With 1.15 billion monthly active users, WeChat is China’s ultimate all-in-one app, touching upon every aspect of Chinese people’s daily lives. Businesses looking to increase their digital presence in China should know about WeChat’s marketing and advertising programs for merchants. In this post, we provide an overview of WeChat Moments Advertising, and how to use it to reach and interact with your target audience.
What are WeChat Moments? “Moments” is a fundamental social function in WeChat. Similar to a Facebook timeline or a Twitter feed, it allows users to post updates and share content with a close circle of friends, creating an intimate and private conversation. Over 750 million WeChat users interact via WeChat Moments daily, and according to Statista, over 61% of users check Moments every time they open WeChat. WeChat users love Moments because it allows them to create and share different types of content—photo albums (up to nine images), short videos, text-based posts, websites and links—with the option to disclose their location and to mention up to ten friends from their contacts. Moments is also popular for its privacy feature, allowing users to separate their friends into different groups, and deciding who sees what they post.
What is WeChat Moments Advertising? It’s a paid advertising program offered by WeChat to businesses wanting to promote their goods and services on WeChat Moments. Native ads are displayed on users’ feeds, giving them the feeling that their friends sent an ad on their Moments but with an additional sponsored tag in the upper right corner. Once users click on the WeChat Moments Ad, they’re redirected to a landing page designed to promote an online store, a WeChat Official Account, a brand event, or to access coupons that they can use in a nearby brick-and-mortar store. A Moments Ad will automatically disappear on users’ timelines if they don’t comment, like, or interact with the ad within six hours. WeChat limits Moments Ads shown to users to three per day.
Why are WeChat Moments Ads a must for marketers? After opening a WeChat Official Account—a mandatory first step if you want to advertise on the platform—the most familiar method of WeChat advertising for Western marketers is to promote on WeChat Moments. With Moments, WeChat created an environment where users and their close circle of friends can comment on an ad, a level of engagement rarely seen on Facebook or Instagram. But the main advantage of Moments Ads is WeChat’s ability to provide marketers with complete data visualization and tracking. Not only does WeChat divide its Moments users into categories based on accurate demographic and geographic information, but by behaviors and interests as well. This powerful data enables marketers to identify exactly the users they want to reach, and to create ads specifically for them. And everytime WeChat optimizes its platform, they improve the advertising tools available to marketers.
If you want to succeed in the Chinese consumer market, you can’t ignore WeChat Moments Advertising. Accepting mobile payments is a good first-step to attract more Chinese consumers, but reaching and engaging your target customers is what will enable your business to get ahead in this competitive market.
Is your marketing team ready to take advantage of WeChat Moments Advertising? OTT Pay can make it happen. As the authorized partner of WeChat Pay in Canada, we know this platform inside and out and can help your business leverage WeChat Moments Ads to its advantage. Give us a call at (+1) 800-688-9838 or email us at info@ottpay.com to get started.