Analysis of comprehensive e-commerce advertising in Q4 2020

After Double 11 and Double 12, new consumer carnival nodes will come, such as Christmas, New Year's Day, Spring Festival, etc. Faced with such a huge consumer group, what new advertising strategies will e-commerce advertisers adopt?

As Christmas approaches, in addition to advertising ideas such as "touched to tears", do e-commerce advertisers have more innovative Christmas ideas? Based on the comprehensive e-commerce industry advertising data we track, this issue has compiled the advertising trends of e-commerce advertisers, key traffic platforms & media, and store promotion status from October to December, and focused on reviewing the recent popular Christmas advertising ideas. 

Note: This report uses the number of advertisements delivered as the basis for measuring the intensity of advertising delivery. The number of advertisements delivered is not completely equal to the actual advertising consumption and is for reference only. Comprehensive e-commerce guidance leads to purchases on third-party e-commerce platforms, or directly guides e-commerce advertisers to download e-commerce apps. The data statistics period of this report is from 2020.10.01 to 2020.12.22 .

1. Overview of the overall investment in the comprehensive e-commerce industry

1-1 The intensity of comprehensive e-commerce advertising in the past three months has been relatively stable

Judging from the market data, the proportion of comprehensive e-commerce advertisers' advertising has remained at around 5%, and it has been ranked in the top 6 of the overall industry advertising for three consecutive months. November is the e-commerce promotion month, and the proportion of comprehensive e-commerce advertising has increased slightly, but overall the advertising intensity is relatively stable.

1-2 Strong advertising in e-commerce and discount sales platforms in sub-industries

Looking at the proportion of advertising placements in key sub-sectors of comprehensive e-commerce in each month, it can be seen that platform e-commerce and discount sale advertisers have basically contracted more than 90% of the advertising placements in the comprehensive e-commerce industry, with strong advertising strength. Among them, platform e-commerce advertisers have accounted for more than 50% of the advertising placements in the past three months.

1-3 ByteDance and Tencent Advertising are the key advertising platforms for comprehensive e-commerce

As mainstream traffic platforms, ByteDance and Tencent Advertising have advantages in traffic and user quality, and are favored by many comprehensive e-commerce advertisers .

Secondly, the media that comprehensive e-commerce advertisers focus on are Toutiao, Youliang Alliance, Douyin Volcano Edition, QQ, Douyin , etc.

Further looking at the proportion of discount sale and platform e-commerce advertising on each key traffic platform, it can be seen that discount sale advertising accounts for more than 50% on Bytedance, Tencent Advertising, Baidu Information Flow, NetEase EasyEffect, and Baidu Baiqingteng, of which discount sale advertising accounts for nearly 90% on NetEase EasyEffect . It is speculated that this is related to the strong placement of multiple APPs such as "Taobao Special Edition" and "Shihui Miao". On Kuaishou , the main form of advertising is e-commerce advertising on the platform .

1-4 More than 50% of advertising materials are image ads

At present, comprehensive e-commerce advertisements are still mainly in the form of pictures . Most advertisers will directly use the platform’s externally promoted shopping festival activity pictures or display pictures of a certain product when placing advertisements.

By comparing the proportion of advertising formats of comprehensive e-commerce advertisers in the past three quarters, it can be found that the proportion of video advertising has gradually increased . This is related to the fact that short video platforms are gradually occupying more user time, but the mainstream advertising format is still picture advertising.

It is speculated that this is related to the long shopping decision cycle and short browsing time of users. When deciding whether to buy something, price, demand, product pictures, activities, etc. are all key factors in the decision. Advertisers need to convey the value of the product to consumers within a limited time.

Therefore, picture content is currently an ideal carrier. It does not require lengthy video recommendations and explanations, but directly hits the core information of the product. But based on the data, with the development of short videos and live streaming, video advertising will also become mainstream.

2. Overview of Shopping APP and Store Launch

2-1 Pinduoduo and PuPu have made great efforts in advertising

Most of the apps on the list are products of leading Internet companies. Among them , Pinduoduo has topped the list of shopping apps for three consecutive months with strong advertising. The advertising of Shihui Miao was not strong enough, and its promotion ranking declined month by month. However, PuPu increased its advertising efforts in December and its ranking rose significantly.

2-2 Cross-border e-commerce app "Aladdin Direct Purchase" entered the TOP5 for the first time

Below is a list of the top 5 shopping apps in each sub-industry . Manmanmai, Tmall, and Aladdin Direct Purchase are the apps that have risen the most in the rankings recently, but the top apps in each sub-industry are still from large companies or the best in the sub-industry.

Among them, since its official launch last year, the number of advertisements placed on "Aladdin Direct Purchase" has entered the TOP5 of the cross-border e-commerce promotion list for the first time, with relatively strong advertising investment.

2-3 Inventory of the marketing strategies of top shopping apps

1) Platform e-commerce APP: Pinduoduo

"Pinduoduo" is mainly placed on Tencent Advertising and Bytedance, and the advertising media are mainly Douyin Volcano Edition, Youliang Alliance, and Douyin .

Picture and video ads are the main forms of advertising. In terms of copywriting, words such as "limited time", "limited quantity", "activity", "welfare", and "withdrawal" are often used.

2) Fresh food vertical e-commerce app: PuPu

More than 80% of "PuPu" advertising was placed on Tencent advertising , with the main advertising media being QQ, Toutiao, and Tencent Excellent Alliance . More than 70% of the advertisements are in the form of picture ads. In terms of copywriting, words such as "newcomer", "X minutes", "timeout", "registration red envelope", and "fresh" are often used.

Under siege from a number of social e-commerce products backed by large companies, PuPu, relying on last year's 100 million yuan in financing, has also embarked on the path of burning money and competing on low prices. Not only has it posted a large number of offline advertisements to attract new users and started to radiate markets outside Fuzhou, it has also increased its online advertising volume in an attempt to expand its user base.

3) Shoes vertical e-commerce APP: Dewu (Douyin)

"Douwu (Du)" is mainly placed on Tencent Advertising and Bytedance, and the advertising media are mainly QQ, Toutiao, Kuaishou, and Youliang Alliance .

The main forms of advertising are picture ads and video ads . In terms of copywriting, words such as "authentic", "students", "buy", "authenticity", and "low price" are often used.

2-4 Tmall beauty and personal care stores and JD catering and food stores have strong advertising

The following only counts the off-site traffic platform promotion details of Tmall and JD stores in December. It can be seen that 9 stores in the TOP10 Tmall store promotion ranking mainly promote beauty and personal care categories, and the main traffic platforms are Weibo Fans and ByteDance. It is speculated that Weibo and Douyin have more female users and beauty bloggers have strong grass-planting power, which is conducive to store promotion.

The main categories of stores with strong promotion efforts on the JD platform are mostly catering and food, and beauty and personal care products are mainly for daily care, suitable for men, women, old and young, not just for women. Therefore, when choosing traffic platforms, they also prefer Tencent Advertising, Baidu Information Flow, etc. with a large number of users .

Christmas Eve and Christmas are coming soon, and e-commerce advertisers have launched many Christmas-related creative ideas, like "new wine in old bottles", aiming to provide the most valuable Christmas gift references for the majority of male and female compatriots.

For example, when giving a gift to a girlfriend , you can choose necklaces, cosmetic gift boxes, exquisite but impractical decorations, flowers, blind boxes of toys, and flower cakes; when giving a gift to a boyfriend, you can choose a thoughtful oversized apple, trendy shoes, practical thermos cups, hand warmers, scarves, socks, and backpacks; when giving a gift to a baby, you can choose a Santa Claus toy; you can even give your cat a Christmas tree cat climbing frame.

But the little lion found that the most popular gift was the "Girlfriend/Wife is so moved that she cries" gift box! I just want to ask e-commerce advertisers, aren’t you really single people out to take revenge on society?

Here are some popular advertising ideas for Christmas:

3-1 Simple and crude editing type, with girls’ envious screams and pictures of products

This type of routine can be said to be an upgraded version of "girlfriend is moved to tears". It no longer directly shows how good the gift is through exaggerated copy or character expressions, but instead increases the display of product details, using other girls' surprised screams and background sounds such as "your husband is so good", "I'm so envious", and "I want it too" to raise the value of the gift. They will also add pink and sparkling filters to the gift screen to create a girly selling point.

3-2 Gift-giving strategy type, which is called gift selection assistance but is actually a recommendation platform

The Christmas creative routine commonly used by "Douyin" and some cross-border e-commerce applications is often to give the video cover a title that arouses user curiosity, such as "Can't find a suitable gift for Christmas? 》《Recommended gifts for boys at different stages of love》《Christmas gifts for girls》.

The content mostly introduces a certain product or multiple eligible products to you in detail, similar to the blogger’s grass-planting videos. The video pictures are high-quality and contain useful information, but at the end it will still guide you to click below the video to purchase or receive coupons.

3-3 Forced patchwork type, touching/loving videos are used to introduce products

It cannot be said that there is no connection between the video cover, introduction, product introduction, narration, and text description of this type of routine. It can only be said that they are completely unrelated. They should have been cut from three videos and forcibly pieced together.

At the beginning, a touching confession of a girl or a wedding video will be selected as an introduction. When the user wonders what this has to do with Christmas, the content will be forcibly switched to the display and introduction of product details. The background music is usually a touching song, which makes it easier for users to empathize with the content. This type of video is similar to the routine of food videos + game screens in online money-making games, both of which try to gain more user stay time through low-cost means.

Let me complain again

Those "inappropriate" Christmas ads

3-4 The forced smile type, always on call, the modern Santa Claus, SF Express

Among all the Christmas advertisements, Little Lion found that SF Express’s same-city express delivery advertisement was a breath of fresh air. In the advertisement, the SF Express delivery man becomes a modern-day Santa Claus, appearing at critical moments to help couples/families who don't have time to buy gifts or want to create surprises. It also reflects SF Express's characteristics of fast delivery within the city and its ability to deliver anything. At the end, he even reveals a touching "professional fake smile".

(Maybe working overtime on Christmas Eve, being a gift-giving tool, and eating dog food all night is really fun...)

3-5 Forced Smile 2.0, Love your child and give him a homework gift bag at Christmas

The marketing of education advertisers is truly pervasive. Since online courses have become popular, classes are no longer restricted to winter and summer vacations, and even the derived course gift packages can become gifts. In Tencent Happy Mouse English’s Christmas advertisement, the dad turns into a loving Santa Claus and gives the children a gift package for English learning.

After receiving the gift, the child described to his mother how good the gift package was, and was so happy as if he was talking about someone else's homework.

In addition, Little Lion also found that creative background music for Christmas is mostly Christmas songs, popular Tik Tok songs or sweet love songs , such as "Jingle Bells" and "Not angry". One purpose is to create a festive or romantic atmosphere to pave the way for gift giving, and the other is to be closer to the user group.

In general, the content of Christmas creatives is still that boys should give girls a certain gift, or couples should give each other a certain gift to express their love. The purpose is to convey a strong concept of consumerism and guide users to buy or download a certain e-commerce application.

Author: App Growing

Source: App Growing