New Online Advertising Rules in China
New online advertising regulation in China will impact all digital business with presence in China. Here we bring you an analysis overview to start adapting to the new trend in advertisement.
It would be after the death of a college student who took part in an experimental health treatment found in Baidu, when popular pressure would force the Government to begin an ads regulatory change.
The Internet Ad Interim Measures, a new regulation prompted by the State Administration for Industry and Commerce of China, went into effect in September 1st. Therefore, it arises from the Government’s claim by adopt new rules over online advertisement: email, paid searches, embedded links, images, and videos are already subject to the new law. Its aim is avoiding the spread of misleading advertisements on the Net, and correct the prevailing liberality so far.
The new online advertising regulations are expected to impact on Chinese Digital Marketing as a whole: social media, search engines, apps and electronic commerce in the country will have to move under the new guidelines.
A step closer to the uses and customs in Western advertisements
For the first time in China, the new measure features a specific definition of Internet advertising; often, foreigners suffer from a lack of legislative safety in China. Therefore, conceptualization is a step forward to define clearly not only the concept, but also its extension:
“Internet advertising is advertisements that directly or indirectly sell commercial goods or services through the websites, web pages, internet applications and other forms of Internet media including text, images, audio, video and etc.”
Moreover, the regulation comes to underline its main purpose:
“To protect the legitimate rights and interests of consumers, and promote the healthy development of the Internet advertising industry.”
In what fields are these changes applicable? What changes will take place after its implementation?
The regulation is particularly focused on a list of fields described below:
-Healthcare and medicine
-Food and beverage
The main measures to be starting to apply can be summarized as:
–First, the Law requires to place the word “advertisement” in a prominent position and clearly distinguishable at first sight.
–Second, every field subject of special regulation needs a previous review and an approval process by authorities.
–Third, online advertisements for prescription medicine is banned. A special measure in health products is also extended to medicines, pesticides or medical supplies.
–Fourth, tobacco online ads are also banned.
–Fifth, any paid search results, links or content must be clearly identified by the word “advertisement”.
–Sixth, users should not only have the choice to close an ad, but also this has to be easy to them.
–Seventh, paid links and contents must be clearly detailed at a glance.
–Eighth, any attached ad and/or promotional links to an email should have been allowed previously.
–Ninth, any misleading and/or false ad is considered illegal from now on.
Who is especially affected by the new regulation?
Under this measure, the biggest impact falls on the largest Internet companies in China. Baidu and Bing should apply new restrictions on ads; it should not be forgotten that, much of the incomes of Baidu, Weibo or Alibaba come advertising.
But also traditional Social Media must change. WeChat or Weibo offer paid content; as we mention before, pop-ups, ads or links should be first permitted, which will force companies to evolve the way advertising is offered to Chinese users. Seems marketers should start creating better ads, or contravening the prevailing legislation with all the penalties that that means.
There are plenty of creative ways to sell your services and products in China. In search of a Digital Marketing Agency?
How to Promote your Business in China
How does Chinese Market work? How can companies promote themselves without Facebook and Google? How do people survive under huge competition there?
China is -still- a mystery for foreigners. The country means a huge cake, but before entering the market you will need to answer to this and other questions. To make it easier to you, in 2 Open we have taken a brief look of the Chinese market and done a list of the most basic tips you should consider before landing in China.
Gone wrong? It can go much worse
When many companies started their business in China for the first time, the things they used quite a lot in local made no sense in China.
Ebay is one of the biggest e-commerce platforms around the world and a perfect example to explain the experiences many foreign companies face in China. Due to its leadership, the company assumed that its landing in China would be no much different to that experienced in other countries, so in the beginning they refused to establish a partnership with JD.com. The company soon realized there were no more choice but to cooperate with them.
What are the most common problems that foreign companies face in Chinese territory?
Foreign enterprises in China often fall into the same shortcomings we analyze below. Let´s see:
First, Always try to show their high-end enterprise images
Foreign enterprises always show their best face: high-quality services, responsible attitude, respect to the customers… and so on. But in China, price is the key and can always be the KPI which attract the customers’ sight immediately.
Second, Focus on high-end target audiences but ignore the rapid growth of China
When companies like Blueberry entered China, they set the target group to those corporate users. As the earliest and past No.1 smart phone, Blueberry had already been famous in China. But within 7 years (2006-2013), they retreated from China and closed their Chinese official website.
When Huawei set off their business, what they did was to set the target audiences as all people who want smart phone. Since the average income of Chinese people is increasing, so that more and more can afford a smart-phone. Huawei was right about its strategy.
Third, Copy the promotion strategy directly to China
Many foreign companies would prefer to make a wonderful advertisement, an amazing poster and advertise in the subway stations, supermarkets… and everywhere. But they always find out that the ROI is quite low, since they might only get 1 customer for a 100 RMB budget. Does it outweigh? We don´t think so.
In China, since the civil quality is still on a shallow level, what the customers care most is whether they are interested in, but not what is a good design. That is why when Taobao.com stepped out their first step, they even promoted on some illegal websites which had huge traffics every day.
Fourth, Think too much about customers but ignore what the customers are thinking about ICQ. The instant messaging software also failed in China!
The U.S. companies are always stricts on protecting the users’ privacy. With such a policy, users can’t find the chat record if they log in on another PC, since the software will not memorize or save these records in order to protect the privacy to the most degree.
Its counterpart in China, Ma Huateng, found out this fault which doesn’t fit the Chinese users’ requirement. In response he created QQ, which is based on the technology of ICQ and make this software become the most-used IMS in China.
Fifth, Rely too much on the Western promotion ways, companies do not want to do things directly
E-mail, Mail and SMS promotion require low budget and have huge audience quantity. Well, they do not make sense in China. For many Chinese people, it is absolutely offensive if they receive advertisement in these channels since they have watched and received too many advertisements already. Moreover, for most Chinese these all are considered private.
They don’t like to be bothered by anything they don’t even know. In China, what people prefer is face to face, no matter if it is for sales promotion or negotiation. The Chinese only trust the people in real life. That’s why when Zhou Hongyi took the responsibility of Yahoo China, he fired all employees who only did E-mail promotion but never visited the clients.
What should you do, then?
First, Pay attention to Chinese culture
Chinese culture is totally different comparing with the Western cultures. Different political systems, different History, different religious beliefs. Thus, the culture strike shows extremely seriously in China.
Your company should do its best to avoid the culture strike and assume their role. We suggest you yo have a look to Lancôme experience in China.
Second, Explore the Chinese consumer behaviour and preferences
Knowing the Chinese consumer behavior and their preferences make the difference. What are the KPIs to attract them? What they care the most? What they pay less attention to? What channels they prefer to get promotion information?
All these questions need to be taken into account when setting up the marketing strategy in China.
Third, Know the correct channels
Due to the firewall in China, many foreign websites (Google, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) are not allowed in the China mainland. Thus, use Chinese sources.
Fourth, Speak that language
Chinese people still prefer to speak Chinese. So, when doing business with them, try Mandarin: it is always more than welcome.
There are still lots of thing we need to explore and learn about China. In search of an Ecommerce and Digital Marketing Agency?
This article has been edited by Paula Vicuña, from 2 Open.
Infographic: 10 Things You Need To Know To Build a Chinese Website
A picture is worth a thousand words
After the great success achieved by our two articles 10 Things You Need To Know To Build a Chinese Website (I) (II), in the team we have thought it would be a good idea to summarize and turn them into an infographic.
We hope you enjoy it as much as we enjoyed its elaboration 🙂
Are you looking for a digital marketing and ecommerce agency?
Visit us. Let´s have a talk!
Nutrexpa Experience in China: Business Tips
Nutrexpa was not only one of the first Western companies operating in China in the early eighties, but also a perfect example to explain the hurdles that any company faces in its landing to China.
Nutrexpa paved the way and others followed its footsteps. Its story is an example of tenacity and adaptability to a country that was not what it is today. Many of its experiences are likely to be applied to any company that considers China.
Keep reading!
Find the proper battle buddy. Be aware of market dynamics!
In the early eighties, it was impossible to land in the country without the assistance of a local partner and the Chinese authorities.
After over three years of negotiations between the company and the local authorities, the emergence of a suitable local partner –Li Bank-, contributed to the establishment of an alliance, and the subsequent creation of a Joint-Venture.
A tip! This first stage requires flexibility and guangxi. Negotiations with local authorities and the Chinese bureaucracy are not always easy -although is improving every day! -, and finding a proper partner can be difficult.
Do not lose your patience and keep working on building a suitable partnership. It´s worthy!
Sometimes in China, your product will turn into another
After inaugurating in 1990 its factory in Tianjin, Nutrexpa would focus on prospecting of its target market, and also in adaptive demands that China demanded of its product. There, Nutrexpa started producing soluble and powder cocoa drinks.
Nutrexpa had all the ballots to fail on its arrival in China
The biggest pitfall were the eating habits: no milk or cocoa were consumed in China.
How to overcome such a hurdle?
– First, the company took advantage of an extrinsic condition: in the early nineties, the Chinese Government launched a powerful awareness campaign about the importance of milk intake in children. So, stay tuned! Opportunities come and leave!
–Second, Nutrexpa made a big effort to get a closer approach to the taste of their potential customers. To do so, they devised some specific tastes to their products: strawberry, banana and vanilla. Adapt!
–Third, Nutrexpa invested huge amounts on nationwide coverage advertising campaigns –around € 10/12 million per year- , especially on television. This effort managed to position the brand as a product fully recognized in big cities but also among Tier 2 and Tier 3. Now replace TV and imagine the endless possibilities of digital marketing on advertising nowadays!
–And last but not least, the company decided to create a Chinese distinctive brand. It dropped its popular brand name –Cola Cao– to become GaoLeGao, whose literal meaning is tall and jolly.
Choosing GaoLeGao was a marketing tool by itself: the election of positive attributes in a children’s product, makes easier its choice to the detriment of other similar products.
Years later, the company would challenge itself over again with the introduction of Nocilla… in a country in which bread was not consumed.
An another tip! Adapt your products and services to the market. If the name of your brand, colors or labeling are inadequate, change them!
Also never forget registering the name of your brand in Chinese and in your own language! Product customization, labelling and marketing are crucial!
success is sometimes highly unexpected
Despite being widely accepted, the product never reached another audience than children. Neither GaoLeGao nor Nocilla were the most successful.
Surprisingly, Nutrexpa discovered that its Star-product in China was… Phoskitos! Its commercialization never fit in with major purposes of Nutrexpa; after almost thirty years, they took the decision of selling the company and leave China.
What can we learn from the experience of Nutrexpa in China?
When Nutrexpa came to China, there were no previous examples. Fortunately, we are in 2016 and your company has the advantage of landing in the country in the hands of an agency specialized in Chinese business development.
Visit us and boost your sales in this giant we call China!
10 Things you Need to Know to Build a Chinese Website (Part 2)
In the first part of this article, we showed and identified 5 main points that differentiate a Chinese website from its western counterpart that we need to keep in mind in order to build a good one.
Let us summarize some of the main points addressed in the previous article:
- The style, design and structure are more complex and with much more information in opposition to the cleanness of the western websites
- In terms of user experience, Chinese are used to a great amount of links and keyword search boxes are the kings for navigation purposes
- Where to host your Chinese website is one of the first decisions to make. The most of the times we advise you to have a hosting in China. For that you will need a Chinese company to apply for an Internet Content Provider (ICP License)
- The Chinese Great Firewall blocks all websites that do not meet the content requirements that marks the Chinese government
- Your website needs to be ready to integrate with the main Chinese players. Google, Facebook and friends are banned in China; instead you will need to use the BATs (Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent).
After this little updating, we would like to further develop this post showing you 5 more crucial things to take in consideration when building a good Chinese website.
When building a chinese website, What else should I know?
6 – CHINA IS MOBILE. BE RESPONSIVE
Adapting our website to mobile is very important in any country, but in China is mandatory.
The Smartphone is, in many cases, the only way they have to access the Internet. Therefore Chinese users are much more familiar with the use of mobile devices. Keep in mind that almost the 50% of all Ecommerce transactions made in 2015 were done via mobile, compared to the also quite high 22% in the United States.
Don’t think any longer and start working on a nice mobile design… Mobile first!
7 – DOMAIN. WHICH ONE IS THE RIGHT OPTION FOR ME
In your approach to domains, three are the main options:
– Not that long ago, to have a .CN was a must. It was not possible to get it if you didn’t have a Chinese legal entity. This has changed over the time and now you can easily get a .cn domain, no matter where your company comes from, just providing a copy of your Company’s ID. As the Chinese international top level domain, your brand might be perceived as having a strong presence in China and might also bring some trust
– On the other hand, we have the .COM domain. Chinese Internet users are increasingly getting used to this domain. Major Ecommerce platforms like Tmall.com, JD.com or Sunning.com may bear much of the blame for this. It can be very good for foreign companies trying to sell their products in the Asian giant to have a .com domain as it might help to highlight the international feel of the brand
– .COM.CN is the ugly duckling in the middle still in use by many brands mixing the good things from the previous mentioned domains, but without reaching their full advantages. In any case it can also be a good solution.
Which language should I use?
Another point to think about is the language to be used. Does your brand have a Chinese name? Then you can also use its pinyin term. Pinyin is the romanization system for standard Chinese: Chinese search engines recognise the pinyin words in the URL and then link them to what they stand for in Chinese characters in order for the website not to lose coherence.
Our advice?
Don’t get crazy about the domain, they are usually not that expensive. So, in case you can afford it, try to get the three of them (.com, .cn and .com.cn), plus their pinyin variants and redirect them to the main one; depending on your strategy.
8 – CONTENT. DON’T GET LOST IN TRANSLATION
It is important to know very well your main target markets as the language will differ depending on it. It might be obvious to mention it, but it wouldn’t be the first time that a company’s target consumer is in Hong Kong, Taiwan or Macao and the language used for the website translation was simplified Chinese instead of traditional Chinese and the other way around. That is a major and silly mistake that takes a long time to revert.
I don’t want to mention either the fact that a Google translated web does not help at all, but I am doing it because I have seen too many. It is mandatory to let a professional team take care of the translations. In 2 Open we separate this process in three parts:
- Translation, interpreting the main message that the customer wants to transmit to the final customer, done by a marketing professional in our team
- External review, done by a professional translator outside the team
- Final review, done by another marketing professional in our team
You might not believe it, but in certain cases we still get minor complaints. This is because Chinese language can be interpreted in many different ways. Therefore translations are always a difficult point in the list.
Is Customization a mandatory requirement?
Let’s not forget about the Chinese cultural customization. Website localization embraces translating and localizing a site into different languages making sure all content (text, images and videos) is translated correctly in an accurate, cultural and technical manner.
As stated before when talking about content, we are also talking about images and videos. There are no written rules and it has similarities to the domain section we discussed above. There are brands like Nike or Zara that prefer to maintain their international feel using western models in their multimedia strategy. Many young Chinese users welcome this method, but not all of them. Depends on the strategy you want to follow.
9 – PAYMENT OPTIONS. CREDIT CARDS? NO, THANKS
In the previous post, we wrote about the BATs (Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent). In China, the online payments market is currently dominated by two of these two tech giants – Alibaba’s Alipay and Tencent’s WeChat payment with 49.2% and 20% market share respectively.
These companies try to increase their market share by adding more brands and merchants within their ecosystem; something that both companies effectively handle. Also cash is king, as cash on delivery holds a strong position. The fast and vast adoption of electronic payments via mobile is likely to counter this trend in due time.
It is actually China and not the US at the leading edge of the trends towards mobile payments technology. Just for putting an example, both WeChat and Alipay have long used the now famous QR codes to let Chinese netizens pay for purchases and transfer money. It seems they have jumped over some natural technological development processes. This kind of behaviours can be quite normal in undeveloped countries that start to grow very rapidly.
What happened is that they adopted the mobile payment technologies even before implementing some existing ones as a huge percentage of the Chinese population accesses the Internet via mobile devices.
Another tip?
Get ready to integrate Alipay in your website as first and mandatory option. And seeing how fast Tencent WeChat payment is growing, that would be your second natural option.
10 – SEO
Once your website is ready, you will need to submit it to Baidu creating a Baidu Webmaster Tools account (only available in Chinese). That way Baidu will be able to index the site properly and your great Chinese adventure starts!
Search engine optimization done in Baidu is not so very different as the one you could do for Google. Anyway, we would like to note a few differences I think you need to know:
– Meta description – unlike Google and Bing, Baidu still uses Meta descriptions as a ranking factor. Keyword targeted description match users’ queries and their demands, which would help with the click through rate (CTR).
– Indexation – Baidu’s web crawling bot, Baiduspider, is not as advanced as the one from Google. As a result, you will need to help Baiduspider to discover and index your pages in different ways. Without mentioning that you can go to sleep and wake up with huge traffic losses or de-indexed pages usually caused by a penalization. Be careful what you do!
– Link building – On Baidu, it is not about the quality of the publishers’ website, it is more about the unique relevancy of the content (as it relates to your content) and the quantity of links to your pages. Baidu penalizes duplicate content and it also disallows irrelevancy. Authority and quality of the publisher is not that important (for now). In short, the more the merrier as long as it is not duplicate.
– Baidu services – Baidu offers a lot of different products apart of Search; use them and leverage their integrated marketing power. The most useful are Baidu Zhidao (questions and answers service) and Baidu Baike (Wiki service), but there are tons of other services that might be helpful to increase brand awareness and for content creation.
OTHER ASPECTS
As for the tracking, most people use Baidu Tongji and/or Google Analytics. Yes, you read it well; Google Analytics still works in China and it is the only Google service that still does. You will find many detractors, but for what we have seen there is no huge discrepancies between the data collected by both systems (usually not higher than 5%). And Google Analytics has more functionalities than Baidu Tongji.
It is also important to mention the typography. Chinese language is not easy to read due to the difficulty associated to its typography. With 40,000 characters, they are divided in strokes which amount can vary between 1 and 60. Therefore the font size should be at least 12px.
At 2 Open, we would be pleased to help you.Take the advantages the Chinese market offers.
With the cooperation of our Digital Marketing and Ecommerce Agency, China will be at your fingertips.
Do not hesitate to visit us We´d loved to hear from you!
This article has been edited by Paula Vicuña, from 2 Open.
Is Sina Weibo On The Way Out?
There are plenty of Social Media platforms in China: while a few achieve great success, many succumb to a highly competitive scenario.
Result of its dynamism, it is essential to keep attention on the changes that China faces in the digital world.
From 2 Open, we have prepared a brief introduction about Weibo´s current situation.
Our goal is to give you some tips to fully understand what is going on with one of the biggest Chinese Social Media.
Do not hesitate to contact us for a more thorough analysis!
Weibo is a Social Media platform to produce, share and find out Chinese-language content.
As a leading platform, provides an easy way to express in real time and interact with people and corporations.
Its importance is not only due to its capacity to be an official/unofficial news source, but also because it allows people to express themselves in a public way.
The doomsayers come into the picture
Currently, Alibaba is the biggest Chinese e-commerce company: it provides C2C, B2C and B2B sales services via web portals, plus electronic payment services, a shopping search engine and data-centric cloud computing services.
Three years ago, Alibaba bought 18% stock of Weibo. Since then, several media have speculated that Weibo or even Sina might be acquired by Alibaba in a short time.
Encouraged by the rise of Wechat, many marketers have predicted the fall of Weibo. Well, the latest Earnings report proves they were wrong.
Is Weibo on the way out? Let the Earnings speak the truth
According to official Earnings Report of 2016 Q2 from Sina Weibo, the Net profit of 25.9 million dollars (net revenues of $ 146.9 million) increased 516% compared to the same period last year.
Moreover, Weibo 2016 Q2 data shows the Total revenue of Weibo is 146.9 million, including 127.2 million revenue from Advertising business, value-added services $ 19.7 million for value-added services.
Let’s review the users’ data on Weibo now
Monthly Active Users –MAU- is 282 million, increase 33% compared to the same period of last year. In addition, Daily Active Users –DAU- is 126 million with 36% increase compared to same period of last year.
Is noteworthy that 89% of them are mobile users.
The progress is closely related to their own media advantage
Three years ago, relying on its social communication advantages, Weibo attracted $ 600 million of Alibaba, while became an effective channel for celebrity campaigns, events, marketing and other commercial activities.
After that, Weibo focused on the advertising model. At the end, it decided to put aside Alibaba and manage the business alone.
In 2016 Q1, advertising investment from small and medium enterprises increased 147%. The quantity of SME’s and self-service advertisers reached 830K with 25% increase compared to previous quarter.
In 2016 Q1, investment in small and medium advertising revenue grew 147%, the number of SMEs and self-service advertisers reached 830,000 and a 25% increase the previous quarter.
Why both SMEs and big brands value Weibo a lot?
Both leverage it as an important channel frequently, specially because:
- Increase of traffic and users with 282 million MAU
- Optimized Algorithm of Ad Platform
- Active Internet Celebrities
- Live－streaming
The outbreak of short videos
We should add that speaking of its development path, the outbreak of short videos is also a milestone of growth of Weibo.
According to the 2016 Q2 Earning report, the playback amount of short videos on Weibo has increased 200%.
Meanwhile, the Internet celebrity economy is rapidly booming. Based on short videos, live-streaming broadcast and e-commerce, Weibo occupies the core position of social media with its incredible social power.
Margin improvement for future
The operating leverage will keep being prominent in the future. Based on the non-GAAP, the operating Margin rate of Weibo was 23.6% in the second quarter.
It is expected that the Weibo´s operating Margin rate could reach 25.2% in the third quarter, 23.4% in 2016 financial year, and 28.7% in 2017 financial year.
After seven years, Weibo proves to the world its strength and influence.
Do you still think Weibo is on the way out?
Our Digital Marketing and Ecommerce Agency have the experience of a team dedicated to know in depth the Chinese Social Media.
If you are looking to push your sales in China, do not hesitate to contact us.
Moreover, if you are interested in receiving to your mail the latest trends of Chinese Social Media, please suscribe to our monthly Newsletter!
This article has been edited by Paula Vicuña, from 2 Open.
Tencent and JD Launch Targeted Brand Advertising on WeChat
From the association of Tencent –owner of the biggest social platforms in China- and JD.com –the leading online direct sales company in the country-, has emerged a new conception of Marketing and Brand Advertising.
In 2016 in Beijing, both released a plan based on Ecommerce marketing service called “J&T Plan”.
The new policy was aimed to provide a tool to accurate a better portrait of the potential user, and improve the interaction with the consumer.
As a result, users data has become extremely valuable for any company:
Knowledge is power, more than ever.
What are their main Goals?
The aspiration of Tencent and JD.com partnership has been to provide a pleasant and high quality service to their users.
To reach its purpose, they have focused on three main objectives to strength its business on mobile and Internet, such as:
- Mobile access points
- Traffic support
- Ecommerce activities
Their desire to turn the user into the protagonist of the new Marketing, has launched a new approach based on three main ideas:
- Multi-dimensional user insight
- Effectiveness analysis
- Precision target audience
What do they want in Return?
Not only a commitment to the future and an advantage over its competitors, their relationship also give them some specific advantages:
JD.com obtains a stake in Yixun, PaiPai C2C marketplace businesses, logistics personnel and assets and QQ Wanggou B2C.
On the other hand, Tencent will offer level one access points in Weixin and Mobile QQ and support from other key platforms to JD.com.
In order to provide a better online shopping experience, they will also work together on providing solutions to online payment services and an overall digital marketing solutions.
If you are thinking on improving your company services, before starting a Business and Marketing Plan you should take in consideration some basic recomendations:
Build a well-aimed portrait of the users, improve brand experience with the client, and enhance technological tools to achieve it, have become the three key factors to consider on any approach to potential customers, and the best guarantee for the future of your company.
From 2 OPEN we have conformed a team capable of responding to new challenges and specialized on Business Intelligence. We can help you to deal with the new Marketing and Ecommerce trends.
Come with us. Together we will reach your company goals.
This article was edited by Paula Vicuña from 2 OPEN.
Demand Side Platform in China
Overview of Demand Side Platform (DSP) in China
After arriving to China in 2012, DSP has gained popularity among advertisers due to its way of changing the traditional advertising buying model, from media buying to target audience buying. It lets advertisers see their ads performance more intuitively, allowing them to change promotion strategies more efficiently. As one of the main trends in the digital advertisement development , there is no doubt that DSP will play a more important role in China’s digital marketing scene.
What is DSP?
Demand side platform (DSP) is a system that provides the technology needed to unlock the value of real time bidding (RTB) information provided by ad exchanges. There are thousands of advertisers on the Internet trying to promote their products with high-quality media, precise target audience, optimized advertising strategies and high ROI (Return On Investment). In simple terms, DSP is a service platform for advertisers, in which they can set up target audiences, delivery area and biding price etc.
RTB and Ad exchange
Real time bidding (RTB) is a digital ad buying process that allows advertisers to evaluate and bid on individual impressions. Let us pretend that the Internet is a big cobweb, where users leave traces when they are surfing on it. By using this new technology, advertisers can take all this data into consideration, and then decide the site, placement and bidding price on each ad impression. Usually, this process is completed in 120 milliseconds.
Ad exchange is like an open online advertising marketplace that lets publishers and advertisers connect with each other. You could think of it as a stock exchange; however, it works by auctioning each impression to the highest bidder.
What are the advantages of DSP?
- Wide reach: There is no limit of time and space, advertisers can show their ads when they want to show them and to any target audiences.
- Low cost: Unlike traditional media ads, DSP uses programmatic buying and charges by CPC/CPM, which gives advertisers more flexibility with their budget.
- Specific target: With the Data Management Platform (DMP) of DSP, advertisers can easily target their potential audience according to different characteristics (like age, gender, place, income, etc), this makes advertising more accurate and cost-efficient.
Challenges of DSP development in China:
- Lack of transparency
Many Chinese DSPs do not provide full transparency and access to their platforms, which makes it hard for advertisers to understand and optimize their marketing strategies. Usually, they just provide a report for advertisers after one promotion. As a matter of fact, some DSPs cannot even guarantee the stability of the system because of the lack of technical ability.
- Quality of media resources is hard to define
Usually big publishers just release leftovers from their inventory to ad exchanges, while they build their own private exchanges with premium resources. For example, Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent all have their own private marketplaces, through which they sell these good ads resources to big clients at a higher price. So advertisers who want to work with DSP in China have to work very hard to find the high quality traffic.
- Accuracy of target audience is uncertain
Big companies like BAT (Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent) are reluctant to share their data, and there is no mature Data Management Platform (DMP) in China yet. So most DSP companies just gather data from their own ad network, third-party ad serving, or existing software, which makes the accuracy of target audience data rather doubtful.
What is a suitable DSP?
There are four features a good DSP should have:
- Appropriate RTB capability: A good DSP must be able to decide whether to participate in the auction and what is the biding price for each impression in real time.
- Appropriate directing capability: A good DSP should have a huge Data Management Platform (DMP), through which advertises can target potential audiences more precisely.
- Appropriate data analysis capability: Be able to provide, analyze and optimize reports for advertisers, which are the most valuable part of a good DSP.
- Appropriate technical capability: A successful campaign on real-time bidding (RTB) system depending mainly on the algorithm and matching model of a good DSP.
This article was edited by Andres Arroyo from 2Open.
References:
http://www.marketing-interactive.com/brief-guide-programmatic-ad-buying-china/
https://www.clickz.com/clickz/column/2282204/the-challenge-of-rtb-dsp-in-china