Our China Blog
How To Test Chinese Website Loading Time And Accessibility
When you are trying to attract more Chinese users to your website, fast loading is one of the key factors affecting the traffic, usability and, ultimately, the conversion rate. Testing your Chinese website loading time is a critical step to take before launching marketing campaign directed at users in China.
Ideally, if your site is hosted in China, the loading time wouldn’t be an issue for a properly designed website. Unfortunately, hosting on Chinese servers requires obtaining ICP license first, which is only available to local companies. In one of the earlier posts, we have already discussed pros and cons or hosting website in China. read more…
5 Features of Most Effective China Email Marketing Strategy
Email marketing in China is one of the most cost effective digital channels to reach all types of audience. However, its maximum potential can only be realized if done right from the beginning. Incorporating these five features with your next China email marketing campaign will boost the ROI, make it more measurable and more effective.
The following presentation by Sampi Marketing was presented at Shanghai Entrepreneur organized by Entrepnr this month. read more…
Top 10 Most Popular Mobile Apps in China
Mobile apps continue to play central role in Chinese smartphone revolution. Most popular mobile apps in China have been developed by either Tencent or Baidu, two rival tech giants, although other companies are not far behind.
Communication, browsing mobile internet, listening to music and watching videos are the most common activities of Chinese mobile users. Not surprisingly, companies who traditionally dominated those niches on the internet have also been the leading providers on mobile.
Interestingly enough, not only that there isn’t a single non-Chinese app in the top 10 list, they don’t even make the first 50. In fact, the only foreign app that enjoys some popularity in China is Google’s mobile Chrome browser. read more…
The Chinese marketing toolbox
This article first appeared in Dialogue Review by Kirsten Levermore.
Simply copy-and-pasting strategies from familiar markets to China is not an effective approach. Val Kaplan introduces the tools for Marketing in China.
For foreigners, marketing in China is a complicated, delicate process requiring a whole new set of rules and tools.
If you are planning on setting up a campaign in China, here is what you’ll need in your toolbox: read more…
Taobao Villages: How Ecommerce Helps China’s Rural Economy
Over the last couple of years, ecommerce giants like Alibaba and JD.com have been cooperating with the government to plug China’s rural market into its vast online economy. The phenomenon of so called Taobao villages is one of the consequences of this approach.
China is one of world’s fastest urbanizing society in absolute terms. Although decreasing every year, approximately 45% of Chinese still live in rural areas which comes to about 600 million people. read more…
What Does It Take to Break Into Chinese Market?
This article was first published by Hal Conick of American Marketing Association (AMA.org).
A growing internet user base means a smaller world for marketers. How can marketers break into markets like Japan, China and Germany? Marketing News spoke with experts from across the world to find out. The first interview about breaking into Chinese market is with Val Kaplan, author of Doing Business in China Online: read more…
WeChat Advertising Overview: WeChat Official Account Ads
WeChat official account ads involve WeChat advertiser on one hand and WeChat publisher on the other.
WeChat official account ads are displayed in the form of a banner appearing at the bottom of a WeChat article published at another WeChat Official Account.
Who can use the WeChat official account ads?
WeChat Advertising Overview: WeChat Moments Ads
WeChat Moments ads involve WeChat advertiser on one hand and WeChat users on the other. The ads are displayed in user’s moments which is equivalent to Facebook timeline. Users see those ads while scrolling through their feed and typically have an option to interact with such ad.
Who can use WeChat Moments ads? read more…
Mobile Marketing in China: WeChat Advertising Overview
Thanks to its enormous size (900 million users strong by the latest count) and importance in China, WeChat marketing is considered to be one of the most critical elements of any brand’s China marketing strategy.
Big part of WeChat marketing is WeChat advertising. Since WeChat has no direct equivalents in the West, many foreign companies often find it hard to understand how exactly WeChat advertising operates. This why we are going to look at it in some more details in this post. read more…
Chinese Social Media Marketing Update: New Weibo KOL Posting Rules
Using KOL (key opinion leaders) has been one of the most effective social media marketing strategies in China. In this blog we have covered extensively the ways WeChat or Weibo KOL can be found, vetted and engaged to promote brands in various social media channels, which primarily are WeChat and Weibo.
Most recently, Weibo has introduced the set of new rules on what KOLs can and can’t do on their platform. Some of those rules are designed to fight completion, others to maximize the ad revenue. read more…
Chinese Programmatic Ads: 6 Most Common Types of Ad Fraud in China
In a relatively underdeveloped Chinese ad tech market (see our previous post), ad fraud in China remains a serious problem, costing millions of dollars to advertisers. While it is, undoubtedly, a global phenomenon, for the reasons we discussed earlier, Chinese programmatic ads market is still lagging behind.
Here are the six most common types of ad fraud in China: read more…
China Programmatic Ads: Why Chinese Ad Tech Is Still Behind the West
When it comes to digital marketing, in recent years, Chinese tech companies have been on the forefront of innovation. Unfortunately, Chinese ad tech that deals with programmatic ads still remains far less developed.
Although, Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent, collectively known as BAT, account for the major part of China’s overall digital marketing ad spend, there are also other online channels where ads are bought and served. Outside of China placing such ads is typically done via programmatic deals through third party platforms. Unfortunately, due to several reasons, China programmatic ads ecosystem is a generation behind western markets. read more…
119 Facts About Email Marketing: Infographic
In the era of social media, instant messaging and apps like WeChat and WhatsApp, one may be tempted to think that marketing using emails is old fashioned and is losing relevance. Nothing can be further from the truth. Email marketing not only remains one of the most cost effective tools in marketers’ toolbox but it is also getting more sophisticated and efficient.
In this post, we would like to share the latest infographic by WebsiteBuilder.org featuring over a hundred facts about email marketing and why it works. read more…
WeChat Search Function Expansion and What May Be Coming Next
In one of the biggest news this month, WeChat search function had undergone significant overhaul allowing WeChat to expand into new territory and challenge existing market leaders in China’s search engine space.
Up until the release of new search function, searching on WeChat was, perhaps, the most frustrating experience of the otherwise awesome app. read more…
China Sharing Economy: Six Most Innovative Services
The concept of sharing services didn’t originate in China, but, in recent years, Chinese are increasingly embracing many concepts of sharing economy. Several innovative startups have been on the forefront of China sharing economy with some achieving major success in record time.
Here we are reviewing several of those companies which are based on variety of different business models, products and services. read more…
Challenges of Hosting Website in China
Hosting website in China can be quite beneficial to a business in several respects. First of all, and most importantly, local web hosting in China will significantly reduce website’s loading time. This will both improve ranking in Chinese search engines, such as Baidu, as well as improve visitors’ overall experience.
Unfortunately, many websites that are hosted abroad still have a dismal loading time. This, undoubtedly, is adversely impacting their business in the Mainland. In addition, there is always a risk of getting banned and losing Chinese traffic completely if a website has been unlucky enough to share a server with a site that has been blacklisted by Chinese authorities for whatever reason. read more…
Infographic: Email and SMS Marketing in China
According to the recent report by Webpower, email and SMS marketing in China remains one of the most cost effective ways to reach target audience.
In this blog, we have covered extensively many aspects on Chinese email marketing: from deliverability issues to legal requirements and best practices for email template designs. read more…
8 Powerful WeChat Features You Probably Didn’t Know About
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