The Study On Network-Value Conversion And Antitrust Issues Of Digital Marketing Platforms

Using data resources to provide digital marketing services is the most important business model of today's Internet platforms.The major form of digital marketing services is digital advertising;digital marketing platforms are Internet platforms that take digital marketing services such as digital advertising as the main source of revenue.The two major operational objectives of digital marketing platforms are to accumulate networkvalue and turn network-value into revenue.In the process of accumulating network-value,digital marketing platforms often occupy a huge market share on the consumer side due to the network effect.The antitrust issues of digital marketing platforms have drawn continuous attention of the government,the public and scholars.Digital marketing platforms have very different pricing rules from traditional enterprises.The correlation between price and platform size depends on specific business model and user behavior characteristics.This unique pricing rule makes traditional pricing-centered antitrust analytical tools no longer applicable;it is impossible to effectively judge the market power of digital marketing platforms and their social welfare impact only through price changes.It is of great theoretical significance to establish a new theoretical analytical tool to study the antitrust problem of digital marketing platforms.Based on the reality,this paper analyzes the business characteristics of digital marketing platforms,reasonably evaluates its market environment,combines two-sided market theory with specific economic reality,and establishes a two-sided platform model with digital marketing services as the core of analysis.Based on this model,this paper proposes new concepts of network-value and network value conversion rate,and analyzes the pricing rules,the source of market power,the market power evaluation,the merger and social welfare impact of digital marketing platforms.Finally,this paper points out the basic problems and basic ideas of antitrust analysis of digital marketing platforms.The main work of this paper is as follows:1.Proposes a new Conduct-Performance-Structure paradigm to analyze antitrust issues of digital marketing platforms.The CPS paradigm is an analytical framework built according to the basic characteristics of the Internet economy.It conforms to the realistic background and development model of the Internet economy and can be used as the basic paradigm of antitrust analysis of general Internet platforms.2.Established a digital marketing service pricing model.According to the most important business model in the Internet economy,this paper builds a theoretical model to depict the pricing behavior of digital marketing platforms.This paper analyzes the main factors affecting the pricing of digital marketing platforms.The theoretical analysis results are verified and explained through empirical and case studies.3.Propose a new way to measure the market power of digital marketing platforms.After carefully analyzing the unique pricing rules of digital marketing platforms,this paper defines the concepts of network-value and network-value conversion rate,and measures the market power of digital marketing platforms by the network-value conversion rate.4.Analyze the social welfare impact of the monopoly digital marketing platform.When analyzing the social welfare impact of the monopoly digital marketing platform,this paper comprehensively considers the role of platform behavior,external constraints and R&D investment.5.Analyze the social welfare impact of the horizontal and vertical mergers of digital marketing platforms.Discuss in-depth the main factors affecting the merger incentives of digital marketing platforms,and the impact of these factors on social welfare.6.Clarified the basic issues of antitrust on the Internet platform and put forward the basic ideas of antitrust analysis on digital marketing platforms.The main conclusions of this paper are:1.Due to the unique pricing rules of digital marketing platforms,it is impossible to determine the market power of digital marketing platforms by price changes.2.The larger the digital marketing platform,the stronger the incentive for R&D investment.Large digital marketing platforms can not only increase social welfare through network effects,but also have better R&D efficiency.3.The market power of digital marketing platform is directly proportional to the network-value conversion rate.The larger the scale of digital marketing platform,the lower the network-value conversion rate.4.The social welfare outcomes of monopoly and mergers of digital marketing platforms are affected by factors such as business model,market environment,R&D investment,and consumer behavior.5.The antitrust analysis of digital marketing platforms must consider the platform business model,external constraints and R&D investment.The main innovations of this paper are:1.Established the Conduct-Performance-Structure paradigm to analyze antitrust issues of digital marketing platforms.2.Analyzed the unique pricing rules of the digital marketing platforms and tested it with empirical results.3.Proposed the concept of network-value and the concept of network-value conversion rate.4.Defined the concept of interaction constraint and analyze the impact of interaction constraint on social welfare.5.Discussed the basic principles of antitrust analysis on the Internet platforms.