For apps, the common monetization methods are IAA and IAP, which are generally single-choice. But many developers always regret not choosing the other. In fact, the two are not mutually exclusive, and the core of the coexistence of IAA and IAP is to distinguish between users.
As mentioned in a previous article, how developers can choose the right monetization model for their apps. However, in the actual operation process, many applications face complex situations, such as whether the application is a start-up application or a mature application, for example, the traffic of the application is not too much, and there are always some users with strong payment ability and habits. In particular, IAA's low-threshold monetization model makes many developers lose taste and abandon it - throw it away, but they are reluctant to throw it away, and they are worried that the income and user experience of IAP will be affected by small losses.
The world is not black and white, and neither are the IAA and IAP mutually exclusive. It is common for the same application to have both IAA and IAP. For example, Aiyouteng, a typical long-form video, although its income mainly depends on user payment, it does not affect the fact that a large number of users endure lengthy patch ads every day to watch their content in vain. Therefore, the core of the coexistence of IAA and IAP is to distinguish users - hold on to paying users, strive for swing users, and squeeze every cent of revenue from white prostitution users.
So the question is, how to distinguish which users are paid users, which users are free users, and which users are swing users that can be fought for. At this time, commercial operations need to work closely with growth operations and user operations. to open up the entire link from the beginning of the user's entry into the application.
Generally speaking, the main sources of users are buying, organic traffic and user fission. If it is a user acquired through purchase, when buying volume to build an advertising plan, there will be a distinction between an advertising plan for free users and an advertising plan for paying users, and the operation methods used by users will be different after entering the app. If it is user fission, then there will be a big difference between the new users of the fission of paid users and the new users of free fission in terms of efficiency in converting into paying users. The various behaviors of users after entering the application, and the eighteen kinds of martial arts performed by user operations on users, will also affect the distinction between free and paid users. Therefore, when allocating strategies for commercial operations, we should not only consider the commercial side, but also deploy strategies together with the growth department and user departments as a whole.
Now that you've distinguished your users, it's time to configure your policies. In practice, different IAA and IAP policies are used for different users, and there are generally the following ways:
One of the most common blends of IAA and IAP in the market is to use de-advertising as a paying user benefit. In the process of using the application for free users, developers fill a lot of ads and earn revenue through ads, but it is very disruptive to users. For paying users, the de-advertising is a benefit to optimize the experience of paying users, so that the use of paying users is not disturbed by ads, which can also promote paid conversions. This practice exists in almost all applications that have both IAA monetization and IAP monetization. The typical one is the early Aiyouteng. In the early days of Aiyouteng, users needed to watch lengthy and non-skippable patch ads when watching videos, and the web page and mobile app were also full of a large number of ads. But if the user pays for a VIP membership, then they can get a refreshing and smooth viewing experience. This approach does get a lot of users who value the experience to pay.
However, with the development of the Internet industry to this day, the competition among developers has also made users more and more demanding of developers, and it is far from enough to give paying users just advertising benefits. Today's apps want users to pay, in addition to being ad-free, they also need to give users more advanced features. Basic function + VIP function has become an important means for developers to treat users differently and promote user payment, free users can only use basic functions, but if you want to get better services, you need to pay to unlock, and attract users to pay through special high-level functions and services. Or take Aiyouteng as an example, now Aiyouteng, a lot of high-quality content is only open to paying users, and free users can only watch the first few episodes or minutes of high-quality content even if they watch ads, which prompts swing users to pay for high-quality content and also promotes the healthy development of the industry.
But in many cases, for users, the VIP content and services provided by the app, if there is no trial, it is difficult to realize the value of VIP, and it is difficult to stimulate the willingness to pay. In this case, the IAA has become an effective means of promoting IAP. Developers give users a certain percentage of points through incentive advertisements or other forms, guide users to use points to redeem membership rights for a certain period of time, and promote users' willingness to pay through the trial of membership rights, which is also an effective way to promote member sales. From the IAA's point of view, since users have expectations for a VIP experience after watching ads, the completion rate of ads in this scenario will be better than that of video ads in general scenarios, which can also help developers sell ads at a higher price. For developers, it's a no-lose deal. At the same time, for developers, this group of users who try out VIP by watching ads, even if they do not pay, will become the focus of attention in the future, and user operation will focus on performing eighteen kinds of martial arts on these users.
In reality, there are many applications that have adopted such a strategy, such as QQ Music and WeChat Reading, which have the operation of allowing users to watch advertisements and gain membership time. Recently, Tencent Video has also followed up and tested this strategy. Indirectly illustrates the effectiveness of this strategy, which can indeed win swing users to pay for it. However, it should be noted that in the AB test, in addition to the benefits of advertising and payment, the opportunity cost paid by the developer in the entire chain should also be considered. In addition, how to calculate the cost of membership rights redeemed by users, whether it needs to be used as marketing costs, whether it needs to be settled, etc. are also very important issues, which need to be negotiated and solved by various departments.
IAA and IAP hybrid monetization is also common in games, especially some light to medium games. In-game levels and props need to be purchased, and users can choose to pay, or they can choose to earn points by watching ads and use them to redeem corresponding items. This can also be used for apps that can limit the number of times a user can use it. However, it should be noted that with the increase in the number of times a single user views ads, the price of ads will gradually decrease, and even if users watch ads excessively, they will be judged to cheat. Essentially, this is to limit free users from obtaining advanced features while giving free users basic features, so as to ensure the advanced experience of paid users.
All in all, IAA and IAP are not incompatible, and in many cases they can be made together and monetized. For developers, instead of worrying about whether to choose IAA or IAP, it is better to choose all of them, reasonably distinguish users, and divide benefits.
Users always want to prostitute content and services for nothing, and they want a good user experience. And developers are always staring at users' money bags, hoping that users will pay more. In the end, developers need to find a balance between user experience and developer benefits to maximize the benefits of all parties.
This article was originally published by @rorain on Everyone is a Product Manager. Reproduction without permission is prohibited
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