Why do products searched on JD.com appear in Douyin ads?

I often hear friends around me say:

WC, Toutiao was monitoring my conversation and even recorded it. I just said I wanted a Dyson hair dryer, and the advertisement in the Toutiao APP showed Dyson's advertisement. I want to complain because it violated my privacy.

I don’t know if you have encountered this situation. When you searched for steamer in the search box of JD.com, your other software may be occupied by steamer.

I saw Supor steamer ads in the headlines, I saw Supor ads when I was browsing Douyin, and I saw Supor ads on Zhihu...

Do you feel like you are completely stuck in a vicious cycle and have fallen into a trap?

Even after you switch between two mobile phones, you will still see the advertisement of Supor Steamer!

If you think it is a coincidence, you are wrong. In fact, this is a product commonly used in the advertising industry, called retargeting ads .

This operation is extremely good for advertisers, but in fact it brings great fear to people. It’s like your chat history on WeChat is made public on all products and is mercilessly criticized by everyone.

In the Internet age, information is open and transparent, but it also leaves people with less privacy.

Next, I will talk to you about the principle behind this terrifying advertising and how to protect yourself (don’t dream).

1. Why do mainstream products do this?

Consider a scenario:

Suppose you search for televisions on JD.com. You may have the intention to buy, but in the end you don’t convert the order - for the platform, you lose a customer; if tens of thousands of people do the same thing at the same time, it will be a huge loss for the platform.

So, the platform has to do two things.

1. Do secondary marketing on the site

For example, exclusive red envelopes or exclusive coupons that pop up when searching can be used to provide secondary stimulation using red envelope benefits.

As shown in the screenshot of MissFresh below, after searching, you will enter the product details page and will be given relevant coupons directly to stimulate order conversion (it is said that a discount of 10 yuan can increase the conversion rate by more than 40%).

2. Run retargeting ads outside the site

It's like a locator, finding you and showing you ads all the time. If you leave the website, the platform will have this method to keep you firmly tied.

For example, if you search for steamers on JD.com, you will immediately see steamer ads on Toutiao, and the brand of the ads may be different each time.

According to data provided by Google Adwords, the best conversion effect is achieved by showing an ad 7 to 10 times to the same user within 30 days. If this level of advertising is achieved, the advertising revenue can be more than tripled.

Only 5% of users view ads on the site and make purchases, while 95% of users are lost. The mission of retargeting ads is to attract and convert these users.

Navdeep Sahni, a marketing professor at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business, once conducted an experiment in which he used various redirection activities to observe the visits of 230,000 users of BuildDirect.com. During the observation period, some users watched no ads, while others watched more than 15 times.

After 4 weeks of testing, the following conclusions were drawn:

Retargeting ads increased the likelihood that they would return to the site by nearly 15%, a large portion of people changing their behavior because of retargeting ads.

What is the whole process like?

In fact, the whole process is not complicated, it’s just that people don’t understand how this mechanism works. I drew a simple picture with only these few simple steps.

If you are a product manager of an e-commerce website and want to access the retargeting advertising capability, you need to do the following steps:

1. Embed the statistics tracking code on your website

Some advertising alliances provide plug-ins or SDKs. For example, Avazu DSP provides a plug-in for other merchants' stores.

The main purpose of this code is to record the user's information in a local cookie on the browser or mobile phone. The delivery platform reads this cookie, which contains the user ID, phone number, basic information, access information, etc.

Of course, cookies are not omnipotent, and other means will be introduced to continue to identify users, such as device identification codes, mobile phone information, web browsers, operating systems, screen resolutions, time zones, languages, plug-ins, fonts, etc.

This information can determine the unique user identity. When you change devices, they are actually associated again through this information.

escape? That's impossible, it's terrifying when you think about it!

2. Online bidding

Let’s first popularize the bidding ranking of advertising business. Simply put, it is to compete for advertising space through price advantage.

For example, in Baidu's advertising, you bid for the slogan "Qidian College". Although you are Lao Cao, the person in charge of Qidian College, you may not necessarily get this slogan. Because the competitor’s price for three classes was higher, it got the term “Starting Point Academy”.

When users search for “Qidian Academy” on Baidu, a promotion for three classes appears (which, of course, doesn’t happen).

Let’s go back to the bidding for redirected ads. It’s actually the same principle. If a user searches for steamer on Taobao and also searches for steamer on JD.com, then which one will be displayed: Taobao’s promotion or JD.com’s promotion?

Let’s fight it out. We’ll decide based on bidding. Whoever offers the highest price will be the one whose ads will be published by the advertising alliance.

3. Display ads

Any traffic platform that is connected to the advertising alliance can undertake advertising. When the traffic platform recognizes the user ID, it automatically replaces the default advertising image with a personalized advertisement.

Below are the traffic platforms that Avazu DSP can deliver. Users can see redirected ads in these traffic channels.

When redirection develops to the second stage, the original search 1-to-1 relationship spreads to a 1-to-many relationship. The introduction of algorithms can more accurately predict users' purchasing needs. For example, if the original search was for DJI drones, then some other DJI-related products would be recommended to increase the possibility of purchase.

3. Something terrifying when you think about it

As a spectator, I was inexplicably cheated by advertisers. It was impossible to defend against it.

In 2017, Apple launched a new feature called Intelligent Anti-Tracking and integrated it into the Safari browser to protect users' privacy from being leaked.

However, Apple could not resist the temptation of profit. While trying to keep its bottom line, it launched privacy protection ad click attribution this year, aiming to protect user privacy while providing advertisers with information for advertising.

Simply put, users store their information in cookies or on mobile devices. Advertisers can identify this information and link it to people, but cannot parse out more information.

This practice is similar to Alibaba's data bank, where detailed user data is explicitly prohibited from being disseminated externally. The data that the data bank produces for brands is only a population package, which can only be identified by authorized businesses internally, ensuring the security of the data.

But it’s still unpleasant. As a leek, you can only find ways to protect yourself, such as:

• Regularly delete the website's cookie data . Browsers usually come with automatic cleaning plug-ins, such as cleaning once a day or half a day. Don't send your information to advertising alliances so quickly.
• Regularly clean up the browsing history and cache information of the APP , especially the data from e-commerce websites. These advertisements are generally placed by e-commerce websites, so find the source.
• Do not open the APP usage permissions easily , or try to close them if possible. For example, location information, identification device information, etc. These information can uniquely identify a person, and it is still very scary when they are collected by others.
• Do not fill in account information on non-essential websites easily . The more complete you fill in, the more likely it is that your information will be sold out, either intentionally or unintentionally, such as the 5 billion pieces of data stolen from Facebook.

Let’s stop here. You have learned the posture and how to protect yourself. Whether you lie down and let yourself be cut or struggle as hard as you can, you are welcome to leave a message to discuss.

Author: Mr. Wang Wei

Source: Product Poison Thinking (pdthinking)