Effectiveness of Listing Ads for Expanding in the Japanese Market: Google vs Yahoo!

Listed Advertising Is Indispensable for Business Expansion and Promotion

For foreigners expanding business in Japan, digital advertising, specifically product listing advertising, becomes crucial. While having your website, blog, or social media achieve top positions in search engines eliminates the need for advertising, non-Japanese speakers might find it challenging to rank high through SEO. Moreover, the fluctuating search rankings due to Google updates increase the reliance on advertising.

Listed advertising refers to ads displayed in search results corresponding to user-entered keywords, also known as search-linked advertisements. It’s directly related to search keywords and appears above or below search results.

In Japan, Google and Yahoo! are the primary platforms for listed advertising. As of October 2023, Google holds around 76%, and Yahoo! around 14%, covering approximately 90% of the market. Focusing on these two search engines is essential for listed advertising in Japan.

Basics of Advertising Campaigns

The management of promotional campaigns through planning and execution, a fundamental aspect of listed advertising operations, constitutes advertising campaigns. Effective campaigns convey compelling messages to target audiences and prompt action.

Advertising campaigns involve settings for distribution networks, budgets, bidding strategies, delivery timings, regions, devices, audience targeting, among other configurations.

In listed advertising, campaigns are structured around accounts, ad groups, keywords, and ads, each holding a hierarchical relationship.

Accounts are the fundamental units in advertising campaigns, generally obtained on a per-company or per-store basis. Campaigns manage ad groups, where related keywords or themes are grouped for effective ad delivery. Keywords are set during ad delivery, aligning user search queries with relevant keywords. These designated keywords determine which ads are displayed when users search, forming the search results mechanism. Ads, composed of headlines, URLs, and descriptive text, appear when users conduct searches.

Ad campaigns can be finely tuned, and when managed optimally, they become cost-effective listing advertisements. Crucial points revolve around budget management and targeting settings.

Differences Between Google Ads and Yahoo! Ads in Japan

In Japan, Google holds about 76% of the search engine market share, with Yahoo! at approximately 14% and Bing at about 8%, collectively comprising 90% of the top two search engines. However, Yahoo! JAPAN withdrew from its in-house search engine operations in 2010, utilizing Google’s search engine instead. Despite the different platforms, the search engines remain the same, resulting in essentially similar outcomes for search keywords.

However, in listing advertisements, Google and Yahoo! operate separately. Google Ads target users of the Google search engine, while Yahoo! Ads target users accessing Yahoo! JAPAN’s portal site.

Recent data indicates Yahoo! JAPAN as the most used internet service (digital media) in Japan. Consequently, Yahoo! Ads attract a relatively higher percentage of users aged in their late 30s and above, while Google Ads predominantly target younger users. Therefore, for an e-commerce site dealing with fashion, Google Ads align better with younger audiences, whereas Yahoo! Ads yield better results with the older demographic.

In terms of placement, Google Ads can reach a majority of domestic users through search engine distribution. Additionally, they can be displayed on Google-owned media like YouTube and Google Map. Conversely, Yahoo! Ads leverage their strength in being placed on Yahoo! JAPAN’s portal site, featuring functionalities from news to weather forecasts, email, and stock prices.

Determining the advertising medium that maximizes cost-effectiveness for presenting one’s products or services requires thorough research into the target audience.

Outsourcing Listing Advertisements to an Agency: An Option

As explained earlier, effective listing ad campaigns require meticulous setup and management, demanding considerable effort. Moreover, selecting keywords and phrases necessitates a grasp of Japanese, making the hurdles for foreign individuals operating listing advertisements quite high.

Hence, engaging an agency specializing in listing advertisements to manage ads on behalf of companies could be one choice. Typically, these agencies handle account management, ad campaign operations, and reporting. Some agencies also provide additional services like content creation, web analytics, and SEO.

The standard commission for listing ad agencies is reportedly around 20% of the advertising expenses. Consequently, many agencies decline handling smaller ad budgets, expecting a certain spending threshold.

While utilizing an agency might be a helpful service for foreigners navigating Japanese limitations, it’s costly and might not accumulate expertise easily. Therefore, I believe it’s advisable to initially try managing listing advertisements in-house, especially for shorter phrases that could be effectively translated using ChatGPT or DeepL.

In Conclusion

Digital advertising is indispensable for promoting products and services. Particularly for non-Japanese speakers without a proficient grasp of the language, achieving high SEO rankings independently can be challenging. Hence, turning to listing advertisements becomes crucial for customer acquisition. Effective management and setup of ad campaigns are vital for leveraging listing ads, potentially yielding significant results when managed thoroughly.

At BizMOWA, we’re here to help you implement effective SEO strategies. We assist you in selecting the right keywords, optimizing titles and headers for SEO, and incorporating Japanese localization into your website.

If you need further assistance with your translation, feel free to ask here.