Use it for your own benefit.

Ninth: In addition to integrated marketing and bidding information flow, short videos and live streaming are new traffic platforms with huge dividends. Companies need to do a good job in integrated marketing, especially in new tracks, and they can spend more time and effort to make good use of them. Competing for the blue ocean market is easier and more effective than competing for the red ocean market.

Tenth: Work collaboratively between the front and mid ends to enhance team combat effectiveness. Front-end promotion + mid-end sales, working together, can further enhance combat effectiveness. The front end provides strong lead support for the middle end, and the middle end provides conversion and lead feedback to the front end, which can promote the work of both parties. The relationship is not one of hostility but one of mutual benefit. In 2020, we must work hard on teamwork, maximize the utilization of clues, and make communication between departments smoother. The benefits will naturally become apparent gradually.