There are so many advertising channels, how do you choose?

Faced with the intensified competition of product homogeneity, advertising is undoubtedly an important means to increase competitiveness. However, with the emergence of more and more media channels, users' attention is dispersed to multiple platforms, and the traffic of each platform is not low. So, as an advertiser, how should you choose the appropriate delivery channel? The author believes that the following 8 points need to be noted.

01. Clarify the characteristics of the target group

The golden rule of all effective advertising is to understand what kind of users have what kind of pain points in what kind of scenarios, and what methods can be used to solve them in order to excite users. Therefore, before advertising, it is necessary to analyze the characteristics and attributes of product users, such as:

Basic attributes: gender, whether married, zodiac sign, age, education, income level, occupation, etc.;

Behavioral habits: where is the permanent residence, what time is the working time, etc.;

Interest preferences: what brands you like, what styles of clothes you like, what types of movies you like, what styles of music you like, etc.;

Other characteristics: such as whether you are currently considering buying a house or a car, whether you are feeling unwell, etc.

These are generally involved in DMP platforms. Those who are interested in the discussion of relevant DMP platforms can refer to the author’s previous sharing “What kind of DMP is needed for digital marketing”.

02. Find the characteristics of the product

Facing the situation of homogeneous competition, finding differentiation is the top priority in advertising. Therefore, only by finding the characteristics of the product and magnifying them can we occupy the minds of users. For example, in the article "Analysis: Why Some Copywriting Is Worth Millions", the author gave an example. At that time, Rolls-Royce collected various advertising copywritings and finally adopted a copywriting that "When the speed reaches 96 kilometers per hour, the loudest noise in the car comes from the electronic clock", which won the user's mind in one fell swoop.

03. Understand the market distribution channels

There are many distribution channels on the market, mainly divided into advertising space, information flow, search, wiki, etc.

04. Understand the characteristics of delivery channels

Advertising revenue has always been the core source of monetization for Internet companies. Once the time is ripe, they will build their own advertising platforms. The author is currently also responsible for the construction of an advertising delivery platform. Therefore, based on the author's experience and research on related delivery platforms, I would like to briefly explain the characteristics of the delivery channels of various Internet companies here.

1. Tencent Advertising (formerly Guangdiantong)

Relying on the two super social products QQ and WeChat, a huge product ecosystem has been established, such as Tencent Video, QQ Music, WeChat Moments, WeChat Official Accounts, QQ Space, QQ Browser, etc. Its advantages are that it has various user groups, is large in scale and has strong stickiness, and is suitable for brand promotion, such as new car models. However, if it is used to promote social products, it will not pass the review. When launching the campaign, we select the corresponding targeted customer groups through labels based on the characteristics of the product and the business purpose, and then launch the campaign.

2. Weibo Fans Channel

Fanstong is a marketing product that delivers corporate advertisements accurately to fans and potential fans based on user attributes and social relationships. The advertising format is similar to that of ordinary Weibo, and also has functions such as forwarding, commenting, and liking. In addition, the user group is mainly young, mostly female users, and they pay more attention to gossip and other public opinion information. Its advantages are multiple types of advertising formats (such as text, nine-square grid images, videos, etc.) and high daily user activity, but it requires higher maintenance costs. The more suitable products for investment are life products (such as food, clothing, etc.), local service products (such as wedding photography, etc.), games and related social apps, etc.

3. Massive Engine

It mainly refers to the ecological system composed of related products incubated by ByteDance, such as TikTok, Toutiao, Xigua Video, and Huoshan Video, which cover a wide range of users at all levels. Its advantages are relatively mature algorithms, sophisticated targeting options, and it was the first to incorporate short video ads, which provide intuitive effects, but the corresponding information flow costs are high. Products that are more suitable for investment include financial management, local life, games, etc.

4. Kuaishou

As a short video product, compared with the Douyin short video APP (which mainly covers China's first- and second-tier cities and users mainly focus on fashion and lifestyle), Kuaishou mainly covers China's third- and fourth-tier cities and rural users, and the user age group is mainly concentrated between 12 and 35 years old. Its advantages are huge traffic and regional penetration advantages. It covers the third and fourth tier traffic bonus areas. 80% of its users are young people. There are also a large number of low-end users. However, its advertising review is relatively strict, and social and live broadcast related products are generally not allowed to be put up. E-commerce products such as food and tools are more suitable for investment.

5. Baidu Information Flow

An older but more effective advertising platform in China. Its advantages are that it has a search basis, more accurate keyword targeting, and good intent marketing effects. However, its delivery system is similar to SEM, the delivery operation is more complicated, and the traffic and cost are relatively unstable. It is more suitable for portal traffic and brand promotion.

05. Identify the match between the target audience and the media channel user group

For example, when promoting vocational education products, the target group is basically working people, aged between 25 and 40, who are more active at work. The main group is on the PC side, and the conversion rate on the mobile side is very poor. Therefore, when choosing a platform, ads related to information flow and 360 display ads on the PC side will definitely be chosen, while traffic like Xiaohongshu information flow, which is mainly on the mobile side, will not be considered for the time being, or plans will be postponed, unless you want to grab the platform's bonus period.

06. Make full use of the budget

Although there are many platforms that can be used for advertising, you must fully consider your budget and make corresponding budget allocations, with different proportions of budget being given to different channels. But if the overall budget is not high, you should pay attention to two points here. Decisively abandon those channels that have data but high costs, even if they are popular channels, or directly consider those bonus channels with low trial and error costs, which have less competition and low prices.

07. Establish a full-link marketing system

Generally speaking, the entire marketing chain mainly includes five links, namely exposure, attention, interest, purchase, and evaluation. In the entire chain process, different nodes and channels will also be different.

For example, when a user is browsing Douyin, he sees an advertisement for a product that happens to meet one of his potential needs, and he becomes interested in the product. Then, if he wants to learn more about it, he will check Taobao and JD.com for more information about the product (including price and product details, etc.), compare prices from different stores, and if he thinks the product is good, he will recommend it to people around him. The channels involved here include Douyin, Taobao, JD.com, etc.

But it should be noted that the core should be the company's current goals. For example, if the product is in the stage of product promotion, the choices at this stage are very diverse, such as Baidu search, Weibo brand advertising, etc. If you are at the stage of selling goods online, you can consider platforms such as Xiaohongshu and Kuaishou.

08. Continuously optimize the delivery plan

Because each product has different characteristics, the corresponding delivery effects are also different. In order to achieve the best delivery effect, it is necessary to continuously optimize the plan. Here, it is necessary to conduct A/B testing at a low cost. The main functions are reflected in the following three points:

a. Summarize and find out the real cause of the problem. For example, A/B testing can be used to determine which landing page has better conversion rate, which content on the first screen has higher conversion rate, where to place the button for more conversion, etc.

b. The process of data accumulation helps reduce the cost of repeated trial and error, and continuously optimizes to achieve a healthier state;

c. Eliminate disputes over different opinions and determine the best solution based on actual results;

The above is the author’s experience in channel selection. When implementing it, it is necessary to combine the company’s actual objective situation, according to consumers’ decision-making paths, target population characteristics, etc., to screen out a channel combination delivery strategy suitable for your own company.

Author: Talking about data

Source: Talking Data