China’s Mobile Marketing Trends for 2017

2016 was an amazing year for mobile marketing in China, and the industry still shows no sign of slowing down. Mobile market will continue to be the marketers’ focus with deeper penetration of mobile devices in China. Therefore, China’s mobile marketing was estimated to keep growing in size and complexity in 2017.

At the beginning of 2017, it’s time to start thinking about how mobile marketing is going to change in 2017, and how you can prepare accordingly.

1. App fever

Apps account for the vast majority of all mobile usage in China. Despite the popularity of apps, app usage remains highly concentrated. Most apps are downloaded very infrequently and used even less, and most brands and businesses have found it challenging to actually justify the dollars spent on app development. Thus, brands should create single-use apps that consumers can use easily and effectively.

2. Mobile videos rock on

Not surprisingly, China’s ad expenditure on mobile video is expected to keep going in 2017. However, there is still plenty of runway for future growth as ad spend in mobile video still significantly lags actual time spent by consumers watching videos.

3. Native ad formats grow, but further fragment

China’s native ad formats will continue to grow and multiply, creating both opportunities and challenges for advertisers and publishers in 2017. On the one hand, they will continue to innovate with less intrusive but more effective advertising formats. On the other hand, it becomes much more difficult to manage the messages with each new format and platform.

4. Personalization becomes more important

Personalizing the user experience of your product/service will become increasingly important in China. You should give users what they need, and be there for them at the right time with the right answer for their searches. Moreover, you must make sure that you thoroughly understand your users first, through appropriate analytics, segmentation and targeting tools.

5. Ad blocking is still a growing concern

More and more Chinese audiences use ad-blocking software. It is bad news for marketers, advertisers, and publishers who lose money when browsers prevent ads from reaching the ad server. Some mobile networks have already pulled back from ad blocking as a result of their influence.

6. Domination of programmatic advertising

In 2017, China’s mobile ad displays are projected to be more programmatically bought out.