Huawei Ads: an Evaluation of an Advertising Platform

Huawei is a global Chinese company known in Russia for its Huawei and Honor smartphones. Since 2019, the company stopped releasing devices with Google services due to difficulties in cooperation between the U.S. and China. Huawei has begun to develop its own ecosystem and creates an advertising network for its devices.

In 2021, the company launched its advertising platform, Huawei Ads, in Russia. Their AppGalery application is used by about 25 million Russians.

In addition to the app store, Huawei’s ecosystem includes other resources: the Petal Search search system, its own browser, services with video, music, books, a theme store, and Huawei Assistant. With these, users have the opportunity to place advertisements in the services of Huawei’s partner companies, including Yandex and myTarget. These are potential placements for Russian advertisers.

Huawei Ads gives advertisers access to millions of registered owners of Huawei gadgets.

The audience

The target audience of the site is users of smartphones, notebooks, watches, and other gadgets from the Huawei and Honor ecosystem. The leading layer of the audience – is young people aged 25 to 29 years (29.9%), with 66% – men.

A bit of number:

• 700+ million active users, number increasing monthly
• 83+ million users of Huawei premium devices (Mate and P models)
• GEO: 170+ countries (including Russia, Europe, Middle East, Africa, Asia-Pacific, and Latin America)
• 25+ million users from Russia

Benefits of Huawei Ads

• GEO and Coverage. As we have already said, this is a vast audience, and the number of users increases monthly.
• Advanced settings and targeting optimization options are available. You can segment your target audience by interest list, GEO, region, marital status, app status, device, and network.
• A wide choice of traffic sources. Huawei has successfully developed its ecosystem: AppGalery, Huawei Music, Huawei Video, Huawei Browser, and more.
• A wide choice of ad formats. You can combine native ads, screensavers, motivational banners with bonuses and promotions, and others in one RK.
• A wide choice of tools for retargeting. You can create remarketing lists and interact with users who have contacted your company.
• Built-in dashboard builder – Venus. You can create landing pages for online stores, game advertising, and consumer services.
• Ability to book and advertise at a fixed rate.
• No blocking on the site.
• Low level of fraud. The site cares about its users and guarantees quality traffic. The story of fracture on the site reaches 2%.

Targeting on the platform

Extensive settings and optimization options for targeting are available on the platform. To get relevant coverage, advertisers can interact with users on various parameters.

For example, it is possible to use the following:

1. Attribute Tag:

• Demographic: gender, age
• GEO and language
• User identification by life circumstances: marital status, pregnancy, childbirth, etc.
• Wealth identification: professional status, car ownership, etc.
• Device characteristics: cost, series, model, operator, network

2. Interest Tag:

• Travelling (modes of travel: cab, train, plane)
• Hobbies, lifestyle (healthy lifestyle, luxury products, beauty), self-care, etc.)
• Games (sport, cards, etc.)

3. App Status which:

• Installed now
• Have been installed previously
• Are actively used
• Used daily by the user
• Used in last 30/180 days

Interest and attribution tags help you to work with your target audience and avoid draining your budget. Advertisers can use these tools to reach and effectively target their audience.

Additional tools for working with the audience:

• Retargeting. You can make lists of users who have already been in contact with your campaign. This feature will allow you to choose the most influential creative and time to show.
• Combined Audiences. This targeting option lets you connect information from different audience attributes (demographics, interests, behavior).
• Smart extension. Based on “look-alike” targeting technology. The system looks for users with demographics and interests similar to your audience attributes.

Available advertising places

Huawei Petal Ads search engine allows you to place ads in Huawei AppGallery, contextual media, or search networks.

1. Context Media Network

The following types of advertisements can be placed in the contextual media network:

• Application advertising
  Used to promote your app. You can specify the place where ads will be displayed, combine ad files as you see fit, as well as set targeting conditions.
• Web page advertisement
  Used to promote a web page. When users click on the image or video in the ad, they will be redirected to your web page, which will increase the number of views and increase conversion rate.

2. Screensaver

• Full-screen format, displayed when you start the application
• Provides direct brand advertising
• Displays images for 3 seconds and videos for 5 seconds
• Supports CPT and CPM rates
• Placement: Huawei and third-party apps
• Strategy: auction
• Promotion goals: app downloads and user engagement
• File types: images and videos

3. With a reward

• Full-screen, shown to the user with the opportunity to get some kind of bonus (e.g., game currency)
• Placement: third-party applications
• Strategy: auction
• Promotion goals: downloading the app and engaging users
• File type: video

4. Cross-page

• Full-screen format, displayed when switching between screens in the application
• Placement: third-party applications
• Strategy: auction
• Promotion goals: app downloads and user engagement
• File types: images and video

5. Banners

• Placed in any part of the application screen
• Placement: third-party applications
• Strategy: auction
• Promotion goals: promotion of the web page, app download, and user engagement
• File type: image

6. Commercials

• Plays before, after, or interrupts the video and can last 15 to 30 seconds
• Designed to increase app downloads and user engagement
• Supported bid types: CPM and CPC
• Placement: Huawei and third-party apps
• Strategy: auction
• Promotion goals: Web page promotion, app downloads, and user engagement
• File type: Video

7. Native

• Assumes a variety of scenarios for use. In addition to images and video, it also supports text.
• Placement: Huawei and third-party apps
• Strategy: auction
• Promotion goals: promoting the web page, downloading the app, and engaging users
• File types: images and videos

Search Network

In Petal Search, products will appear among the first products or services like yours when users search for them. This will help increase sales and website traffic and attract more potential customers.

1. Search advertising for a web page

Ads containing a link to a web page will appear in search results when users search for queries related to one of your keywords in Petal Search.

• Placement: Petal Search
• Strategy: auction
• Promotion goal: promote web pages
• File types: text and image

2. Search advertising for Android apps

Your ads to promote your app will appear among the first in search results when the user enters queries in Petal Search to match the keywords you specified.

• Placement: Petal Search
• Strategy: auction
• Promotion goal: app downloads

3. Downloading the Huawei AppGallery application

Media ads displayed in AppGallery

Recommendation slot
Displays a list of apps for users after they first activate AppGallery. Users can select apps from the list to download.
Selecting the top 6 apps to download will increase CTR and conversions.

• Placement: AppGallery
• Strategy: auction
• Location: app recommendations or standard sections
• Promotion goal: app download
• File type: app icon

Standard slot
Recommends news apps.
Recommends new games.

The most effective way to place
The ability to book and place ads at a fixed rate. Available only on agency accounts by individual request.

Specifics of the format: fixed price + fixed slots + fixed period (minimum 7 days) = high traffic, high stable performance.

Audience: advertisers who want to increase app downloads.

Benefits:

• High-quality (no fudge)
• Easy to use and flexible, resulting in high-quality slots
• Exclusive use of resources to improve results
• Fixed-rate

A brief overview of the advertising account

After launching an advertising campaign, two main fields – “overview” (statistics of active campaigns) and “archive” (recent campaigns) – will appear on the start page of the account.

The “Manage Advertising” tab provides more detailed information about the campaigns. The structure of an advertising account can be divided into the following:

• Campaign: the stage where budget, strategy, and product are set
• Task: at this level, targeting and auction are set up
• Material: the content the user will eventually see (headline, video, images).

(available advertising account management features)

The interface and account structure is intuitive and user-friendly.

Ad blocking/rejection

The platform may reject your ad; the reason will be specified in the account. The platform does not block advertising accounts. Traffic to the report may be restricted for violating the platform’s policy. Reason: adult, promoting alcohol (tobacco) products, political content, financial scams.

Tracking options

The platform offers several options for tracking campaign results:

• Own Ads manager, reports immediately in the console. Ads manager will show data by campaign, ad, task, or keyword.
• APP-tracking. Tracking using third-party platforms such as AppsFlyer, Adjust, Kochava, Sizmek, Airbridge, and Tenjin. All in-app events are captured (purchases, subscriptions, etc.)
• Web Tracking Tools. Transactions on all web pages can be tracked using DTM JavaScript code.

About third-party tracking platforms

AppsFlyer is the most correct tracker on the platform.

You can use the tool to find out:

• Which marketing channel brought the user in
• Cost of a new customer, ROI
• Understand if user re-engagement is needed
• User behavior within the app
• Who deleted the app

Essential tips for launching apps

App Gallery

• Slot Standart – shows the app in all available slots in the App GalleryRecommended rate is $0.50 (CPD). It’s worth over-bidding to get more traffic.
• Slot App Search is a keyword search engine. The recommended rate is $2.
• Contextual Media Network – buying traffic by CPC. The recommended rate is 0.07$.

Daily budget – from 100$ to get enough traffic. It is necessary to consider that increasing budgets/stakes increases coverage and allows fixing the account in the Huawei system as a “priority” one.

The effectiveness of a campaign for installs should be analyzed after 50 downloads.

Verticals and conditions of their launch on the site

The following verticals are available on the platform:

• E-commerce (various delivery services/marketplaces)
• Gaming
• Dating
• Fintech

To run Betting, Gambling, and Crypto offers, you need to have local licenses.

• It is essential to work effectively with any vertical on the site; using exactly the apps loaded in the App Gallery is better.

To summarize

Huawei Ads is an innovative platform that is also suitable for traffic arbitrage. The platform provides unique and up-to-date tools for promoting and scaling your business: various ad templates, a designer of web links, third-party trackers, targeting and retargeting settings for effective interaction with the target audience, several payment formats, and much more.

If your advertising campaigns have yet to reach a large audience, especially users of Huawei gadgets, now is the best time to get to know the platform and its features better.

If you still have questions and want to promote this advertising source – contact AdSkill. You will get support from our experts during registration on the platform, advice on setting up and optimizing an advertising campaign, and access to agent advertising accounts.

An agent account provides several benefits:

• Creating and transferring access to an advertising account, daily replenishment, and transfer of funds between accounts
• Access to contract advertising in AppGallery. This is the ability to book and place ads at a fixed rate, which yields maximum results.
• Launch of an advertising campaign with the support of a personal Huawei manager
• The expertise of the offer and recommendations for changes in advertising materials to effectively run the campaign
• Setting up an effective advertising campaign following KPI
• Requesting a full audit of the advertising campaign to increase volumes

Agent accounts are outstanding for those who want to run effective ad campaigns and scale their business.

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