This article is from WeChat official account:Commercial VIEW (ID: coview) , of: a timber, from the head of FIG: IC photo
Since the establishment of the company in 2012, ByteDance has grown at a speed that has been on a rocket.
According to public information, ByteDance has completed 8 rounds of financing, almost once a year. This has also allowed the company’s valuation to rise from a few million US dollars at the beginning to 100 billion US dollars in the latest round in 2020, and the current valuation is far from the ceiling of byte beating.
Bytedance has grown into an international company. Among all Chinese Internet companies, the globalization of Bytedance has come to the forefront and is the most successful. Up to now, ByteDance’s business has covered 150 countries and regions and 75 languages around the world. It ranks at the forefront of the application store list in more than 40 countries and regions, and many products are popular in overseas markets.
According to the commercial VIEW survey, as of the end of 2019, Bytedance’s global monthly active users have exceeded 1.5 billion, and it has a number of explosive products with over 100 million users. Domestic products, according to the “2020 Douyin Data Report” officially released by ByteDance, Douyin (including Douyin Volcano version and Douyin Speedy version) has more than 600 million daily active users, and the number of users exceeds QQ, second only to WeChat. At the same time, the comprehensive information product Toutiao has over 300 million active users.
For overseas products, as of July 2020, Tiktok has more than 2 billion downloads worldwide and 700 million monthly active users. App Annie estimates that in 2021, TikTok’s monthly active users will exceed 1 billion. Purely from the scale of the number of product users, Bytedance has become the second largest Internet company in China and the largest number of users among Chinese companies going overseas.
According to the commercial VIEW survey, among the TOP10 applications on the entire network, Douyin leads in the frequency range of 10 to 19 times, and accounts for 40% of the time period of more than 30 minutes. From the perspective of commercialization, frequency and duration are the basic conditions for ensuring traffic quality, which lays the foundation for traffic monetization.
In the domestic market, ByteDance seems to be attacking multiple product lines at the same time, which is not in line with popular productsThinking, but in fact, all products basically revolve around content, achieving category focus, and at the same time ensuring the efficiency of content production and distribution through technical middle stations.
After gathering traffic pools through content products, further explore the boundaries of social product traffic (such as multi flash, fly chat, But there is no outstanding achievement yet), while broadening the content scene (such as tomato novels), and bringing traffic into more verticals Independent research and development, investment and mergers and acquisitions in the field(such as games, education, etc.).
In overseas markets, Bytedance also combines independent product research and development, investment and mergers and acquisitions, and the core idea is to control high-quality content sources and platforms. Similar to the domestic development path, from the early research and development and investment of information content products, to the later shift to short video products, they are constantly exploring the boundaries of content and raising the ceiling of commercialization.
Byte Beating Commercialization Map
The commercial monetization of ByteDance can be divided into two monetization directions from the perspective of monetization resource mining: the monetization of traffic resources and the monetization of technical resources.
Traffic resource monetization business mainly refers to businesses that are highly dependent on traffic, including advertising service platforms (mass engine), C-end business (including live broadcast, e-commerce, games, education, medical care, etc.).
Second, overseas traffic. Bytedance’s overseas traffic resources are rapidly commercialized, which strongly promotes international revenue growth. In 2021, overseas promotion and marketing resources will be officially added to the huge engine to open up overseas product resources.(TikTok, BuzzVideo, TopBuzz) to meet the overseas promotion needs of advertisers.
On the one hand, ByteDance is actively exploring innovative breakthroughs in traffic growth, and on the other hand, it is actively realizing the high efficiency of current traffic.
Advertising is the most efficient way to monetize traffic. After reaching a certain revenue scale, there is an urgent need to find new monetization methods to achieve the second curve of commercial growth, and monetization efficiency is judged by the monetization value and priority of new businesses. The primary consideration. Commercial VIEW also gives the key factors that affect the efficiency of the commercialization of ByteDance from an external perspective (see follow-up content).
The C-end monetization business of Byte Beat can be simply understood as “traffic +”. In addition to advertising, the current business areas include: e-commerce, live broadcast, games, medium and long video, education, housing, online medical care , Reading, consumer finance, O2O services, etc.
In summary, the C-side business field that byte beating enters often has the following characteristics: Reuse algorithms or data capabilities as much as possible, consume a large amount of traffic, and have high traffic monetization efficiency. It is best to combine with other Business synergy and large target market scale. The performance of each business is different in different characteristics. Commercial VIEW also gives the commercial realization value evaluation of each business from an external perspective. (See follow-up content).
Bytedance’s B-end business has formed a dual-engine drive of “volcano engine + Feishu”. The former focuses on corporate growth and the latter focuses on corporate collaboration. From the perspective of empowering enterprises, the former is to empower enterprises to upgrade their digital and intelligent operating systems and product experience, improve growth efficiency, and reduce growth costs; the latter empower enterprises to process management and improve the organizationCollaboration efficiency reduces management costs.
Bytedance is also gradually expanding more B-side business through self-research and investment layout. The products involved successively include: 1. LKP, the full name of Lark Phone, is a byte-beating office hardware package developed by its Xinshi laboratory. The package is equipped with Smartisan OS operating system Nut mobile phone R2 and display TNT Go; 2. Internet of Vehicles, according to media reports, ByteDance has established an Internet of Vehicles team to develop vehicle infotainment systems, and jointly create Internet of Vehicles ecological solutions. The plan is to realize the landing of its mobile Internet products such as Douyin and Toutiao on car terminals.
Comparison with the business of first-line Internet companies
If the essence of the Internet is connection, ByteDance products solve the connection between people and content. ByteDance has expanded its business lines to all areas of the Internet with its huge content ecological traffic, and has become another “boundless” company. From the comparison with the commercial layout of first-tier Internet companies, Bytedance overlaps in key areas. In other words, Bytedance has penetrated into the competition in the hinterland of giants.
In comparison, (information flow) advertising business allows byte beating into the head layout. According to a research report disclosed by the industry, search, e-commerce, and mid-length video have become the three S-level business lines of Bytedance in 2021. At the same time, games are also in-depth layout business that byte-beat realizes high-efficiency traffic monetization.
In addition, ByteDance still chooses to invest “vigorously” in education when it is unable to achieve high-efficiency algorithms and traffic. In addition to its advantages in traffic, it also considers the huge market space in the education field, and the market is concentrated. Degree is not high, and technology innovation opportunities in the field of education. In combination with other conventional and relatively shallow-layout businesses, byte beating involves a wide range of fields.
In addition to the common characteristics of large-scale traffic, and the different ecosystems of giants, people and commodities, and people and information, the different core competitiveness formed by the comparison of different core competitiveness, byte beating is driving the level of commercialization in different fields. It is a long-term proposition in which fields will be able to achieve large-scale wins.
Traffic monetization journey and supporting factors
The flow monetization logic of byte beating can be summarized into three stages from the perspective of the life cycle (monetization journey): Traffic Manufacturing, traffic distribution, traffic monetization. The two-dimensional growth of traffic and commercialization is also the core business goal of Bytedance.
In view of supporting factors, first look at traffic production. The traffic produced by ByteDance has two distinctive features: ultra-large-scale active users and ultra-long user duration. These two powerfully ensure the traffic monetization base and still Continue to explore growth space.
Looking at traffic distribution next, ByteDance has established a refined labeling system from both the user side and the content side, and at the same time, it matches the intelligent recommendation algorithm to achieve high-efficiency distribution of traffic.
Finally, look at the realization of traffic. There are the foundations established by the first two. ByteDance first focuses on advertising. After the slowdown in advertising growth, it continues to expand other areas and seeks the second growth curve of commercialization. The essence is to seek the largest value of traffic. 化.
Exploration of traffic patterns and growth curve
As for how to further strengthen the status of head traffic, ByteDance is also sparing no effort to continue to explore. The core of traffic competition is traffic pattern and traffic growth rate, which is also the basis for driving the growth of the entire business ecosystem.
Key factors affecting the efficiency of traffic realization
There are three key factors that affect the efficiency of byte bounce traffic realization: audience matching efficiency, scene switching efficiency, and product conversion efficiency.
From the perspective of the complete path of traffic monetization, the impact of these three factors on monetization efficiency is funneled and distributed, and the scene has become a more important consumer driving factor than the commodity itself.
That is, after establishing a new scene of change, we must first ensure that the scene is accurately distributed to the audience using data and algorithms, and secondly, we must ensure an efficient switch from the traffic scene to the scene of the change, and finally realize product conversion and realization in the new scene.
Through comprehensive analysis, it can also be seen that compared with the highly efficient monetization services in advertising, live broadcast, e-commerce and other platforms, as new business scenarios appear on the platform(host) (e.g. education, etc.), the realization path is lengthened, and the algorithm-driven efficiency is weakened, The flow realization efficiency is decreasing.
C-side business commercialization realization value evaluation
Bytedance has its own ROI considerations when entering any business field. But how to increase ARPU after the slowdown in advertising monetization growth?The core proposition facing the new monetization business.
Commercialization VIEW provides a set of evaluation frameworks based on commercialized realization value output from an external perspective. For byte bounce, a good monetization business should have:
First, data usage efficiency. The new business can quickly trial and error, iterate, and grow with the help of byte-based big data and AI capabilities;
Second, the scale of traffic consumption. The growth of new business is highly dependent on and consumes traffic, which is a strong marketing-driven business, which maximizes the release of platform traffic advantages;
Third, flow realization efficiency. From the perspective of the user, from the platform scene to the new business scene is a flow (user) monetization journey, and the efficiency of each link of the journey must be ensured;
Fourth, platform synergy value. It is best for the new business and other businesses on the platform to form an efficient synergy to enhance each other’s monetization potential;
Fifth, the target market space. It is better for the new business to have a large enough market space, and it is best that there is no market oligarch, or there are a lot of opportunities for innovation in the circle.
Further use the five-factor model to analyze the commercial realization value of each business line of ByteDance’s C-end, focusing on two key influencing factors.
From the perspective of platform synergy value, , (information flow) recommended ads show the maximum value of traffic monetization. Although search advertising cannot achieve the value of an independent entry at present, because of the traffic blessing, and in the marketing system of a large number of engines, from the exposure of the information flow to the triggering of the user’s active search, it plays a role of a linkage link and a closed-loop marketing. The content ecology has a strategic blessing role.
The live broadcast business and medium-length video also support the content ecology. They all contribute to the user stickiness and duration from different content forms, as well as more changes in the scene.
From the perspective of traffic monetization efficiency, advertising is still the most efficient way to monetize, but because ads cannot adjust the load rate (affecting inventory) and The price has increased excessively, so it is necessary to rely on more changing scenes.
From the perspective of comprehensive Internet industry monetization methods, live broadcast, e-commerce, and games are all very efficient changes in the scene. The new scenario has realized the change from user to audience, from user to buyer, and from user to player. Platform role switching, in order to promote more direct C-side income, rather than just being an advertising dealer for B-side.
As the changing scenes migrate to more areas, the overall flow realization efficiency (audience matching, scene switching, product conversion) is decreasing. This also affects the realizable value of these business segments and their priority in the business group.
In addition, commercialization VIEW believes that although a certain business is based on the comprehensive evaluation of priority based on the realization value and input cost, but the ultimate commercial value of the business comes from the superposition of the realization value and its own value.
For example, in education, really good education products must be word-of-mouth driven in the later stage, and truly contribute innovative experiences and services to the education industry, rather than always acquiring users from the platform’s traffic end.
Therefore, Bytedance is more complicated in business priority decision-making, and will comprehensively consider other influencing factors such as market penetration, industry innovation opportunities, circle segmentation opportunities, and organizational effectiveness.
B-end business analysis of byte beating
It should be said that byte jitter is more than just traffic. From the perspective of the realization of technological resources, the wordFrom the open source of the intelligent recommendation system “Lingju” in 2019, the release of the enterprise technology service platform “Volcano Engine” in 2020, and the full upgrade of the Volcano Engine to the enterprise intelligent growth platform in 2021, we will build our own B-end step by step. Business ecology.
From the comparison of the B-side business of other Internet giants, ByteDance also focuses on intelligent growth services based on its own advantages, achieving differentiated market entry.
Bytedance has formed a dual business engine of “Volcano Engine + Feishu”, one enabling growth and the other enabling collaboration. From the perspective of commercialization, the customer groups generated by these two major businesses are channels for acquiring customers.
But it can also be seen that the commercialized link logic of the B-side is still different from that of the C-side. C-side commercialization is more inclined to instant transaction consumption, and B-side commercialization is more focused on service delivery. This often requires a process cycle. ByteDance requires a very professional customer success team.
This article is from WeChat official account:Commercial VIEW (ID: coview) , makeAuthor: Muyi