Toutiao

Toutiao translates to “headline” or “today’s headline” and is the largest mobile news app in China, it’s the same as Apple News on the iPhone/Mac and Google’s news feed on Android and is now the go-to news app for Chinese consumers.

Toutiao allows users and media organisations to create their own accounts so they can distribute news to their desired audiences which they acquire through the platform's algorithm. Toutiao is owned by Bytedance, who also happen to own Douyin as well as a few other high profile social media app’s in China. The more a user uses Toutiao the smarter and curated the content becomes, pulling information from millions of sources.

WeChat vs Toutiao

Toutiao has by far the most sophisticated recommendation algorithms, which allows it’s users to quickly find content relevant to them, and in turn allows marketers to match their ads to target their customers to drive high penetration rate. WeChat, whilst still the no1 player is more social-focused,
I will discover the content from friends or the official accounts I follow, but this content isn’t targetting users, instead, they must seek it out.

What does all this mean for Toutiao ads or marketing
on Toutiao? Well, the platform claims to have cracked
the “sticky” code to keep users engaged on their platform, and this is something that marketers can use to run targetted ad campaigns to Chinese costumers. The in-article banner ads are a great way to get exposure to your target Chinese audience when they read through their curated Toutiao articles.

What services do we offer for Toutiao?

Toutiao opening ads
Toutiao in-article banner
Toutiao in-stream banner ads
Toutiao video ads