I read two articles last night, both about Internet website alliances. One was Shi Yan's analysis on website alliances for iResearch's column, and the other was Tuwang’s suggestions on website operations. After reading them, I had a deep feeling and remembered that I had also done alliance promotion on Chanet for several months. So, I have some understanding of its operations. Nowadays, there are many network alliances; there are dozens of introductions on Admin5. However, not many of them leave an impression on me. The earliest ones were Zhiyi, Yitian, Jiuying, Yite, Iplus, Qirun, etc. Later, there were Heimabang and Yuegui’s Business Zero Eight. Recently, I am interested in 265's alliance and the upcoming Yahoo alliance. Of course, Google doesn't need introduction as it is the biggest one. Discuz's model can also be considered as a network alliance. Many people say that network alliances actually use the long tail of the Internet to create benefits by gathering tens of thousands of websites of various sizes through the alliance platform to realize the value of traffic. However, this is just an ideal model. China's Internet lacks patient, high-quality individual groups.
1. Re-positioning of Website Alliances and Website Re-shuffling
Currently, many people have a conceptual misunderstanding about the positioning of website alliances. Now, the function of website alliances is no longer just to gather some small and medium-sized websites to obtain traffic and income. Currently, many high-traffic sites have also begun to recognize the advertisements of website alliances, such as the cooperation between Xilu and YiQiFa, and the cooperation between Qidian Chinese Literature Network and Chanet. There are also more and more brand customers who, when promoting, will focus on the channel of website alliances, such as Skype's recent promotion.
One of the major advantages of website alliances is the pay-per-effect mode. Whether it is pop-up windows, clicks, or registrations, they can all be paid according to actual effects. In the past, many larger sites were keen on selling ad spaces and looked down on these result-oriented ads. However, with the intensification of competition in the domestic Internet environment, on the one hand, it is difficult for websites with relatively low traffic but high quality to sell their ad spaces, and on the other hand, many large sites also have ad space vacancies. Combined with the attraction of brand customers, they have no choice but to pay attention to the result-oriented advertisements of website alliances. Not every site administrator has the time and ability to find advertisers, and not every advertiser will specifically contact a site for promotion. At this time, the role of the website alliance becomes evident, and the website alliance can also play a role in monitoring and balancing.
2. CPC, CPM, CPA Result-Oriented Advertising Models
The disparity between surface effects and actual effects often affects advertisers' doubts about this pay-per-effect advertising form. A typical example is advertisers buying traffic through pop-up windows, such as 51.com. During the promotion period, Alexa traffic rankings soared, with daily limits hit. After the promotion stopped, it was like the trend of ST Changkong, with daily limits falling until it reached its reasonable position. Especially for many membership-based sites, through joint promotions, the number of members increased significantly in the short term, but the later activity of members did not increase significantly. This can only mean that this promotion was used to buy member information data and did not provide much substantial help to the website. Although many advertising alliance platforms’ data statistics are based on third-party data, or even pay according to the data provided by the advertiser, what advertisers hope for is the continuous increase of active users behind the data. In this aspect, the effect after the advertisement stops is not very obvious.