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I am new to this forum. My name is Rolf Leggewie, currently in charge of handling the entry of <snip> into the Japanese arena. yoroshiku onegai itashimasu ;-)
We are having difficulties with our Google Adwords campaigns which have never failed us when entering other markets. I find it hard to believe that "<snip>" (in Kana, of course, actually our best-performing keyword there) has a hard time to even generate 100 daily views (not clicks!) in Japan. Similar keywords in European countries get tens of thousand of views daily.
I understand that Google's position is not as strong in Japan as it is in Europe and the US, but that discrepancy strikes me as odd. Meanwhile I have tested so many hypothesis as to what might be wrong to find a solution to get our google campaign there running that I have come to the conclusion that only a technical fault can explain this discrepancy. Google unfortunately is slow to react although we do have quite a hefty monthly bill with them.
I would like to discuss with others in this forum about their experiences in creating an online campaign in Japan. Do you get good results with Adwords? Would you share some hints on what rocks the boat in Japan? I know about shopping.yahoo.co.jp but unfortunately that is not suitable for the kind of service we offer.
Looking forward to your comments and sorry for the lenthy post.
Best
Rolf
PS: Why is it not possible to use Asian characters in this forum? It would make a lot of sense, wouldn't it?
[edited by: bill at 6:00 am (utc) on Jan. 14, 2006]
[edit reason] removed specifics [/edit]
Similar keywords in European countries get tens of thousand of views daily.It sounds like you may be targeting the wrong keywords but it may be a cultural/market issue. Have you tried targeting less specific words? Is it possible that a completely different set of keywords could be used in Japanese by the locals? I don't know how much local groundwork you've done in Japan. For example, if you're targeting products that appeal to younger people do you know what sort of slang terms might be used in different cities? If you're seeing such a large discrepancy it sounds as if you may need to look at the keywords again.
I have come to the conclusion that only a technical fault can explain this discrepancy.What sort of technical fault would cause this? If you believe there are errors in your account have you contacted the AdWords staff?
As you've noticed, the Japan market is quite a bit different from US or European markets. In some respects the uptake of online advertising especially with the Google and Overture products lags behind the West. Localized versions of these products were not introduced until much later than their English language counterparts.
Welcome to WebmasterWorld Leggewie.
Similar keywords in European countries get tens of thousand of views daily.
It sounds like you may be targeting the wrong keywords but it may be a cultural/market issue. Have you tried targeting less specific words? Is it possible that a completely different set of keywords could be used in Japanese by the locals? I don't know how much local groundwork you've done in Japan. For example, if you're targeting products that appeal to younger people do you know what sort of slang terms might be used in different cities? If you're seeing such a large discrepancy it sounds as if you may need to look at the keywords again.
Let me first say that I do speak Japanese myself, I have lived, studied and worked in the country. But of course I also asked a number of Japanese friends and they all agree that the keywords should be OK. Some of them do Adwords themselves. Google staff also suggested a few keywords but they also get less than 100 views in total. Nonetheless, this is a distinct possibility and the first one that comes to mind.
I have started to bid for *very* broad terms and received only a couple of hundred views daily. I even bid for porn keywords to test things out and got just 2.000 to 3.000 impressions daily. All while being on the first page (usual rank of 2 to 3) with unusually low bids. I can only assume something is wrong on Google's side.
Anyways, can you advise on slang?
If you believe there are errors in your account have you contacted the AdWords staff?
Of course. First to our direct contact here in Europe and then I demanded to be transferred to the Japanese staff. Essentially, nothing came out of it. I believe there is some systematic error, not necessarily related to our account only. We did test whether there was a problem with the account, too, of course, by creating a new "Japanese-only" account with Japanese credit card and address -> same malaise :-(
I have only two hopes at this point: 1) somebody had similar problems and reports them here, 2) Google finds the error and corrects this. Google is of course slow in responding. In the meantime Google JP did respond and said they found an error and fixed it. The wording in this Japanese mail was very diffuse (you know, Japanese style). The error itself was not spelled out and unfortunately, nothing really changed in terms of views over the weekend.
the uptake of online advertising especially with the Google and Overture products lags behind the West.
Yes, I understand that. Nonetheless, I find that discrepancy of a factor between 100 and 1000 hard to fathom.
Time to also look for other venues. Anything you recommend for online marketing? My friends tell me that shopping.yahoo.co.jp is quite big but unfortunately we cannot open a shop there since we cannot integrate our software for product configuration into it.
[edited by: bill at 1:52 am (utc) on Jan. 17, 2006]
[edit reason] see your sticky mail [/edit]
Thank you for the warm welcome, bill. How is Osaka these days?We're having a fairly mild winter now, but a few weeks ago I saw the first bit of snow in the city. You don't see that too often here. Maybe once or twice every 8-10 years. Of course it only lasts for a few hours and then all melts away.
keywords
technical fault
Anything you recommend for online marketing?
I'm sure you're aware that Google is a close #2 in Japan to Yahoo.
Actually, I think this has only been true until November last year when the fulminant growth of Google resulted in a pari-situation between the two giants. Can't find the source for this claim right now, though. By now, Google should have left Yahoo behind by this logic.
That combined with the immaturity and relatively smaller size of the online advertising market will naturally give you less volume than similar terms in English.
yes, I agree. On the other hand there are 60 Mio. Internet users in Japan whereas there are only 40 Mio. in Germany itself according to the official German statistics bureau. Above effect thus should be more or less offset, I guess. In no way can it be the fundamental reason behind a 1 to 100 discrepancy, I'd say, wouldn't you agree?
it may not be the keywords but the market/product instead. Is it possible that you're in a niche that hasn't been exploited? Maybe you need to create some PR buzz for your KWs rather than waiting for them to get typed into the engines.
We are in the business of creating customized apparel, the buzz word is micro-merchandising. There are a truck-load of competitors in Japan. Individualized T-Shirts are all the rage in Japan among the youths. Still, even the best-performing keywords get only about 100 views daily. I am sure they are right since all our competitors "agree" on a particular keyword, they all have it in their metatags (I know this really is of limited value today). We also bid on very broad and general terms for our Japan campaign (just T-Shirts in all kinds of variations). Less than 50 views daily? I don't think so.
How would you explain 2000-3000 daily views and position 2-3 for the keywords sefure, sekkusu and deai (anybody that is not a saint and speaks at least some Japanese will recognize the nature of at least one of these words ;-)) with a bid of only 20 cents if I remember correctly? We did this for testing purposes and to me this confirmed beyond any reasonable doubt that something is dead wrong here.
How have you fared with Overture Japan?
I have also created an account with Overture and copied the most relevant keywords. Not a whole lot going on to be honest. I did not bother too much any further since as a company we know close to zero about overture since that did not rock for us in other countries. We do have a manager *very* knowledgeable about Adwords, though. For the same reason, we do spend *heavily* with Google and thus have at least some standing with this giant and can request them to look into the matter (although they hardly do squid for the "Porsche" they get from us every month). Overture has been not showing any more ads for our Japan account at all for at least a week now. I have written them a mail and got a totally off-the-mark reply. I am of course following up on this but my main focus and hope so far have been with Google.
Is there anything you can suggest as far as PR (I guess you really mean offline advertizing?) goes? As I wrote earlier, I am seriously considering other possibilities now since I need to get this going somehow.
I think this has only been true until November last year when the fulminant growth of Google resulted in a pari-situation between the two giants.
there are 60 Mio. Internet users in Japan whereas there are only 40 Mio. in Germany
I really don't know that there is a fundamental reason for the discrepancy you're seeing. It's probably a combination of a number of factors and I'm just spitting out the most obvious ones.
I even bid for porn keywords to test things out and got just 2.000 to 3.000 impressions daily.
I have also created an account with Overture
Given that you're seeing low numbers for these KWs on Google and Overture I'm not sure your initial conclusion that only a technical fault can explain this discrepancy is still valid. If both of these services are performing equally poorly for you then problems with AdWords can't be entirely to blame.
Is there anything you can suggest as far as PR (I guess you really mean offline advertising?) goes?
If you are living in Tokyo, I would be happy to meet up and talk about websites over a beer.
For the online market you would probably be well served by the keitai market. Those sorts of sites get well trafficked, but conversions are completely different and there's a different mindset at work for the keitai user.
Quite obviously, I have also been thinking about the keitai market. But I wonder if it is feasible. So far, we only had our so called "Designer" product online where the user can customize all aspects of their product. I can hardly people doing that on their mobile. One route I was considering is to distribute coupons just like all these restaurants do via mobiles and get the user to visit our page when sitting in front of a real computer. But more or less, I discounted this as defocus for now and have postponed it for later (I love the QR codes and will do *something* with them later.).
You might also look at newsletters or 'mail-maga' type publications in your industry.
OK, we have added that to the mix to target. Any special venues that you can recommend or advise against?
If you are living in Tokyo, I would be happy to meet up and talk about websites over a beer.
you have mail. I do not live in Tokyo but maybe we can meet nonetheless.
