Advertising on professional networks is emerging as one of the most efficient B2B marketing channels in China. In my previous post, I have covered various marketing options that exist on one of such networks, Ushi.com. This time, I’m going to look at the largest of those platforms in China – tianji.com.
At the moment, Tianji has established itself as a leader in China’s online professional networking.Launched in 2005 by France-based Viadeo, it claims 20 million users at the moment, although true figures are hard to verify. With its clean and professional design, Tianji continues to attract business minded individuals across various industries and geographical areas in China.
In contrast with relatively limited advertising opportunities on Ushi, Tianji offers plenty of marketing options to marketers. Most placement models are CPM based but there are options for full continuous 24 hours ad display too. There are close to 50 different types of ads that can be placed with Tianji. Here is an overview of some of the options:
Ads on Tianji homepage
Homepage：www.tianji.com/home
Price: CPM based, RMB120-140
Ads on My Information Channel
Price: CPM based, RMB100-140
Ads on Tianji Company Channel
Price: CPM based, RMB100-140 or 24 hours of continuous display priced from RMB 120 to 3,000 depending on the size and location.
![Advertising with Tianji](tianji-company-channel-ads.jpg")
The cheapest option is that section (RMB 120 per 24 hours) would be displaying a company logo as shown on the right:
Ads on Tianji Events Channel
Those are quite similar to homepage style of ads but are displayed in the Events panel of Tianji site
Price: CPM based, RMB100-140
Ads in Tianji Newsletter
Ads can also be placed in Tianji Newsletter that is regularly sent out to users. A single placement would cost RMB 4 and minimum 50,000 mailings must be purchased at once. This means that one such campaign would reach RMB 200,000 for just one minimal mailing. Tianji Newsletter with an ad looks like this:
There are several more ads placement in other sections of the site, such as in Groups (similar to Events), as well as in users Inbox page and Weekly Updates.
In conclusion, while advertising options with Tianji are plentiful, especially compared to Ushi, the required budget for any meaningful marketing campaign can easily reach into hundreds of thousand RMB. Unfortunately, CPC advertising model is not available with Tianji making it harder for advertisers to judge the effectiveness of such campaigns and their ultimate conversion rate.
