On April 11, 2011, Sogou’s bidding method introduced a quality issue, which means that the purpose of bidding is not achieved simply through price. For users who are accustomed to Baidu's bidding model, this is indeed a good thing. It can not only save advertising fees, but also form a healthy competition.
I think it is better to look at things based on the essence. What is the purpose of Sogou doing this? From my personal point of view. Mainly manifested in 3 aspects:
1. Change the situation of vicious bidding
Many people conduct large-scale competitions in a non-destructive way. Whoever has the most capital is in the front. Some small merchants have to withdraw or stay behind. This kind of competition has too many disadvantages, whether it is for large customers or small customers. It’s a loss for customers, but Sogou still makes money. Generally speaking, if you log into a Sogou account, you only need to adjust the price and click on the upper and lower ads. Basically, the rankings will not fluctuate too much if you are strong. If you follow Baidu's method and increase quality, merchants regardless of size will have opportunities. Obtaining a better ranking is also the healthy competition that everyone hopes for. But there are too many shortcomings behind Sogou. Each keyword corresponds to an idea, which greatly increases our bidding optimization time. There are hundreds of keywords for a product, and if we optimize with the one with the best traffic, there will be dozens. How to write about a few, a few more products, or hundreds of creative ideas? Even when writing is good, it can also be exhausted. During the optimization process, if someone else's is better, yours will have to be re-invented, which is a huge investment in terms of time. Baidu is relatively better. Each unit can create several more ideas and automatically match them. The effect and time are better controlled.
2. Stimulate user consumption
I don’t believe that these users will not experience it carefully. During the experience process, you will definitely put a lot of effort into setting the price, sometimes high and sometimes low. In this way, consumption will be faster and the effect will be better. It may not work in the early stages. Sogou follows Baidu's routine, which is nothing more than trying to please users so that everyone can invest with confidence. If your results are better, additional investment is inevitable. If investment and income are not directly proportional, it will be in vain. Many users only know how to invest and do not conduct a good analysis of the positive and negative relationships. Traffic volume is not representative of overall data.
3. Prepare the ground for the next step
Which step is the next step? I wonder if Sogou users have noticed that before April 11, the real-time view of today’s consumption has actually changed. It is also planned according to Baidu’s method. In the past, it was displayed every moment. You can check the number of clicks and consumption, but now even though you see the traffic coming in, you still can't find the consumption records of related keywords in your account. Why is this? Baidu's routine is not to show you the specific consumption records first, but after a certain time, all the records from the previous one or two hours are shown to you. You will find that it really does not match the actual number of clicks. Fortunately, Now Sogou is not as powerful as Baidu, and I don’t think it will be as serious as Baidu in the later stage. After all, Sogou still cannot reach such a huge market share. As we all know, many websites provide statistical source codes, and they can all provide traffic data in real time. Although each statistical system will have certain errors, which is inevitable, the difference will not be too big. The real-time statistics of Sogou in the past were also real (it is natural that K dropped some). Why did it change after it was established? This is just a random thought for a person like me who has some ideas. In other words, Sogou’s next step is definitely to prepare to upgrade the system and provide a new user experience for its quality and other functions.
To conclude: I think Sogou’s purpose in doing this is not just for the sake of users, but also to lay the foundation for itself to develop market share and retain these customers (I have tried many accounts, but the results are not very good. I have long wanted to quit). My humble opinion, hope you can enlighten me! This article comes from Zhang Yucheng’s personal website www.tingmeineiyixiu.com . Please attach the source for reprinting.
Thanks to zhangyucheng for his contribution