Written by Douyin, the Chinese version of Tik Tok, has exploded in China as well as in the West. With 600 million active users and 120 minutes per day usage, it is one of the best social media to reach Chinese customers.
In this article we will talk about the Adv on Douyin, what they are, which ones to use according to your goals and how to create an effective promotion.
Let’s first answer the question: Is Douyin a good platform for promotion?
The answer is simply yes. Why?
Almost half of the Chinese population uses Douyin every day and it is one of the Chinese social platforms with the highest user engagement. Its average usage time is twice that of other social platforms, including WeChat (61 minutes), RED (57 minutes), and Weibo (47 minutes).
Douyin users also show a higher rate of advertising reception compared to the other apps. For example, 43% of users indicate that Douyin ads are easy to accept, sometimes even fun to watch.
So let’s talk about the promotion on Douyin, in particular the promotion through Adv (or advertising)
Douyin has four different ad formats.
Which one should you use? Read on.
In-feed ads
Goal: direct users to a landing page.
In-feed ads are the most common form of Douyin advertising, which are ads that appear in users’ For You feed as they scroll through videos (the equivalent of the Facebook wall).
In-feed ads are a convenient format if you are looking to generate leads, convert to sales, drive traffic to a specific page.
Native Ads
Goal: Conversion
Douyin native ads (or Dou + ads) amplify existing content on the Douyin app, similar to “Boosted posts” ads on Facebook and Instagram.
Interestingly, Douyin native ads don’t include no indication that it is an Adv (as opposed to what happens in Western platforms).
These ads may include links to e-commerce, which often direct users to Taobao, Tmall or Douyin stores.
Search Ads
Goal: & nbsp; Drive traffic to the official website or get targeted conversions. < / p>
Douyin also provides search advertising, which is the ability to have a better position when potential customers do organic search in the app. Businesses can select specific keywords related to their brand (e.g. Italian products), businesses (e.g. niche brands) or services, and this type of advertising will show up just like the Adv on Google.
This type of Adv tends to generate more qualified traffic and generate conversions effectively, which is why they are more expensive than In-Feed ads.
TopView Announcements
Objective: Brand Awareness
This advertising format consists of full-screen ads displayed as soon as users open the App.
Now that you have chosen the type of Adv that suits your goals, you had to take care of creating the Adv.
Here are some tips for creating great advertising on this platform: & nbsp;
1. Adapting to the Douyin style
Let’s start with the content. Douyin is a platform that responds well to light and funny videos.
Avoid institutional and too technical videos. Just like they wouldn’t work for the Instagram feed and TikTok, they won’t work on Douyin. We recommend that you spend some time on Douyin to get an idea of the “style” of the platform and what users expect.
(We can help you adapt your resources or produce videos that Douyin users would like Do not hesitate to contact us for more information!)
2. Remember who your audience is: make it easy to use in Chinese
Localize your content for Chinese users. Adapt your creativity by adding a subtitle (if the audio is in English) or a voiceover in Chinese or create specific video content for Douyin. If the content contains a long conversation or storyline, adding subtitles is common even if the conversation is in Chinese.
3. Segment your audience
Douyin provides many dimensions for advertisers to accurately find their target audience.
Basic segmentation
You can choose demographic targets such as location, gender and age group. Douyin Ads also provides segmentation by environment, such as network types (4G, Wifi …), the operating system (iOS, Android), etc.
Interest and behavior
Douyin provides 20 category tags and supports up to 350 keywords. Category tags are general interest and behavior. Interest refers to users’ possible hobbies shown by their consumption habits on social media or related eCommerce; behavior indicates user actions such as viewing, engaging, searching, purchasing, and so on.
Targeting KOL
Like Weibo Ads, Douyin Ads also allows you to target KOL followers on the platform. You can choose to target audiences by interests (like F & amp; B; Fashion; cosmetics) or to target followers of specific KOLs.
Special seasonal labels
Douyin also provides seasonal labels based on particular Chinese activities, recent trends or festivals. For example, National Holiday Audience, Spring Festival Audience, Trendy Film & Series Audience, Game Audience.
Factors to keep in mind
1. Measuring the conversion on Douyin is very complex
It is very difficult to evaluate the effectiveness of Adv campaigns in China. This is because (unlike what happens in the West) most Chinese consumers do not access official websites to shop; instead, he prefers to search for a product – already identified on social networks – on Taobao, Tmall, JD.com. The main reason is that they believe they are finding better offers on these platforms, but also that they have access to an extensive product review system.
As a result, the only metric that can be effectively measured on Douyin will be brand awareness. < / p>
2. Don’t invest in Adv if you don’t have a stable account
For brands that are not very popular in China and are starting to test the market, we suggest you consider Douyin Ads after several months of organic activity. It’s best to start by testing your market trend with seeding / gifting to influencers and only then start advertising on social media.
3. Not all products can be promoted on Douyin
Here are the products not allowed by Douyin Ads due to regulations and laws:
• Cigarettes, including e-cigarettes;
• Medical instruments, medical organizations or apps;
• Competitor products such as online community apps, online video apps, video editing tools, music apps, etc.
Here is a list of restricted products. Douyin needs to look into it on a case-by-case basis and may whitelist some of the best brands that meet the platform’s requirements.
• Wine and alcohol;
• Health products;
• Medicine;
• Games (depending on the types of games);
• Fintech;
• Fundraising .
If you are curious to know more, contact us and we will be happy to answer you!