How to buy media and advertisement on WeChat ?

WeChat is the perfect tool to manage your customer relationship, service your clients and keep them updated about your brand. Now, thanks to media buying on WeChat Advertisement, you can actually go beyond your existing community and advertise a new target audience in or outside China. In this article, we will discuss:

How and where you can advertise on the WeChat platform ?
How you can target the right audience with advertisement on WeChat ?
What is the price of a WeChat media buying campaign ?
What are the results you can obtain with an advertisement campaign on WeChat ?

Rules and media formats to advertise on WeChat

First, to buy advertisement on WeChat, you need to have a WeChat Official account and abide to certains rules, specially for certain industry like Finance or Pharmaceuticals for whom exist strong regulations regarding advertisement and digital marketing in China.

Then, you need to select or combine one of two format and placement options for WeChat ads:

WeChat Moment Ads

WeChat Moments Ads appear in the user WeChat Moments Newsfeed. So, this ads format is the most visible and impactful but also the most pricey. The media to be display can be either up to 6 images or a 6-15 seconds videos. A description is displayed below the ad - up to 40 caracters. You can also add a link or a call to action. You can for example drive the user to a H5 digital marketing campaign mini-website or a WeChat mini-program.

WeChat Banners Ads

WeChat banners ads appear at the bottom or inside another Official account article. Official account like bloggers or news media can generate revenue in WeChat by letting WeChat display advertisement on their content / articles. WeChat banner ads are very simple and includes the account name and logo with a simple image or a short text - 40 caracters. Each banner includes a button with different call to action like follow the account or read an article.

Targeting the right audience with WeChat media buying.

Defining and targeting the right audience is a key success factor of your digital advertising campaign on WeChat. To do so you define your customer profile and make it match based on the criteria below:

Gender
Age
City of origin
Interest tags
Location

Thanks to the location criteria, you will be able to target Chinese traveling abroad and reach out to Chinese tourist traveling in your country if you have business outside of China.

Don’t be too too restrictive and do A/B testing on different targets audience so you can better optimize your campaign cost and resuts.

Define your WeChat advertisement campaign budget.

To open your advertiser account on the WeChta platform, you have to deposit and plan to spend at least 50,000 CNY (around 6,500 Euros or USD) on the platform. If you do not have this budget to spend to do advertisement in China, you should consider other platforms or methods.

The cost can vary dramatically depending on your target audience and the period of your campaign - price will rockets around certain holidays like Chinese New Year or events like 11.11 or Valentine Day.

On average, you can assume a CPM pricing around 150-200 CNY for Tier 1 Cities like Shanghai and Beijing for WeChat Moment Ads. The CPM will be cheaper and down to only 50 CNY for remote cities in China

For WeChat banner ads, the CPM for Tier 1 cities is around 20-30CNY. As you can see the price is dramatically cheaper for this ad format and balancing the right amount of budget on WeChat Moment ads vs WeChat Banner Ads will be key for the success of your campaign.

Define your objectives and the call to action of you WeChat advertisement campaign

First, to get the best results and optimize your budget, you must have clearly defined the objectives of your campaign. In this section, we will define the different call to action and the best performance for each king of media format.

As such, WeChat Moment ads are optimal if your key target is visibility for your ad and leverage the viral potential of the platform. WeChat moment ad will give more “space” to your ad visual. Also, if the user interacts with your ad, you will leverage the “viral” potential of the platform as the ad will also be display to his friends.

WeChat Moments ads will includes a link that will drive user to different possible pages like:

A WeChat H5 Campaign Minisite
A mini-program
An introduction of your official account
A page to download your native APP or a coupon

WeChat banner ads are simpler and less attractive visually than WeChat banner ads. However, they can have great conversion rate if your message is short and impactful.

With the WeChat banner ad button, the user can: