Toutiao Advertising: The Best Ad Formats for Brand Visibility
With a staggering 410+ million-strong userbase, Toutiao—or Jinri Toutiao (今日头条)—is one of China’s most powerful ad exchange platforms for advertisers to reach its massive online audience.
Owned by Bytedance, which also owns Douyin (i.e., Tiktok), Toutiao is a locally trusted news and information platform with a built-in search engine. And since users can subscribe to channels, search content from 100+ topics, and—perhaps most importantly for advertisers—receive personalized recommendations based on their searches, its engagement opportunities are abundant.
In this article, we’ve outlined three ad formats that present strong opportunities for brand visibility on Toutiao’s app, which in 2021 was one of only two news platforms to rank within the top 25 mobile apps in China.
3 Ad Formats to Boost Your Brand Visibility on Toutiao’s App
In addition to its supply of news and entertainment, Toutiao lets marketers place ads on the platform itself via their accounts and extend their ad targeting across Bytedance’s ecosystem. This inclusivity distinguishes Toutiao in China’s unique programmatic landscape, where marketers typically do not own advertising accounts.
With that said, below are three of the best ad formats for brand visibility that are available to account owners on Toutiao.
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Toutiao Launch Screen Ad
When users open the Toutiao app, the launch screen displays a full-screen ad while the app loads. Given their instant visibility (i.e., the first visual component users see on the app), launch screen ads can drastically boost brand exposure on Toutiao.
What’s more, advertisers can customize launch screen ads to promote creatives and landing pages at times when users are most likely to resonate with them.
Launch screen ad on Toutiao’s app
Toutiao Feed Ads
Ads on Toutiao’s app can feature prominently throughout its main feed, intermixed with organic content but positioned logically according to the flow of news and information. Feed ads are particularly effective for promoting products and app downloads with additional details about your offers.
Main feed ad on Toutiao’s app
Toutiao Paid Search Ads
Paid search ads on Toutiao’s app can appear whenever users search for content that matches the keywords you are targeting. Moreover, due to how closely recommended paid search ads match user search intent, they can typically drive higher conversions for your brand.
Paid search ad on Toutiao’s app
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The ad formats on Toutiao’s app—including launch screen ads, feed ads, and paid search ads—can help brands boost visibility at different stages of the user journey. Ultimately, choosing the right ad format for your promotion strategy will come down to your objective, who you’re targeting, and how broad that audience is.
