In the past year, the transaction volume exceeded one million just by relying on Xiaohongshu's search results. How can we find the new volume when the data of notes is declining?

In recent years, the pet market has been developing rapidly, and cat litter is a hot topic. This article analyzes the overall market dynamics and marketing trends of cat litter on Xiaohongshu, hoping to help everyone attract more traffic more efficiently.

In this issue, we turn our attention to another pet product, cat litter, and observe the overall market dynamics and marketing trends of this category on Xiaohongshu. The following article mainly analyzes and discusses the drainage path of cat litter products and the ideas of related content layout, hoping to provide some new ideas for efficient drainage and conversion on Xiaohongshu.

We have observed that three typical brands have achieved good sales conversions through the following content methods:

01 Pet Clean Cat Litter

Average order value: 24.9 yuan

In October 2023, Petjieyou cat litter began to be promoted on Xiaohongshu; by May 2023, it found the right content gameplay, and within the next two months, the number of related Taobao searches increased from 3,000+ to 33,000+.

(Data source: Business Advisor & Grey Pig Data)

Its sales channels are mainly Taobao. Judging from the sales in the past 30 days, the contribution rate of official channels is about 90%, and the remaining small sales are contributed by multiple distribution channels. At the same time, the Douyin platform has a small amount of sales output, but the overall proportion is relatively small.

Note delivery rhythm and content analysis

There are various types of notes for Petjieyou cat litter, and as the market situation changes, the relevant note content will also be adjusted. According to the core note types at different stages, they can be roughly divided into the following three stages:

Phase 1

From October 2022 to April 2023, the majority of the posts were product recommendations from amateurs, with a small amount of corporate lottery content and ranking notes. Overall, this period was probably the brand's content gameplay testing phase, and related searches grew slowly.

In December, the brand launched the “Cat Litter Check-in” activity (as shown below), which attracted a large number of cat owners to participate.

Phase II

From May to October 2023, ranking notes gradually became the core content, accounting for about 90% of the notes. During this period, the number of searches rose rapidly, and the number of searches for notes was obvious, with more than 33,000 searches in July alone.

As shown in the figure below, these notes mainly focus on search keywords for cat litter categories, while some of the content also focuses on search keywords for scenarios for novice cat owners.

(Image source: Huitun Data)

Phase 3

After October 23, the search efficiency brought by the ranking content declined rapidly, and the brand took relevant actions to maintain traffic; on the one hand, it continued to publish ranking notes through the matrix account to reduce the cost of cooperation with experts; on the other hand, it published cat-raising content (such as: how to raise cats for novices, how to raise kittens, etc.) through the matrix account to accurately search users.

(Data source: Huitun Data)

As shown in the figure below, the relevant cat-raising content mainly uses cute cats as the note cover to attract the love of certain cloud pet users; the notes share the experience of raising cats, including the preparations before raising cats, the precautions after receiving cats, etc. The note comment area usually has soft implantation of related products to enhance the effect of planting grass.

(Image source: Xiaohongshu)

Overall, the traffic of self-built matrix accounts can be self-controlled, and once the gameplay is ineffective, the brand can quickly adjust the content output; at the same time, the matrix account can quickly copy a large number of popular articles, and the production cost is relatively low.

By analyzing the traffic situation of relevant notes, we can find that the traffic sources of relevant notes are basically natural traffic.

The above is an introduction to the gameplay of Petjieyou cat litter. In the early stage, the ranking content was the main focus. However, in the face of the decline in note traffic, the matrix account cat-raising content was gradually taken as the core to obtain conversion. The following is a summary of the gameplay of Petjieyou cat litter:

As the search efficiency of ranking notes gradually decreases, the Petjieyou brand has built its own matrix account to publish a large amount of cat-raising content, targeting precise cat-raising users and maintaining the brand's business foundation.

Brands need to constantly adjust and optimize their content strategies to adapt to dynamic changes in the market and maintain brand competitiveness.

02 Petsui cat litter

Average order value: 29.9 yuan

Petsui cat litter mainly operates on the Xiaohongshu platform. Since September 2024, Petsui cat litter has begun to see sales conversion. By March 2024, it has attracted nearly 27,000 searches.

(Data source: Business Advisor & Gray Pig Data)

Its sales channels are basically on the Taobao platform. According to sales data from the past 30 days, the "chonlderl Pet Bag Flagship Store" contributed about 96% of sales, while the remaining sales were shared by multiple distribution channels.

In addition, there is almost no sales conversion on the Douyin platform and Xiaohongshu platform.

1. Note delivery rhythm and content analysis

On the whole, the content gameplay of Chongsui is relatively simple, relying almost entirely on outputting ranking notes and controlling precise search traffic.

Like PetJieYou, PetSui also output ranking notes to drive search conversions in the early stages of product launch;

From September 2023 to January 2024, Petsui mainly obtained traffic conversion by publishing horizontal ranking notes and searching keywords for categories. Overall, the number of searches it attracted was relatively small, and the benefits that the brand could obtain were relatively low.

As shown in the figure below, the relevant notes selected some cat litter products with high purchase rates in the market and good user trust; at the same time, the comment section of the notes is almost entirely filled with positive product reviews. The advertising placement is relatively hard, but it also further encourages users to buy the product to a certain extent.

(Image source: Xiaohongshu)

As the traffic of Ranking Notes on Xiaohongshu declined, Chongsui also took certain measures to deal with it.

From February to March 2024, the number of note updates dropped sharply, but the number of related searches and transaction amounts continued to rise. During this period, brands mainly obtained accurate traffic by continuously investing in high-quality notes and searching for keywords.

The following is an analysis of the number of Taobao searches and transaction amounts at different stages for “宠岁猫食物”.

(Data source: Business Advisor)

In the early days of the product launch, the number of daily searches fluctuated greatly, and the search transaction amount changed with the number of searches. During December and January, the brand had continuous note output, and the search transaction amount was basically stable at around 500-600;

From February 17th to the end of March, the relevant search transaction amount has basically stabilized at more than 1,000, indicating that the brand has taken certain actions to maintain traffic during this period.

If you search for "cat litter" on Xiaohongshu, you will only see one natural exposure note of Chongsui, but if you search for "recommended cat litter that is cheap and easy to use" and "how to choose cat litter", you will see several promotional notes of Chongsui in relatively high positions.

(Image source: Xiaohongshu)

Therefore, starting from mid-February 24, the brand chose to continue to invest in previous high-quality notes in order to obtain relatively efficient and stable traffic.

In the high-quality content promotion notes on Xiaohongshu’s spotlight platform, you can clearly see many notes on promoting pet products. These notes are mainly search promotion notes, that is, content related to the search keywords.

(Image source: Xiaohongshu Spotlight)

Analyzing the traffic sources of related notes, some notes have a large amount of investment. According to the reading investment cost of 0.3-1.05, the total investment in notes is estimated to be around 100,000-350,000. At the same time, the cost of cooperating with experts is around 50,000.

The above is the relevant investment flow situation. The total transaction amount of Taobao is about 300,000. From the overall point of view, the investment efficiency of this kind of gameplay is relatively low. It is even possible that the marketing cost investment of the brand is greater than the product revenue so far.

In the early stage, the core of the gameplay of Chongsui was to output a large amount of single ranking content. As the traffic of ranking notes declined, it gradually turned to the promotion of high-quality content to drive search conversion. The following is a summary of Chongsui’s content ideas:

The pet brand relies on a single ranking content gameplay to obtain accurate traffic, but at present, the overall advertising investment cost is relatively high. It has recently adopted a paid strategy, mainly to promote high-quality content with stable investment flow, so as to achieve more accurate traffic acquisition and improve the return on investment.

03 Biyiqi cat litter

Average order value: 9.8-49.9 yuan

2. Multiple channels to undertake traffic, win-win situation for traffic and sales

Since May 2023, Biyiqi Pet Products has published relevant content and launched related cat litter products. As of the end of March this year, the sales volume of cat litter products in this store has exceeded 44,000+.

(Data source: Xiaohongshu)

As shown in the figure above, the average order value of relevant products is consistent with the previous analysis of the Xiaohongshu market, that is, when selling goods on Xiaohongshu, the mainstream average order value is less than 100 yuan.

Self-made content is the core, and traffic investment promotes sales growth

Its corporate account has published a large amount of relevant content, accounting for more than 88% of all notes. The following is the content of the notes observed through the release of the notes:

(Data source: Huitun Data)

As shown in the figure above, in May 2024, the enterprise account was launched to sell products and published 2 notes; in June, more content was output from the enterprise account, and a small number of vertical influencers were cooperated to produce seeding content, trying to rely on influencers to drive the growth of product sales, but the effect was minimal. After that, the content output from the enterprise account remained at about 90%, firmly occupying the core position of content output.

The core of the overall note content revolves around two points:

1. Super cost-effectiveness of the product: Pay attention to the cost-effectiveness of the product, start with the price, attract users' attention, and guide users to make purchases. For example, 10 kilograms for 13.8, 10 kilograms for 9.9 yuan, high cost-effectiveness, etc.

2. Evaluation of product performance advantages: Based on user needs, evaluate the various outstanding performances of the product, such as fast water absorption, compacting, deodorization, etc.

(Image source: Huitun Data & Xiaohongshu)

The popular elements appear frequently in the related notes, and the title similarity of the notes is very high. This shows to a certain extent that the related notes are highly replicable and do not require too much production cost.

In addition, his store has a live broadcast every day. Although the product sales that live broadcast can drive are relatively low at present, the proportion of live broadcast sales is in a growing state over time, and his team's operational capabilities continue to improve.

In the promotion notes of Xiaohongshu’s spotlight platform, you can clearly see the promotion notes related to Biyiqi cat litter, including product sales content and live broadcast promotion content.

(Image source: Xiaohongshu Spotlight)

Biyiqi’s overall gameplay is dominated by closed-loop business within the site, using Xiaohongshu as a sales platform and publishing a large amount of content through brand enterprise accounts to sell goods. The following is a summary of Biyiqi’s cat litter gameplay:

Unlike cat food products, which have strong brand attribute requirements, cat litter products are products with strong functional requirements. As long as such products with strong functional requirements hit the user's pain points, many users will be willing to pay for them. The decision-making cost is low and the brand attribute requirements are not high.

If brands want to achieve higher sales conversions in Xiaohongshu’s closed-loop business, it is more advantageous to choose high-demand products that focus on category consumption.

The above is the analysis of relevant brands. Through the analysis we can see:

Summarize

1. As more and more brands enter the market, the traffic that notes with the same content can get is getting less and less. Therefore, brands need to find a content strategy that suits their own brand and team so that the product can get continuous traffic.

2. Compared with cat food products with strong brand attributes, cat litter and other products with strong demand and low decision-making have greater advantages in selling through closed-loop business on Xiaohongshu. Brands with related products can try to sell through closed-loop business on Xiaohongshu.

The above is an operational analysis of the traffic conversion of cat litter products on Xiaohongshu.