Seeding Strategies for Viral Marketing: An Empirical Comparison

TLDR

Seeding strategies have strong influences on the success of viral marketing campaigns, but previous studies using computer simulations and analytical models have produced conflicting recommendations about the optimal seeding strategy. This study compares four seeding strategies through two small-scale field experiments and a large real-life campaign with over 200,000 mobile phone customers. The authors evaluated the strategies by measuring campaign performance across these experimental and real-world settings. Empirical results show that the best seeding strategies can be up to eight times more successful than others, with seeding to well-connected people being most effective, though these individuals do not exert more influence on peers than less connected ones, contradicting common assumptions.

Abstract

Seeding strategies have strong influences on the success of viral marketing campaigns, but previous studies using computer simulations and analytical models have produced conflicting recommendations about the optimal seeding strategy. This study compares four seeding strategies in two complementary small-scale field experiments, as well as in one real-life viral marketing campaign involving more than 200,000 customers of a mobile phone service provider. The empirical results show that the best seeding strategies can be up to eight times more successful than other seeding strategies. Seeding to well-connected people is the most successful approach because these attractive seeding points are more likely to participate in viral marketing campaigns. This finding contradicts a common assumption in other studies. Well-connected people also actively use their greater reach but do not have more influence on their peers than do less well-connected people.