Long article review: 5 tips for successful incentive systems in 18 Internet benchmark products

How to keep users in the product as much as possible? Most products choose to build their own incentive system. As long as users reach a certain usage time or complete certain tasks, they can get corresponding rewards. The author of this article disassembles the user incentive systems of 18 domestic and foreign benchmark products, reviews the key points of their design, and summarizes the characteristics of 5 creative incentive plans. I hope it will be helpful to you.

When it comes to user activity, the first thing that comes to mind for Internet people is "establishing a user incentive system." For example: limited-time benefits for new users, rewards for continuous tasks for loyal users, recall activities for lost users... However, in actual applications, due to limited coverage and difficulty in sustainability, it is difficult to effectively attribute the results when reviewing the results.

Establishing a comprehensive user incentive system is costly and time-consuming. Should we build one? How to evaluate the effect? ​​How to optimize it?

Today, we will explore the user incentive systems of 18 domestic and international benchmark products, review the key points of their designs from a disassembly perspective, summarize the features of 5 creative incentive programs, and provide application suggestions.

Without further ado, let's go straight to the main text. Enjoy:

01 Several issues that need to be determined before building a user incentive system

What is the incentive system? What is incentive?

“Driven by certain incentives, by setting a series of reward and punishment rules, users are encouraged to voluntarily do what the product expects them to do, and these behaviors are solidified into a habit through continuous feedback.”

The key points of this definition are: incentives, reward and punishment mechanisms, voluntariness, feedback, and habits.

The user incentive system has eight driving forces:

1. Sense of mission: Doing things is meaningful, such as volunteering to edit Wikipedia, the tree-planting game in Ant Forest, and the family system in the game.
2. Development & Achievements: such as points, mission centers, and medals.
3. Creation & Feedback: For example, Faceu allows you to freely customize your avatar.
4. Sense of ownership: such as privileges and collecting games (Pokemon, FarmVille).
5. Social influence & connection: such as team formation system, group buying, and invitation mechanism.
6. Rare: such as e-commerce’s flash sales and limited-time sales, Zhihu’s early invitation-based registration system, and the scarce skins of Honor of Kings.
7. Unknown & Curious: Such as lottery and opening treasure chests.
8. Fear & Afraid: If you sign in continuously, you will be disconnected and will not get any rewards.

Incentives can be divided into three categories:

1. Honor incentives: such as grade titles, certification mechanisms, identity labels, and rankings.
2. Emotional incentives: such as interactive incentives (likes, follows, comments) and platform incentives (user behavior history statistics function).
3. Interest incentives: such as privileges (paid purchases, behavior accumulation) and benefits (points mall).

The above theoretical definition comes from Shen Yue, the current 360 product director.

Is an incentive system necessary?

Sanjieke P3 operation class has a summary of scenarios that require an incentive system , which is generally recognized by the industry:

• If the user base is large, such as more than 200,000, it is necessary to use some mechanism to attract users.
• The business model requires users to stay in the product and perform certain actions, but the users themselves have limited motivation.

Under the premise of a certain number of users, the following products may not consider the user incentive system (products that users use for a short period of time or very rarely, such as):

• Short-term teaching (such as IELTS Brother. Claiming to break up with IELTS, you can leave after taking the test and don’t need to come back)
• Recruitment products (such as Lagou.com. It is estimated that users use recruitment products in a concentrated period of time each year)
• Wedding Products

User incentives permeate every aspect of the product, and the incentive system is a specific form of presentation. The user incentive system includes: growth level system, points virtual currency system, task medal system...

In addition to the system, product details and optimization of marketing copy also play an important role in user motivation.

02 Analysis of domestic and international benchmark incentive system solutions

1. Summary in one table: 18 product incentive system solutions

What kind of incentive system solutions are used for products of different business entities such as life services, travel, shopping, information, games, etc.? I investigated 18 benchmark solutions at home and abroad : Alipay, Dianping, Didi, JD.com, Taobao, Bilibili, Notion, Canva...

It is not difficult to find that most platform-based products have both a tier system and a points system , and differentiate tier benefits and points redemption benefits. Common tool-based products rarely use a complex tier system, with only a distinction between free and paid versions. Growth systems can also be established in paid versions to promote high-value user activity and renewal.

2. Detailed analysis: 5 types of user incentive systems for mainstream products

What kind of users are motivated by incentives? Or how effective are they?

We can analyze this from the perspective of product type: in terms of purely redeemable material incentives, e-commerce products are more effective than content products. For content products, if decision makers simply understand the incentive system as money and prizes, then no matter what form of incentive is used, it is equivalent to giving directly and asking directly, and it is doomed to be difficult to return.

Next, let’s look at the key designs of various incentive system solutions:

1) The level system and the points system coexist, and the tokens are independent of each other, with differentiated level privileges and points mall benefits

Case: Alipay

The Alipay user incentive system mainly consists of two parts: membership level is related to user privileges, graded by growth value, and re-rated every year; points are used for on-site redemption and consumption discounts.

Level system : All users are included in the non-paying membership level, with a total of 4 levels, and the privileges of each level are constantly improving.

• By completing the three core behaviors of basic growth + daily consumption + financial management, you will automatically obtain growth value, which is accumulated in one direction. If you reach a certain growth value within a one-year calculation period, you can complete the upgrade and maintain your level for one year.
• Each level enjoys privileges in categories: life, payment, travel, audio and video, hotels, and completes rights linkage with other platforms

Points system : independent of the level, but also displayed in the member center.

• You can earn points by completing sign-in, module activity, daily consumption and other active behaviors. You need to take the initiative to claim them, otherwise they will automatically expire.
• Points consumption channels include points mall, points redemption, points lottery, etc., and there is a points expiration setting every year.

2) The level system and the points system coexist, the tokens are unified, and there are differentiated level privileges and points mall benefits

Case: Early Alipay (2018)

At that time, the Alipay membership system consisted of two aspects: points and levels: points were mainly used for on-site redemption, lottery and other activities, and the consumption of points did not affect the level upgrade; (Ant membership) levels were related to user privileges, discount levels, etc., reflecting differentiation.

Level system : Users can see their personal points data and level status. Below the points data is a section for earning points and upgrading levels to tell users how to earn more points and obtain a higher level.

• The user privilege settings reflect the platform's unique extended rights and interests, such as frequent withdrawals, exchange rate calculations, and other operations, as well as the introduction of related health, travel products, discount purchases, etc. through analysis of usage scenarios.
• Membership benefits are based on the data of the last 12 months, avoiding the privileged share of silent users and lost users. At the same time, it takes advantage of people's loss aversion to make users aware of the crisis. The level design also has a level retention setting.

Points system : Users earn points through first activation and daily behavior, mainly through repetitive operations to earn points.

The maximum number of points that can be obtained is 4,650 points per month, and the points will be reset at the end of the year. The maximum total amount of regular points is approximately 55,800 points per year.

The points export of Ant members has the following characteristics:

• There are many points outlets, covering all aspects of users' food, clothing, housing, transportation, entertainment, etc., and there are corresponding rights and interests to redeem
• The span of point consumption value is large, which is suitable for users with different point quotas. Point redemption is cross-restricted with level. There are many surprise operations, which users are more interested in, such as point lottery, scratch cards, etc., which can get the chance to win the lottery with fewer points. The changing rewards can attract users to redeem.

3) Only user levels and level privileges, no points system

Case: Zhihu

Zhihu has created a user system where everyone is a creator: points for creation are used as tokens, and rights and interests can be obtained after reaching a certain level.

Level system : Users can obtain creative points by completing creative tasks, and accumulate creative points to upgrade; each level can receive different benefits, such as community core benefit trials or membership vouchers. Remove the points system, collect privileges in level privileges, encourage users to participate in creation upgrades, and abandon active behavior guidance.

4) No user level, only experience points and points are retained. High experience points can get member discounts, and high points can be used as discounts to offset cash

Case: Taobao

Taobao has two main points systems. Although there is no level design, the Taobao points are tied to purchasing behavior and core 88 membership. The discounts for members with high Taobao points are deeply rooted in people's hearts and have a strong sense of value.

Taobao coins are bound to active behaviors unrelated to ordering, including a discount mechanism to enhance the value of points, complete a virtuous cycle, and encourage users to place orders multiple times.

Points system (Taoqi points) : It is a subdivision of the general level concept in the original "VIP system", dividing it into three core indicators: purchase, interaction and reputation, aiming to better encourage users to participate in interaction and sharing. If the Taoqi points are > 1000, 88 yuan is required to purchase VIP membership; if the Taoqi points are < 1000, it costs 888 yuan.

Points system (Taobao coins) : Taobao coins activities advocate micro-profits by giving discounts to help stores attract target users accurately and efficiently, and increase revenue through joint purchases and accumulation of repeat customers.

5) Remove non-paying user levels, incorporate paid growth membership levels, and coexist with a points system

Case: NetEase Cloud Music

NetEase Cloud Music is mainly composed of paid membership levels and a points system: the paid membership level belongs to the growing membership, and users can participate in level upgrades only after successful payment. Continuous renewal can lead to continuous upgrades and obtain level rights in addition to membership rights; the points system is independent of membership and is tied to active behavior.

Level system (paid member growth level) : Vinyl members and SVIP members share the membership growth level. Continuous renewal can continuously upgrade and obtain additional level benefits. If renewal is cancelled, the level cannot be maintained and all level privileges will be lost.

Points system : independent of membership, but tied to active platform behavior, the points mall can be exchanged for various platform benefits and physical rewards.

03 Application suggestions for various solutions

There are so many incentive system solutions. How can you choose the one that suits your product? There are a thousand Hamlets in the eyes of a thousand people. Let's try to ask ChatGPT, the most popular one, to see its judgment criteria:

From the five dimensions of " user behavior goals, cost-effectiveness, competitors, sustainability, and personalized needs ", we can make a brief summary of the five types of incentive system solutions in the previous section. With it, I hope it can help you quickly determine how to choose and have a reason when writing the plan (to convince the boss).

04 Ending

Should growth rely on the charm of the product itself, or on operations to attract new users, promote activation and recall? Should we say goodbye to unsuitable users gracefully? Or should we do everything we can to retain them and then solve their needs?

The user incentive system is not created for the sake of getting by. The essence is to promote user activity and achieve our current core business goals. The user incentive system must be based on data and continuously adjusted and optimized with data.

Excellent user operation is to add a suitable user incentive system to the product, and top user operation is to make the product the best incentive for users.

The above is the content of "Incentive System Solution Inventory and Application Suggestions". The reference comes from user growth work practice & research. If you have different opinions, please leave a message in the comment area below for discussion.

Next time I would like to talk to you about Duolingo, which is on a growth spree, and how we can use its data model to break through the growth dilemma. Stay tuned!