Introduction
(Source: https://pltfrm.com.cn)
China’s in-app advertising market has surpassed ¥550 billion in 2024 and continues to grow at over 20% YoY, making it the single largest mobile monetization opportunity for overseas brands worldwide. Success no longer depends on blind spending but on mastering the platforms, formats, and bidding strategies that actually deliver scalable revenue at positive ROI. Here are the exact models top brands are using right now.
1. Dominating Information Feed Ads on Douyin & Kuaishou
1.1 oCPM + Deep Conversion Bidding Overseas brands now run 80% of budgets on oCPM (optimized Cost Per Mille) with deep conversion goals such as “purchase” or “next-day LTV”. This lets the algorithm find high-value users willing to pay 3–5× more than average. Real-time LTV prediction models built on first-party data push ROAS above 6× in competitive categories like beauty and gaming.
1.2 Creative Iteration Velocity Top performers refresh information-feed creatives every 48–72 hours using platform-native A/B testing tools. Winners are scaled instantly while losers are killed, achieving 35–40% higher CTR and 25% lower CPI compared to static campaigns.
2. In-Feed + Reward Video Hybrid Strategy on Top Apps
2.1 Reward Video for User Acquisition Reward video inventory on apps like Douyin, Bilibili, and Tencent Video delivers CPI 40–60% lower than traditional channels. Overseas gaming and e-commerce apps now allocate 50–70% of UA budget here while maintaining ROAS above 4.5× on day-7.
2.2 Seamless In-Feed to Mini-Program Conversion The most profitable campaigns drive users from in-feed ads directly into WeChat Mini-Programs or Douyin Mini-Apps with zero friction. Brands that implement deep links and pre-loaded shopping carts see 3.8× higher conversion rates than standard H5 landing pages.
3. Programmatic Buying via Giant Engines (Tencent, ByteDance, Baidu)
3.1 Cross-App Audience Packaging Overseas brands use Tencent’s GDT, ByteDance’s Pangolin, and Baidu’s Alliance to build lookalike audiences across hundreds of apps. A 1% lookalike seeded from high-LTV users routinely expands reach 50–80× while keeping CPI within 15% of seed performance.
3.2 Dynamic Budget Allocation Real-time dashboards shift budget automatically to the best-performing app inventory every 15 minutes. Top campaigns see 92% of revenue coming from just 12–18% of total inventory thanks to this hyper-granular optimization.
4. Emerging Channels That Are Already Paying Off
4.1 WeChat Video Accounts & Channels Video Accounts now contribute 25–40% of total app install revenue for lifestyle and fashion brands. Early adopters who secured official blue-check accounts in 2024 are seeing organic + paid synergy delivering effective CPI under ¥8 in tier-1 cities.
4.2 Xiaohongshu Information Flow + Search Ads Combining Xiaohongshu native notes with search + flow ads creates a full-funnel flywheel. Overseas beauty brands report blended ROAS of 8–11× when both channels are activated simultaneously.
Case Study: European Fashion App (Q4 2024)
A European fashion shopping app combined Douyin reward video, WeChat Channels, and Tencent lookalike audiences to achieve ¥186 million in-app revenue during Double 11 with blended ROAS of 9.4×. Daily active users grew 440% quarter-over-quarter while CPI stayed 28% below category average.
PLTFRM is an international brand consulting agency that works with companies such as Red, TikTok, Tmall, Baidu, and other well-known Chinese internet e-commerce platforms. We have been working with Chile Cherries for many years, reaching Chinese consumers in depth through different platforms and realizing that Chile Cherries’ exports in China account for 97% of the total exports in Asia. Contact us, and we will help you find the best China e-commerce platform for you. Search PLTFRM for a free consultation!
