How to Advertise in China on Douyin
Douyin, China’s fastest-growing short-video app, presents a significant opportunity for global brands to tap into the Chinese market. With its blend of endless entertainment and instant purchasing options tailored to users’ interests, Douyin effectively matches content with the right audience.
Douyin has become a vital marketing and advertising tool across many industries in China. But how do brands create effective Douyin ad campaigns? Where do they set bids and review ad costs? How do they advertise on platforms like Toutiao? What ad tools are available?
In this article, we’ll answer these questions and explore the advertising and marketing opportunities for reaching Chinese consumers.
The Potential of Douyin Advertising
Douyin offers brands access to a broad range of advertising and marketing options across its platform, from in-feed ads and branded challenges to livestreaming and interactive campaigns. By leveraging these tools, brands can reach engaged audiences who are eager to discover new products and services. Douyin provides businesses with data-driven insights, helping brands understand user behavior and refine their campaigns to improve performance.
Who Can Benefit from Douyin Advertising?
Douyin’s advertising platform is ideal for sales, marketing, and advertising teams, as well as consumer trends researchers, data analysts, and product managers. Depending on business objectives, users can utilize various tools like audience research, competitor analysis (industry benchmarking), and ad delivery optimization to tailor campaigns to specific target markets.
Running Advertising Campaigns on Douyin
Douyin’s platform supports local and global brands with a user-friendly advertising interface available in both Chinese and English. Upon registering for a Douyin Business account, users can access tools like the Creative Workbench, which simplifies the ad creation process, as well as targeting, data insights, and performance analytics to refine ad strategy.
Key Ad Formats and Creative Tools
Using Douyin’s Creative Workbench, advertisers can create multiple ad formats quickly. Available formats include Interactive Cards, Voting Cards, e-Commerce Cards, Display Cards, Coupon Cards, and Smart Slides, each designed to engage users in different ways. Once ad content is finalized, brands can reach specific audiences using Douyin’s advanced targeting features.
Ad Bidding Options on Douyin
Douyin offers three main ad bidding tools: Automatic Rules, One-Click Boost, and One-Click Inherit, allowing advertisers to control their bids and optimize their ad spend.
Automatic Rules: This feature monitors ad groups and adjusts bids, status, and budget settings to enhance performance. Advertisers receive notifications on key ad performance updates.
One-Click Boost: Expands campaign reach by showing ads to audiences outside the target group, helping identify new interest groups and improving engagement.
One-Click Inherit: Builds on past campaign success by expanding reach to similar audience groups based on previous high-performing ads.
Managing Ad Comments
Douyin provides customizable comment settings, allowing advertisers to moderate comments through prohibited word filters, user blocking, and batch reply options. These settings give brands control over their ad’s public interaction.
Post-Ad Delivery Analytics
After an ad goes live, Douyin’s platform offers a range of data reports, including audience analysis (by device, interest, region), landing page heat maps, and tracking options using third-party tracking links. These insights help brands fine-tune their marketing funnel. Additionally, Douyin provides scenario-based data analysis (video, livestream, and landing page reports) and account-level performance reports to guide future ad strategies.
Pre-Ad Delivery Insights
Douyin’s platform also includes tools to help advertisers optimize ads before they go live. With In-Feed Ad Traffic Analysis, brands can estimate performance data, identify optimal ad timing, and review cost-performance relationships.
Advertising Solutions for Different Business Goals on Douyin
Douyin supports various advertising strategies, whether a brand aims to build awareness, drive engagement, or increase conversions. Here’s how to use Douyin’s tools based on common business goals:
Brand Awareness: Boosts exposure through clicks and impressions, focusing on existing followers and users recently exposed to the brand.
User Engagement: Encourages interaction with content through likes, comments, shares, and downloads, attracting new followers.
Conversion: Drives direct actions like in-app purchases, form submissions, or subscription activations.
To implement these strategies on Douyin, brands have several options:
In-House Production: Larger brands with internal resources can create video content independently and distribute it on Douyin’s platform.
Creative Workbench: This tool provides inspiration, stock video libraries, and quick design capabilities, streamlining the ad creation process.
Outsourcing Production: Brands without the resources to produce content can collaborate with independent Douyin content creators or third-party agencies to develop creative assets.
Getting Started with Douyin Advertising
For brands interested in advertising on Douyin, start by creating a Douyin Business account, which grants access to the ad management platform, analytics tools, and a dedicated customer support team. Douyin offers a comprehensive resource library with tutorials and case studies to assist brands in understanding the platform’s capabilities and audience dynamics in China.
With its rich media formats, advanced targeting, and detailed analytics, Douyin empowers brands to reach and engage Chinese consumers effectively. By following these steps, foreign brands can harness the power of Douyin to connect with new audiences in China.
