Per reporter: Liu Xuemei Per editor: Li Zhuo
The "small actions" of big players will always bring sensation. What's more, China's e-commerce boss and social boss - Taobao WeChat has once again "demolished the wall".
Before the Mid-Autumn Festival of this year's National Day, on September 25, Alimama and Tencent Advertising both announced that they would further deepen their cooperation: high-quality advertising traffic such as WeChat Channels, Moments, and Mini Programs can jump directly to Taobao, Tmall merchants' stores, product details and Taobao live broadcast rooms through Alimama UD effect ads.
Taobao Live emphasized to the "Daily Economic News" reporter that based on this deepening cooperation, merchant live broadcast rooms and expert live broadcast rooms can also seize new traffic opportunities on video accounts. In this cooperation, advertising resources such as WeChat Moments and Channels will be fully opened to Taobao Live to meet the dual goals of "high-scale viewing and transaction" in the live broadcast room.
At the same time, the two parties also carry out deep integration in terms of crowd complementarity and system co-construction to meet the different business goals of merchants in the three major business centers of stores, live broadcasts and content. For this year's Tmall Double 11, the two sides will also jointly launch the "Double 11 Super Detonation Plan" and invest 100 million yuan to subsidize merchants.
Tencent, Ali "holding hands"? The shares of both sides jumped directly to ICphoto-1252293145152323605
For Alibaba, this means that it is expected to receive long-awaited incremental traffic, which is also an important opportunity to expand Tencent's advertising revenue. Behind the cooperation, the other side is also believed to be jointly defending against external threats - the rising "Douyin and Pinduoduo".
As of press time, Alibaba (HK9988) rose 3.07% to HK$85.50, an intraday high of HK$86.25, and Tencent Holdings (HK0700) rose 2.89%, with a share price of HK$306, an intraday high of HK$307.
The "Great Reconciliation of the Century" has long since taken a step forward
Since 2021, the interconnection between Tencent and Alibaba has taken steps and is gradually escalating.
On September 13, 2021, the State Council's new office held a press conference, at which Zhao Zhiguo, spokesperson of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and director of the Information and Communications Administration, said that in accordance with relevant decision-making and deployment, on the basis of the special governance of APP in the early stage, after in-depth research and extensive listening to the opinions of all parties, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology launched a six-month special rectification action for the Internet industry in July of that year.
Zhao Zhiguo pointed out that one of the key concerns in governance is to block website links, which is also one of the problems of this key rectification.
After the meeting, Tencent responded that it firmly supports the decision of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and implements it in stages and steps under the premise of taking safety as the bottom line. Mutual blocking between Internet platforms began to become a thing of the past.
On November 29, 2021, WeChat issued the "Update Statement on the "WeChat External Link Content Management Specification", stating that WeChat will start updating the external link management measures from now on, and external links will be directly accessible in the peer-to-peer chat scenario; In the group chat scenario, pilot the direct access function of e-commerce external links; Follow-up plans to develop an independent selection model to provide users with external link management functions. It is understood that this statement is a further upgrade of WeChat's external chain specifications under the background of "interconnection".
It was also at the end of 2021 that many media began to report that mobile WeChat can already directly open Taobao product links, and Alipay can be used to shop after jumping to the Taobao product page.
In terms of advertising cooperation, since Tencent Video, Tencent News and other app advertisements can jump directly to Taobao in 2021, the cooperation between Alimama and Tencent Advertising has gradually deepened.
According to relevant media reports, the cooperation between Alimama and Tencent Advertising dates back to 2021. This year, the advertising traffic of Tencent Video, Tencent News, and QQ connected to Alimama UD, and the two sides took the first step in traffic cooperation.
All this is also gradual, small steps. During 618 last year, WeChat Moments ads were already able to connect to the Tmall flagship store, but they needed to be redirected twice through a middle page. Some relevant people said that at that time, due to the unstable interface and link, only small-scale internal testing was carried out, and no large-scale publicity was carried out.
On May 10, 2023, Tencent Advertising issued an article entitled "Tencent Advertising x Alimama Uni Desk Joins Forces, Mid-Year Promotion Preparation Strategy Coming", with the node of 618 promotion, for the first time announced the formal cooperation between the two on the performance advertising side, Alimama UD and Tencent Advertising bilateral joint subsidies, Moments advertising also supported "one jump" directly to the Taobao APP for the first time, compared to the previous need to copy to the browser and then open the link, which became more "silky", merchants achieved "drainage - Conversion-precipitation" shortest path, Taobao products access Tencent's monthly active traffic ecology of 1 billion; At the same time, the Channels information flow advertising resource was launched, and a broader short video traffic was opened to Taoist merchants. In the 618-related promotion, Alimama also emphasized the "full-content cooperation link" in channels and media, as well as the ability to add WeChat Channels to Uni Desk content.
Today, cooperation between Internet platforms has deepened to the advertising level. This year's Double 11 is imminent, some players have taken the lead in starting the warm-up, and Taobao Tmall will definitely start a series of activities on Double 11 immediately after the Double Festival. This time, with the further traffic blessing from Tencent Advertising, it is worth looking forward to what new tricks will be played.
Not only between Alibaba and Tencent, interconnection has long become the general trend of Internet platforms.
In January 2022, on January 17, 2022, Baidu announced that it has joined hands with more than ten enterprises including Meituan, Xiaohongshu, SF, Ctrip, Zhihu, Tongcheng, Maoyan, and 58.com to launch in-depth cooperation on connectivity, starting from the Spring Festival, and carrying out interconnection cooperation at three levels: traffic, technology and service ecology.
However, it is inevitable to exaggerate to say that the "great reconciliation of the century" is concerned, and as far as the current actions of the two sides are concerned, it can only be called "breaking the ice" and "tearing down the wall". It still needs to be further deepened.
10 years of broken barriers Who is worried?
10 years ago, the mobile Internet was on the cusp, Ali and Tencent, as predators in the field of e-commerce and social networking, Ali did social platform "contacts" and cut off the access interface of WeChat; Tencent has also blocked Taobao links and tried to lay out e-commerce. However, the world has changed, and in the face of new cruel competition, this "willfulness" came to an abrupt end.
Today, although Taotian is still the largest e-commerce giant, it is an indisputable fact that there are many strong enemies around. To survive, it must look for new traffic from both inside and outside. Because they see that e-commerce traffic is irreversibly flowing to platforms such as Pinduoduo, which has a low price, and Douyin e-commerce with more attractive content.
Taobao is still the largest e-commerce company, but it has long been surrounded by strong enemies Image source: Photo by Zhang Han, a reporter
According to the financial report, in the quarter ended December 31, 2022, the GMV (excluding unpaid orders) of physical goods on Taobao and Tmall decreased by single digits year-on-year, and one of the main reasons explained in the financial report was "continuous competition".
During the same period, live streaming e-commerce represented by Douyin and Kuaishou and sinking e-commerce represented by Pinduoduo have achieved rapid growth in total transaction value.
In the context of the recovery of domestic consumption in the first half of this year, Ali, Jingdong and other leading e-commerce companies have delivered growth in the second quarter, but Pinduoduo's performance in the second quarter still greatly exceeded market expectations. According to the financial report for the second quarter ended June 30, 2023, Pinduoduo achieved operating income of 52.3 billion yuan during the reporting period, a year-on-year increase of 66%; The net profit attributable to the parent was 13.108 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 47.34%.
Breaking into the hinterland of traditional e-commerce, Douyin's "march" is fast. At the third Douyin e-commerce ecological conference in May this year, Wei Wenwen, president of Douyin e-commerce, revealed to the "Daily Economic News" reporter that in the past year, Douyin e-commerce GMV increased by 80% year-on-year, of which shelf GMV accounted for 30%. Entering 2023, Douyin e-commerce ushered in an important period of transformation from interest e-commerce to global interest e-commerce.
In terms of advertising revenue, Douyin is also encroaching on the turf of Ali and Tencent. According to public data, most of Douyin's revenue growth in 2022 came from its advertising business, and the revenue brought by the core advertising business increased by 2.5 times compared with 2021, reaching about $10 billion, swallowing up most of the incremental advertising share of the market. When the market was tough in the first two years, it even eroded the existing market, including the "cake" of Ali and Tencent. The first Double 11 after the recovery of consumption, the advertising engine of Ali and Tencent, this time the alliance, has the meaning of "defending the city".
From the "marching song" of "competition and confrontation" to the "main melody" of "reconciliation and cooperation", during the fierce conquest of the giants for several years, the market pattern has been quietly reshaped, and the era has been redefined - an era that pursues and meets the needs of a better life. As Ma Yun proposed "return to the Internet, return to Taobao, return to users", because the two giants contract the daily life of ordinary people, whether it is for consumers or merchants, the settlement of the platform can objectively bring them more dividends.
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