CHENGDU, China, Nov. 8, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- About us: Aurora Mobile (NASDAQ: JG) established in 2011, is a leading customer engagement and marketing technology service provider in China. Its business includes notification services, marketing growth, development tools, and data products. As its sub-brand, MoonFox Data is a leading expert in data insights and analysis services across all scenarios, aiming to help companies gain market insights and empower precise decision-making.

From "Discover World's Goodies" to "Mark Your Life", RED, based on content-heavy and interaction-focused operation logic, has developed into a "composite lifestyle community" that integrates various dimensions of content such as great products, electronics, store-exploring, sports, and knowledge sharing with image-text content at its core.

In the era of short videos and traffic, why RED's image-text system can achieve long-term growth and capture a portion of users' attention? Is it still possible to pursue these commercial monetization paths at RED, regardless of e-commerce or store-exploring? Will the community lose its user stickiness?

I. 100 Million Daily Active Users (DAU) - Favorable Condition and User Choices Shape RED:

RED's average DAU and trend from January to October 2023:

Data Source: MoonFox iApp; Data Collection Period: January to October 2023. The statistical results only include app data and do not include traffic data from web pages, mini-programs, or quick apps, among others, within the WeChat ecosystem.

According to MoonFox iApp data, as of October 2023, RED's average monthly DAU exceeded 101 million after nearly a year of fluctuations, with its DAU stabilizing at the 100 million level, far surpassing the industry average. Unlike Douyin, which iterates rapidly with clear strategies, and WeChat, which has a massive and stable development, a community-based platform and savage growth are more suitable descriptions of RED. Over the past decade, experimentation and caution have been integral to RED's development.

In 2013, RED was born as a platform with simple content, positioned as a "travel guide sharing platform." Travel guides were not new in that era. Still, RED successfully built a small platform revolving around travel notes by using minimal text, rich visual elements, and aesthetically pleasing page designs, combined with the exploration and targeted promotion by travel bloggers.

In 2015, e-commerce was thriving, with Tmall's Double Eleven sales exceeding 80 billion yuan, surpassing the daily retail sales of consumer goods nationwide in 2014. Just before this trend, RED had already gathered a large number of high-net-worth and high-demand users through its note-sharing feature. Transitioning from travel guides to product recommendations was a natural progression based on user demands. The platform quickly created a "Benefits Group" by carefully selecting products and determining copywriting. As an e-commerce platform, RED began to acquire popularity among users.

In 2017, RED's e-commerce business encountered a growth bottleneck and sought acquisition offers from top platforms, but without success. At this time, the second wave of opportunities arrived - the rise of variety shows, with Douyin and Pinduoduo becoming the top players and "Extreme Challenge" becoming a popular IP at that time. RED chose to collaborate with Idol Producer and Produce 101, which perfectly matched its tone of sharing goods and lifestyle. As a result, a large number of female users flocked to the platform. RED has continuous growth thanks to community operations and top KOL traffic control.

Monthly active users (MAU) and trend changes of RED from January to December 2020

Data Source: MoonFox iApp; Data Collection Period: January to December 2020. The statistical results only include app data and do not include traffic data from web pages, mini-programs, or quick apps, among others, within the WeChat ecosystem.

2020 marked the start of RED's period of rapid development. According to the data from the MoonFox iAPP, as of December 2020, RED's MAU exceeded 200 million, and DAU exceeded 50 million. At that time, online platforms experienced growth under the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic. The lower costs of creating image-text notes on RED, combined with the increasing user stickiness at that time, led to a significant increase in the number of notes related to topics such as "home cooking" and "indoor exercise." Therefore, users' willingness to search actively increased significantly.

At the same time, RED also officially entered the view of giants. Douyin established a special team, and WeChat launched functional pages, both of which aimed to emulate the image-text model. However, due to factors such as fan base and community background, the results of such efforts were minimal. Still, more users began to see the image-text notes on RED, making it a choice for more users in silent environments and fragmented time.

Getting back to the present, RED formally joined the "club" of 100 million DAUs in 2023, and one of its main areas of development attention is commercialization. Having accumulated a large reservoir of traffic, the commercialization process is accelerating, and RED has taken the lead in content related to e-commerce and store-exploring.

II. Through the buyer model and traffic tilt, the e-commerce business is officially ramping up:

The market re-evaluated RED following the successful sales results generated by the June 18th shopping festival.

Distribution of RED's user usage time from January to September 2023

Data Source: MoonFox iApp; Data Collection Period: January to September 2023. The statistical results only include app data and do not include traffic data from web pages, mini-programs, or quick apps, among others, within the WeChat ecosystem.

On one hand, a significant amount of user time is devoted to live streaming and provides support for sales volume. According to data from MoonFox iAPP, as of May 2023, heavy users on RED (logging in continuously for 9 days) accounted for 51.43%, showing a significant increase compared to the previous period and reaching a high value of 62.55% in June. Firstly, RED started to generate warm-up and seeding notes in early May. Through the combination of topics and traffic support, some product-related note content quickly gained attention and spread rapidly. Secondly, by introducing features such as deposit payments and expanding red envelope rewards, RED further attracted user retention. Ultimately, the community made its way to the e-commerce industry, giving consumers a greater range of options, and the buyer model evolved into the primary strategy for retaining customers. Users complete the conversion by clicking, browsing, seeding content, purchasing, and spreading information.

On the other hand, guidelines and reward measures are implemented to help firms gain users' mindset. At the guideline level, RED launched the "Good Products to Win the June 18 Battle" practical guide activity in late April. By assisting businesses in understanding user search habits, consumption motivations, and segmented scenario demands through its research team, it helps businesses determine promotional materials and styles. On the incentive level, various measures, such as new customer incentives and incentives for returning customers, have been introduced. Meanwhile, RED has officially opened the "Product Collaboration" feature, allowing brands to collaborate with influencers through pure commission-based partnerships. Businesses receive assistance to better align their advertising materials with the community's tone, which will increase the amount of time users spend online and the regularity with which they utilize the platform.

According to data from MoonFox iApp, as of October 2023, RED's overall penetration rate has exceeded 24%, while the penetration rate in the mobile shopping industry has surpassed 28%, showing steady growth throughout the year. After the trial during the June 18 shopping festival, RED has become more determined in its e-commerce path of combining buyer-selected products with live streaming. Based on the community's tone and user demographics, RED tends to refer to live-streaming influencers as "brand curators" and introduces more personal and niche brands. Through professional content explanations, it stimulates users' desire to buy products, enabling even small live-streaming rooms with only a few thousand viewers to quickly and frequently achieve conversions.

RED's e-commerce business has taken shape, and the closure of its self-operated business lines "Small Oasis" and "Benefits Group" confirms RED's commitment to serving third-party sellers and connecting buyers with consumers. Currently, Zhang Xiaohui's live stream sales have exceeded 100 million yuan in a single session on RED. With the combination of the buyer model and high average order value, breakthroughs are expected in RED's live streaming rooms during the Double 11 shopping festival.

III. Focusing on Local Lifestyles, the Commercialization of Store-Exploring Is Accelerating:

September 2023: Distribution of active and new users' attributes on RED

Data Source: MoonFox iApp; Data Collection Period: September 2023. The statistical results only include app data and do not include traffic data from web pages, mini-programs, or quick apps, among others, within the WeChat ecosystem.

The attributes of users give brands their tone, and RED's community tone aligns well with the direction of store-exploring. According to data from MoonFox iApp, as of September 2023, female users accounted for 60.75% of the total user base on RED, with the majority of them falling into the age range of 26-35. This group of users typically possesses a certain level of aesthetic and judgment ability, as well as an increase in their consumption level and disposable income. They have a strong desire to share their experiences and generally have a higher level of writing skills. In addition to popular travel guides and experience-sharing notes, there has been a growing trend of more diverse and high-demand notes related to store-exploring. Focusing on these kinds of notes is becoming more and more common among bloggers.

Formal data indicates that in 2022, there were more than tens of millions of notes on RED pertaining to "food-exploring." "What to eat" has become one of the core search scenarios for users on RED, and there has been an emergence of explosive notes with hundreds of thousands of views and tens of thousands of favorites. These explosive notes are undoubtedly attractive to merchants. However, the majority of merchants choose to interact through private messages due to the scarcity of available communication channels, which results in low efficiency. Additionally, because they cannot select suitable bloggers, their promotional efforts also yield minimal results.

On the other hand, bloggers are also facing challenges, such as difficulty in monetizing their notes and connecting with merchants. In response to this, some merchants choose to build or collaborate with professional PR teams to connect with bloggers. In contrast, bloggers themselves share merchant resources through group chats and other means. However, due to the lack of official guidance, there are widespread issues in the industry, such as violation of regulations due to excessive promotion or breaches of contracts either by businesses or bloggers, resulting in damages to both parties' interests. It is critical that these flaws be addressed and rectified immediately.

Based on this, in April 2023, the official launched the "Food Power Store" plan, which first introduced the "offline store" feature on the account home page to drive traffic for merchants. At the same time, the "Spotlight Plan" was introduced, starting with pilot cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen, providing users with a platform to accept orders. Merchants can provide transportation expenses or offer goods in exchange to bloggers, who can then publish their notes without worrying about violations or traffic restrictions.

In June of the same year, RED launched themed store-exploring activities such as "Cafe Tour," where users can purchase themed group-buying packages on the RED platform and gain official traffic boost by publishing notes. In July, RED officially launched the "Exploring 100 Stores" plan and simultaneously launched the Store-Exploring Cooperation Center, further facilitating cooperation between stores and influential bloggers. For every order, bloggers are able to view estimated commission income and sharing amount.

With multiple activities and traffic support, many bloggers began to notice the importance and standardization of RED's store-exploring business. Businesses also started to choose official channels for influencer collaborations. In the future, we believe that as the store-exploring model in major cities becomes successful, RED will gradually incorporate local lifestyle services into the platform. After completing the search and browsing seeding content, users will no longer need to exit RED and open other platforms to check prices. Group-buying packages and official accounts will be completely incorporated into the flow of RED notes. The standardized store-exploring business will attract more businesses to join and generate revenue through profit-sharing.

IV. Under the Acceleration of Commercialization, Can the Community Maintain Its Unique Character?

We believe that regardless of e-commerce or store-exploring, the acceleration of commercialization in RED will inevitably impact its community attributes and user experience. In this perspective, we believe that the following two points should be highlighted:

Firstly, optimizing algorithms to control the proportion of marketing content and improve the viewing experience. Under the development of e-commerce, the proportion of live-streaming content will increase, and the proportion of live-streaming interfaces within the image-text content will directly affect the perceived experience of highly engaged users. The UI design and exit methods should be clear and smooth. In the offline store-exploring business, the division of store categories and targeted promotion needs to be considered to avoid mismatching users and note content, which can lead to a negative impact on user experience.

Secondly, protecting creators and providing traffic support. Based on the "PUGC + controlling traffic of top accounts", RED's rapid development in the early stage relied on image-text content as the main rival against short videos. Daily sharing can garner a certain amount of likes or even followers, which is the core driving force for middle-tier and micro-influencers to write notes in the initial stage. As the commercialization of store-exploring deepens, RED must connect more middle-tier and even long-tail influencers with businesses. This is key to maintaining the community's unique character and ensuring the stable and sustainable development of store-exploring content.

In summary, the commercialization of RED, which has experienced rapid growth, is an important battle that cannot be avoided. We are excited about RED's future growth and anticipate more surprises.

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