January 17, 2023

2022 China Brand Marketing Traffic Insights

In the post-epidemic era, there are still many unstable and uncertain factors in China’s economic recovery, and at the same time, people’s consumption views have also changed due to the impact of the epidemic, creating new trends. In the trend of “fickle” consumers and an “uncertain” environment, brands will face more severe tests.

Miaozhen has released the report “2020 New Insights on Brand Marketing Traffic – 20 Questions on 2022 New Insights” which analyse the market overview, value, users and application. Based on the report, we’ve compiled some excerpts below.

Three major consumer trends in China 2022

Consumption upgrade: “cost-efficient” is no longer the only consideration, the aesthetics of the products and the inner experience brought by the products are also included
Focus on brand: During the epidemic, a large number of after-sales issues have occurred, driving consumers’ preference for trusted brands
Long-termism: The epidemic has changed the concept of consumption, and now it is more inclined to long-term investment such as health, education, and financial management

Today, in order to counter these challenges, achieving certain growth results is the firm goal of the brand. Advertising investment is the foundation for stable marketing performance, with long-term impact to help resolve the current situation.

Currently, the three major entrances to reach consumers are personal scenes, family scenes and public scenes, while the four major touchpoint to reach consumers are mobile phones, PC, smart home large screens and outdoor. According to the “2020 New Insights on Brand Marketing Traffic” released by Miaozhen System, although mobile phones are still the screen with the highest daily usage rate of netizens, the weekly penetration of PC screens in the survey results increased by 10% YoY, ranking second in the penetration, and is the largest and most important touchpoint end. According to the data, the average daily usage time of each screen terminal is up to 5 hours for PC screens, 4.4 hours for mobile phone screens, and 3.8 hours for smart home screens. It can be seen that the ultra-long stickiness of the PC screen is an important touchpoint for brand marketing and is also a gathering place for office workers. As the sense of technology continues to improve, PC screens will bring more possibilities for brand marketing.

Most PC screens user characteristics:

First-tier market
Young and middle-aged
Highly educated
High-income earner

In terms of media, advertisers choose six major decision-making factors for media cooperation, including user scale, audience portrait, brand image and safety, marketing effectiveness, resource coordination and cooperation cost-effectiveness. According to the survey, in terms of media reach, desktop media, as a necessary software for PC screens, has the highest weekly reach rate (accounting for 97%), far exceeding other media software for PC screens, and also has more than 40% users exclusively rate advantage. Different media have different images for users, for example, news and information media have a high credibility advantage, while short video and audio media have the advantages of popularity and youthfulness, and desktop media has the advantages of technology, presence, and high-end image.

In addition, the top three advertising acceptance rankings are desktop media, social/chat software, and information software. Among them, desktop media is the media with the highest acceptance of PC screen advertising, and its user ratio is as high as 90%, which is much higher than other PC screen media.

PC screens have different user characteristics in different usage scenarios:

Entertainment scene: 30-50 years old users located in first-tier cities, with middle and high-education and middle-income earners
Office scene: First-tier cities, users aged 21-40, with high education and high-income earner
Learning scene: Users aged 18-20 in first-tier and second-tier cities, mainly low-income users

For brand advertising, visibility, interactivity, accuracy and historical cooperation effects are the four major considerations for advertisers to invest resources. The multiple types of advertising resources of PC screens can meet the different needs of brand marketing, achieve cooperation, precise positioning, and increase user reach.

The following is the ad acceptance, ad engagement intention and subsequent ad behaviour ranking of each PC screen advertising type. It can be seen that PC screen direct advertising, PC lock screen ad and in-feed ads perform better in terms of ad acceptance, interaction intention and follow-up behaviour intention, which is an ad type that deserves to be considered.

According to the survey results, PC screen advertisements is stable in 2022, and the number of advertisers who will increase their investment is expected to increase slightly. Therefore, the following five major marketing scenarios can focus on or invest funds in PC screen desktop media advertising to increase effectiveness and cumulatively drive sales.

Five scenarios for desktop media advertising on PC screens

Reach goals (for specific groups of people, to achieve higher increments)
Event sales (official spokesperson announcement, brand day, brand promotion day, etc.)
New product launch (PC screen desktop media multi-advertisement resource linkage to achieve synergy between product and effects)
Brand story (delivering brand concept)
Precise marketing (PC screen desktop media search ads to accurately reach the target group of the brand)

Overall, driven by the epidemic, the usage rate of PC screens has increased significantly, and desktop media, as a necessary software for PC screens, has become the best choice for advertising due to its high reach rate and advertising acceptance. In addition, PC screen direct advertising, PC lock screen ads, and in-feed ads have received high willingness from consumers in terms of advertising acceptance, interaction intention and follow-up behaviour.

The above is the key content of the new insights into the China brand marketing traffic in 2022, if you want to know more, please contact us.