New regulations on public account advertising have been implemented, account owners should stay calm!

WeChat has added new advertising rules for public accounts, requiring most advertisements to be placed on the mutual selection advertising platform. This article analyzes the new advertising rules for WeChat public accounts, and uses Youzan as an example to analyze the impact of the huge changes in public account e-commerce. This provides an effective reference for public account operators.

On July 4, a document titled "【Product News】 WeChat Official Accounts Support the Promotion of Youzan Products" (hereinafter referred to as "Product News") sparked discussion in the industry. It has been just over a month since WeChat released the new regulations "Announcement on Further Regulating Marketing Content on WeChat Official Accounts" (hereinafter referred to as "Announcement") in May.

The previous "Announcement" stipulated that some advertisements should be released through Tencent's official advertising platform, Huxuan Ads, after June 30, 2023. Now, the rules for e-commerce have been further refined. (Related concepts and interpretations have been mentioned in Weiguojiang's previous articles. Click on the blue words to review) Although "Product Dynamics" is mainly used as an operating instruction for Youzan product promotion, we can get a glimpse of the future paradigm of WeChat ecological e-commerce from it.

1. New regulations on public account advertising are implemented

More than a month ago, the new rules for public account advertising came unexpectedly. There were many different opinions on how it would be implemented in the e-commerce field, but now the shoe has finally landed.

Let me first state the conclusion:

If the official account and the mini program are the same entity, or meet the related certification requirements of the "Instructions for Related Materials of Non-commercial Promotion Mini Programs", they can publish articles normally when selecting goods for sale in the distribution market, without the need to go through the mutual selection advertising platform. If they do not meet the above requirements, they need to follow the regulations.

As the first third-party platform to speak out, Youzan stated in its "Product News" that after communicating with WeChat officials, its backend [Commission Promotion (Youzanke)] system was connected to the [Official Account Commission Rebate Product Advertising] channel, and after the transformation was completed, it has supported merchants' products to continue to be promoted in the official account scenario.

This document specifically emphasizes that its scope of application is "non-merchant self-promotion scenarios" . So, here it involves the determination of whether the merchant is promoting the scenario.

According to the "Instructions for Non-commercial Promotion of Mini Program Related Materials" (hereinafter referred to as the "Instructions") officially updated by WeChat in June, the first thing to do is to confirm whether the official account and the mini program are the same entity. In most cases, the system will automatically identify them. In special cases, it is necessary to submit evidence materials for review.

Next, you need to determine whether it is a third-party cooperation.

WeChat explains this document as follows:

If a traffic owner is promoting brand content, regardless of whether they have their own mini program mall, they need to go through the mutual selection platform. If a traffic owner is promoting an e-commerce mini program to sell goods, if the mini program is the traffic owner's own mini program, they do not need to go through the mutual selection platform. The same subject can be directly exempted, and different subjects can use the platform's own mini program binding logic to bind the exemption.

We extract the keywords of the e-commerce part, which can be understood as:

When adding an e-commerce mini program to a public account article to sell goods, if it meets the associated certification conditions mentioned in the "Instructions" and the public account and the mini program are the same entity, it belongs to the merchant's self-promotion scenario and the article can be posted directly for the time being without being affected; if they are not the same entity, you can apply to associate a non-commercial promotion mini program through the public account backend, and you can post normally after the review is passed.

However, if it is outside the related certification situations in the "Explanation", it is all non-merchant self-promotion scenarios.

Taking Youzan as an example, according to the operating procedures of "Product Dynamics", the merchant side needs to settle in Youzan's "commission promotion"; when the public account owner is editing the e-commerce copy, he needs to search and add relevant products through the "Bring Goods-Commission Rebate Products" path in the navigation bar at the top of the page.

In general, if the official account and the mini program are of the same subject or the association authentication is completed in the background, it will be relatively convenient for e-commerce to bring goods. Traffic owners in need can enter the operation page through the "Mini Program Management" on the left column of the official account background. The official account can be associated with 10 mini programs of "the same subject or associated subject" and 3 mini programs of "non-same subject".

The following description has been added to the related pages, which also echoes the new regulations:

After associating with the relevant mini program, if the published article contains the mini program, the platform will identify it as non-third-party commercial cooperation content, and such content does not need to be published through Tencent’s official advertising platform.

In addition, there are the following situations that require attention:

1. To promote H5 pages (including QR codes and URLs) on official accounts, you must use the [Official Account Commission Product Advertising] mode.

2. To insert a micro page (a collection of multiple products, not a single product) into a public account article, such as a store homepage, activity page, etc., you need to use the [Public Account Mutual Selection Advertising] mode.

3. When reading the original text in the public account article settings and jumping to the product page, there may be a risk of violation because it contains multiple product recommendations or the domain name and the public account are not the same entity.

In summary, with the implementation of the new regulations on public account advertising, e-commerce has also begun to have a basis to rely on. It is obvious to the naked eye that WeChat is rushing forward on the road to standardization without looking back.

2. What are the impacts?

The release of this new document still caused quite a stir.

As a result, the "agent operation" business may be hit the hardest. Inconsistency in the subject will bring a higher threshold for operation, and the mini-programs with different subjects may not necessarily pass the review. It is indeed troublesome to operate through the "official account rebate product advertising" model.

On the other hand, the new regulations have also spawned another monetization model - many original order-taking platforms and officials have obtained the qualifications of traffic-generating MCNs, and invited account owners to bind MCNs to receive orders. This is the product of the game between the original business model and the new regulations, and it is also a projection of the needs of the majority of small and medium-sized account owners. As for whether it works well, it will take time to verify, and everyone should also make careful judgments.

The business description of a certain order-taking platform MCN shows that WeChat went to great lengths to do this, and it was certainly not for no reason. In addition to meeting the needs of its own platform risk control, it was also to refine the "rules" of public account advertising and plug the fish that slip through the net.

Whether it is to bring brand promotion to the mutual selection advertising platform, or to let product promotion return to its own "sales" module, WeChat is determined to take the public account advertising business back into its own hands this time.

For those of us who are in the WeChat ecosystem, the implementation of new regulations has already set off a wave of standardization momentum, and only by operating in accordance with the regulations can we survive.

Author: Chen Chumu

Source: WeChat public account "Weiguojiang (ID: wjam123456)"