Last Updated on April 24, 2023
In-Feed ads are one of the most popular ads types nowadays, and many companies have gradually shifted from search ads to in-feed ads. Because of this, in-feed advertisers need to stay ahead of the industry trend especially in the fierce competitive environment like China. They also need to understand potential competitors through a systematic competitor analysis, which involves industry market, product strategy, user audience, and ad placement strategy.
In this article, we will list down 4 important analysis pillars for a successful in-Feed ads campaign.
1. In-Feed Ads : Identifying the Industry Competitors
Firstly, identifying the competitors is the priority. Competitors are usually divided into the following three categories:
i. Direct product competition
Products that provide core services, market goals, customer groups, etc., are basically consistent with yours, and have extremely similar product functionalities and user needs.
ii. Potential competing products
The product features and solutions are different, but the user groups are highly overlapped, and solving the same pain points of users. Currently, it does not constitute a direct interest competition, but there will be great competition risks in the future.
ii. Indirect competing products
The target groups have certain commonalities. The core services of the products are not the same, but in certain scenarios, user groups are still overlapping.
2. In-Feed Ads : Identifying the Industry and Market Competition
i. Through App Store
Secondly, if your company is building an app product, app stores are one of the best channel to conduct industry market analysis. Companies can understand its own and competitors’ overall market size, growth rate, previous financing information, etc., and market direction to help companies seize development opportunities.
For instances, tools like Yiguan Qianfan (易观千帆), Kuchuan, iResearch, APP Annie, Sensor Tower. We can easily obtain information such as users profile, downloads volume, and activities of competing apps.
Related Apps from App Analytic tool
ii. Through Ads Assets
- Find out the creative used by competitors, types of advertisement they invested in, and forecasting data. Tools to use include AppGrowing, Feed Ads Radar (信息流雷达), Adbug, SocialPeta, etc.
iii. Through Keywords & Competitor User Profiles
- Similarly, 5118 webmaster tools, Baidu index, 360 trends, Similarweb etc. can be used to obtain information such as user profiles of competing products, keywords, creative copywriting, website traffic etc.
- Through Blue MC, we can identify user profiles and buying behaviors. Next we can also quickly learn about the type of WeChat articles and paid ads of competitive product from WeChat Search. Likewise, for mini program, the exchange platform should indicate the status of competing products.
- Undoubtedly, the best way to obtain the selling points and competitive advantages of competitors, is to use their product ourselves and record down all key points and experiences. Starting from email subscription, push notification, mobile phone numbers registration, and incomplete key actions after registration, to see how the product will reactivate users. By joining the community and following the WeChat official account, we can obtain the latest status of the competing products.
iv. Through Media & Search
- Venture capital media such as 36Kr, Tiger Sniff, provide information such as conference sharing, professional articles, interviews, financing reports, quarterly reports of listed companies. Also, we need to try to communicate with internal employees and people familiar with the competitors.
- Search on major platforms such as Baidu and WeChat will be another good way to find out competitors’ marketing strategy, business model and industry profitability.
- Let\’s take the fresh food market as an example. According to China\’s fresh food e-commerce industry report, the fresh food market is developing rapidly, and the e-commerce fresh food market has huge room for improvement in the future.
Data source: iResearch
In 2020, the fresh food e-commerce market transaction volume will reach 404.7 billion RMB, a growth rate of 44.7%. The fresh food e-commerce market transaction scale is expected to reach 564 billion RMB next year
v. Product Strategy Analysis – Yes/No Rule
We need to analyze from the perspective of products and understand the functions, advantages, positioning, and geography between our products and competing products.
- In addition to product analysis, we can adopt the YES/NO rule to clearly show the gap between our own products and competing products.
- Together with different key elements (Namely – Feature, advantage, support, positioning, coverage, model etc.) to quickly identify the advantages and weaknesses between competitors and our own product.
3. In-Feed Ads : Identifying the Target Audiences
- Who are our target audiences? (User profiles and characteristics): Who are the target audiences what are their hobbies, habits, favorites products, etc.
- Where do they come from (Channels): Which platform channels the target customers come from, and whether there are any overlapping between different channels and audiences?
- What are their needs (Pain points analysis): What are the needs that have not been fulfilled, and which product characteristics can better meet the needs of users.
4. In-Feed Ads : Ads Strategy Analysis
Furthermore, to build a good ads strategy, a good advertiser will always start from: Refining product advantages, highlighting selling points, create a landing pages that directly address user pain points.
- Check out how competitors formulate the ads copy, and complete the copywriting with good & frequent used keywords.
Keywords Analysis
- Media channels selections with budget allocation, and produce the ads assets based on each channels ‘ads format requirements. Generally, famous media like – Tencent, Bytedance, Baidu, Kuaishou, etc.;
Percentage of Medias
- Coupled with format to be used: images, videos, group pictures, vertical videos, texts, icons, etc.
Percentage of Ads formats – Image source: App Growing
Ads format examples:
Big Image (Ad format example)
Group Images (Ad format example)
Videos (Ad format example)
- For example, advertising forms like in-feed ads, banners, native ads, screen openings, short videos, text links, etc.
Percentage of Ads types – Image source: App Growing
Through above all 4 pillars – Identify Industry Competitors, Methods for Industry and Market Competition Analysis, Target Audience Analysis, Ads Strategy Analysis, we strongly believe it can better help you in strategizing your in-feed advertisement campaigns.
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