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Author: Gray Bear
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Introduction: This experience sharing is not our first meeting, this time the article has been updated to reflect recent changes in information flow advertising.
I was fortunate to participate in the promotion of a heavy game developed by the company, and I have used almost all mainstream DSP platforms available in the market. Today, I will briefly discuss the characteristics of each DSP platform and the quality of users. It should be noted in advance that the views expressed in this article are limited to iOS traffic from each platform, and are based on the game data performance from my own advertising. The data performance on different platforms may vary across different industries and even different games, and I welcome discussions with those who have different opinions from this article, but please refrain from unnecessary arguments.
1. Guangdiantong
Guangdiantong is a platform that evokes mixed feelings; after a certain stage of promotion, a bottleneck period will occur. In summary, iOS has volume, but the volume needs to be fought for, and costs will continue to soar; user activity is good, but their payment ability is lacking.
The main traffic source for Guangdiantong is QQ Space, which undoubtedly has a good daily active user count. My game’s promotion on Guangdiantong, with a game package size of several hundred MB, peaked at 30,000 daily activations on iOS. Even after a long period of promotion, the daily average activation still maintains at 1,000, which is incomparable to other platforms. If CPC bidding is still difficult to achieve volume, I recommend trying the new OCPA bidding model, where a high OCPA price makes it easier to secure volume. When my promoted game’s OCPA bid reached 70-80, it generally achieved over 500 activations.
However, the cost of Guangdiantong is quite difficult to control, and competition for iOS traffic in the gaming industry has intensified. Since March and April of this year, the average eCPM value on Guangdiantong has nearly doubled by September. For advertisers, this means that the cost of competing for volume on Guangdiantong has been continuously rising. It’s a painful experience; our cost per activation on Guangdiantong has risen from below 10 to over 80.
Another characteristic of Guangdiantong is its younger user demographic; it’s evident that most of the people playing QQ Space are under 22 years old. Especially during winter and summer vacations, the proportion of younger users increases significantly. This group has poor payment ability, but their activity in games is relatively good.
Another feature of Guangdiantong is that popular IP adaptations of mobile games and the craze for star chasing are prevalent. Additionally, some classic web games adapted into mobile games in the QQ game hall, like King of Fighters products, are easier to promote. Tencent’s games are easier to push as they can leverage internal traffic across Tencent’s platforms.
Moreover, it is crucial to avoid shutting down accounts or pausing promotions on Guangdiantong. Pausing promotions greatly impacts the account; a single pause can lead to irreversible consequences, affecting both the system’s allocated traffic and the quality of that traffic.
After a certain stage of promotion, Guangdiantong can feel very awkward; there is volume, but costs are hard to control. When the recovery speed can’t keep up, what should be done? It’s a bit of a dilemma; it’s hard to give up but feels wasteful to continue. So should we keep investing? We will keep investing, but I suggest you don’t (leave the volume for us; without competition, there’s no harm!!!).
2. Toutiao
In summary, Toutiao is a platform that is not worth spending too much energy on; the input-output ratio is not proportional. It requires a lot of attention and optimization, but the results often disappoint.
First, the iOS volume on Toutiao is incredibly difficult to obtain; it can be said that there is almost no iOS volume. It’s very challenging to start volume; I’ve launched new campaigns and materials daily, and the best I can achieve is about 300 activations a day. Additionally, I have also purchased splash screens and information flow GD resources on Toutiao at fixed exposure rates, and the costs are astonishing. It feels like Toutiao is overly commercialized, and its traffic cannot support so many ad placements, resulting in low volume.
Although the volume is small, even a mosquito’s leg is meat. How can you optimize on Toutiao? The click-through rate of the materials is crucial, directly determining the distribution of traffic. If the click-through rate of the account’s ad campaign remains low, the CPC bid must be increased to secure volume. Once the system allocates volume, increasing the click-through rate will further decrease it, leading to a vicious cycle. If the account remains in a low click state, it directly affects the account’s quality score, and new ad campaigns will also be assumed by the system to have a low click-through rate, resulting in little volume allocation.
Therefore, I suggest that if the click-through rate of materials on Toutiao is below 0.8%, check the conversion rate; if the conversion rate is poor, you can directly shut it down. If the conversion rate is good, you can try increasing the bid. High click-through rate materials with poor conversion rates should be decisively shut down as they are useless and will only waste your money, contributing to the ad platform. Another option is to try the GIF ad placements on Neihan Duanzi, which perform quite well.
One more thing to complain about is that Toutiao’s system is very strange; it seems that since mid-May this year, inexplicable bugs have appeared, which are hard to describe but can only be understood through experience. The number of downloads shown in the backend is inexplicably high, and there have been cases where the actual activation rate was below 10%. Sometimes, materials with high click-through rates suddenly explode in volume, burning through several thousand dollars in just one or two hours, requiring constant monitoring or setting budget limits, or else you risk burning through your budget. After switching to the new backend, inexplicably low volume occurred. So many strange incidents mean that one must closely monitor the backend; otherwise, the losses will be yours, and if something goes wrong, you can only write a resignation letter in tears.
After all this complaining about Toutiao, you may wonder why, with such a poor platform, everyone is still so obsessed. That’s because its user payment ability is excellent!!! What can be done? Toutiao has abused me countless times, yet I still treat it like my first love. As long as you secure the users on Toutiao, their payment ability is definitely solid. So everyone, dry your tears and continue to operate in the backend. (The above complaints are based on my personal experience; many friends have had good results on this platform; it’s subjective).
3. UC Toutiao
Compared to Toutiao, UC Toutiao is a worry-free baby. There is volume on iOS, and costs are controllable. The system is relatively simple and stable, but user payment ability is slightly inferior to Toutiao.
Many people may say that UC Toutiao has a large proportion of Android users and little iOS volume, but our advertising results show that there is indeed volume on iOS! The backend is relatively simple and stable. Once a campaign is launched, you can rest easy; the material degradation cycle is long, and the same material can be used for a month without issues. The cost is controllable. The game I promoted previously maintained an average of 700 activations daily on UC Toutiao, with costs remaining stable and ROI being lower than Toutiao.
I’ve heard rumors that the stability of UC Toutiao’s system will greatly improve in the second half of the year, resulting in stable traffic and improved user quality; this remains to be verified.
Although UC Toutiao’s system is stable, it is unreasonable; similar to Guangdiantong, it is crucial to avoid pausing promotions and shutting down accounts. The higher the accumulated spending on your account, the higher its weight. Once shut down, the system will deem the account poor and directly send it to limbo. I’ve fallen into this trap twice; the first time, after reopening, the account dropped from about 700 activations daily to below 100, with costs over 100. The second time, after reopening, it dropped from around 300 activations daily to below 100. I won’t say more; it’s all tears; I’ll go open a new account.
4. Zhihui Push
I haven’t been able to promote my game effectively on Zhihui Push; there is little volume, and costs are quite difficult to control. The reason may be the large package size, several hundred MB.
Before advertising, I heard many agents say that XXX’s game on Zhihui Push has over 1,000 activations daily, and another game I promoted spent tens of thousands daily. However, the reality is that fairy tales are deceptive; Zhihui Push may be more suitable for promoting casual games with smaller package sizes.
Although there is little volume, the user payment ability on Zhihui Push is very good, and the recovery from advertising is excellent. It is recommended to collect volume within acceptable cost ranges without forcing volume.
5. The Three Giants of Alliance Traffic: Inmobi/Glispa/Mobvista
I won’t comment on AdMob; my game hasn’t performed well on AdMob due to high costs.I highly recommend the three alliance traffic platforms: InMobi, Glispa, and Mobvista. They have large volumes, controllable costs, and high user quality. These three platforms are part of alliance traffic merchants, aggregating traffic from many large, medium, and small apps.
InMobi has its own CBP bidding model, optimizing based on CPA bids. CBP = CVR * CPA bid, where CVR refers to the conversion rate from click to activation. Advertisers submit an acceptable CPA price, and the system calculates the click-to-activation conversion rate based on the returned activation data. The fixed CPA price means that the higher the conversion rate, the easier it is to secure volume. Therefore, InMobi’s advertising requires constant monitoring of the click-to-activation conversion rate, with 3-5 sets of materials needing updates weekly.
Glispa and Mobvista operate on a fixed price purchasing model. After receiving the order demand, the platform publishes the demand to its downstream alliance channels. Therefore, the price remains fixed; advertisers only need to adjust the purchasing price based on traffic and recovery conditions and provide timely feedback to the platform for optimization.
Alliance traffic results vary greatly depending on the products; it is advisable to try different platforms to find the one that suits your product best.
6. Overseas Video Channels: Vungle/Unity
Both platforms primarily source traffic from click or online game interstitial ads, mainly through video ads. There is volume, but user quality may vary.
The backend also uses activation bidding, where the system decides traffic distribution based on the conversion rate from display to final activation and the activation bid. If the conversion rate is low, the allocated traffic may consist of low-quality users from some platforms, leading to poor payment situations. Therefore, constant attention to conversion rates is necessary to enhance the competitiveness of ad campaigns.
It is also advisable to experiment with advertising based on the results of your product.
7. Special Periods for E-commerce Volume
Recently, during the Double Eleven shopping festival, the e-commerce industry has taken most of the volume. Among the platforms I promoted, Toutiao’s traffic fluctuated greatly, and account traffic was clearly affected by the overall market. Guangdiantong’s traffic remained strong.
That’s all. The opinions in this article are based on my personal advertising experience and are not universally applicable. If you have different views, feel free to leave comments for discussion.
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