The programmatic journey of Chinese travellers: Vpon study

CHINA - It is now much easier for brands to reach cross-border travellers via mobile devices, thanks to the emergence of big data and programmatic buying.

A joint report by Vpon Big Data Group and research firm GfK takes a deeper look at the how brands can reach out to this growing segment.

The number of Chinese outbound travellers is forecasted to reach 200 million annually by 2020 while by 2025, China’s traveller spending is estimated to increase to US$278.7 billion.

Roland Leung, commercial director of APAC market opportunities and innovation at GfK, noted that half of Chinese consumers use mobile phones for price matching, scanning QR codes, photographing products and store posters while shopping at physical stores.

“The smartphone is an important shopping tool for Chinese travellers. It is naturally the best advertising channel as well,” he added. “It’s important for brands to leverage mobile devices to connect with cross-border tourists.”

Victor Wu, CEO at Vpon Big Data Group said programmatic advertising helps marketers deliver ads to travellers in different stages of their journey, adding that in the past, advertisers would target travellers through offline channels, such as billboards around airports and in-flight publications.

“Now with big data analytics, it provides a revolutionary approach to target audience throughout the entire travelling journey and the mobile ads can be tailored to scenarios before trip, during trip, and even after trip,” he added.

The report on Chinese traveller coincided with the launch of Vpon’s 2016 Asia Pacific Mobile Programmatic Advertising Semiannual Statistics and Trends Report.

The report finds that over 41 percent of marketers in Asia now employ programmatic buying in their media purchasing decisions, with 90 percent of programmatic buying happening in mobile ad delivery.

China is the largest market for programmatic mobile ads in Asia, with up to 3.9 billion daily biddable traffic, followed by Indonesia and Japan. These three countries now account for nearly 60 percent of all biddable traffic in Asia.

The Indonesian market however has a unique ecosystem: 87 percent of the traffic comes from apps and 90 percent of the apps were from Android.

Another indicator from the report, eCPM shows that Macau, Australia, and New Zealand are ranked in the top three by amount. They are also more than seven times higher than Thailand, the country with the lowest eCPM.