If you’re looking to promote your brand in China, it can be hard to know where to begin. But in many ways, media buying in China is much the same as media buying anywhere else. As with North America or Europe, the key is knowing which technologies can maximise your media’s effectiveness. With the right solutions, you can easily develop a holistic media-buying strategy and significantly improve your brand exposure and conversion.
To show you the impact that AdTech can make in China, we’ve created a day in the life of a Chinese consumer. We’ll follow a typical customer journey, bring the Chinese media landscape to life and explain how AdTech solutions get more from your spend.
Meet Yu-chen
Yu-chen is a senior manager living and working in Shanghai. She’s thirty years old and loves cooking, fitness and fashion. She also spends a lot of time using popular Chinese apps, including Douyin (Tiktok), Wechat (WhatsApp) and Red (e-commerce and influencer content).
In China, there are a wide range of 3rd party data sources you can use to locate your target audience. Beyond apps, you can use data from companies like China Mobile, China Unicom and Baidu to filter audiences by age, location, income, content preferences and most standard metrics you’d use in Western markets.
Morning
Pre-roll Podcast Ads
On a Monday morning, Yu-chen makes breakfast while listening to Heixiu, her favourite podcast on Himalaya, a popular Chinese audiobook app. Before her podcast starts, Yu-chen watches a 15 second pre-roll ad. Using our, you can run these as direct buys on specific podcasts preferred by your target audience.
We can also collect the device ID of users who listen to a particular podcast, helping you gain a clearer picture of user behavior and audience segments.
Daily Commute
OOH Geotargeting
Then, on her way to work through Lujiazui (Shanghai’s financial district), Yu-chen comes across a 3D billboard campaign. As in the West, these are rapidly gaining popularity in China and they’re a great opportunity for geotargeting.
Let’s say the 3D billboard campaign comes from a brand in your sector. Now that we have Yu-chen’s device ID, we can serve her your ads if she comes within 1km of the billboard. Not only does Yu-chen get timely, relevant exposure to your brand, we’ll also analyze which combinations of media and creative get her to engage at the best CPM price.
Lunchtime
Tmall and KOL Marketing
At lunch time, Yu-chen orders some food via Ele.me, a Chinese version of Uber Eats. She then watches some influencer content on Red. Her favourite influencer, Qian Qian Zi, recommends a brand. She then visits the brand’s store on Tmall, a popular e-commerce app and platform. Here, our K-advisor solution can analyze all the users who view a particular influencer’s content and track the ones who go onto visit Tmall or make a purchase. It makes sure that if you use key opinion leader (KOL) marketing, you’ll be making informed, cost-effective decisions. We’ll also programmatically retarget Chinese users who engage with your KOL content.
Afternoon
Wechat Mini Programs
In the afternoon, Yu-chen spends some time on Wechat. Although Wechat is primarily used for messaging, it also allows for ‘mini programs’, which are essentially apps within the app. Common mini programs include e-commerce platforms or virtual store tours.
Yu-chen explores a fashion brand’s mini-program almost exactly as you’d use an e-commerce website. With a few taps, she looks at a red bag she’s been thinking about buying. Once Yu-chen accesses a mini program, we can start to create a unified user ID and target her with ads across multiple channels.
Evening
Connected TV
After a hard day’s work, Yu-chen decides to let it rot* and relax at home. She watches Paonan, her favourite gameshow on iQIYI, an app similar to Netflix. With demand-side platform (iPinYou Optimus DSP), we can target users like Yu-chen by genre and audience type. For example, we could run a connected TV ad for thirty-year-olds who watch gameshows. And, using Yu-chen’s device ID, we can retarget her in a strategic, considered way.
The Next Day
Marketing Automation - SMS
The following morning, on her way to work through Lujiazui, the red bag Yu-chen looked at yesterday is retargeted to her via an SMS notification. As she’s got a bit of time before work, Yu-chen decides to go into the brand’s physical store and have a look at the real thing.
How we can help
If you want to build your presence in China, we have a wide range of AdTech solutions that can deliver consistently strong results. Over 2000 brands have validated our media activation platform AlphaDesk™, which coordinates China media buying for all the channels we’ve mentioned in this article and more.
Powered by machine learning and AI, it takes care of your entire marketing campaign lifecycle. It also features more than 200 targeting criteria, outdoor media in 400 Chinese cities and fully transparent costs. Explore our solutions in full or get in touch with us to learn more!
