(Konnichiwa!) こんにちは
Greetings from the perspective arena of affiliate marketing in Japan! Japan is the second-largest affiliate market in the world behind the US, with a remarkable worth of $3.3 billion. However, this thriving sector still mysterious and needs to be discovered to many affiliates from the CIS, Europe, and America.
In this case study, we’ll explore successful tactics for marketing eCommerce offers to Japanese audience, looking at consumer trends, demographic data, and the nuances of creating eye-catching ad creatives. Get ready for an exciting adventure into one of the world’s most distinctive and engaging markets!
Ganbaru! がんばる Come on, let’s go!
Key highlights:
In our prior articles, we’ve explored the eCommerce vertical and shared insights on how to promote AliExpress offers for a diverse audience from various regions, including Israel, Poland, and Spain. For a deeper dive, check out our detailed article here.
According to Statista, the Japan eCommerce market is going to be huge, with revenue expected to hit around $190.50 billion by 2025. This will continue to grow at an annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8.05% from 2025 to 2029 and reach around $259.70 billion by 2029.
While the Japan eCommerce market is big, it’s still behind China where revenue is expected to hit $1,383.00 billion in 2025. But Japan’s user base will grow to around 93.9 million by 2029. User penetration will be 75.8% in 2025 and further increase to 87.3% by 2029.
And the average revenue per user (ARPU) in Japan’s eCommerce space will be $2,390, so there’s a lot of potential to drive revenue as more people shop online. This is a growing trend among Japanese consumers and the market is going to be exciting in the next few years.
As of March 2024, Japanese online shopping behaviors reveal a diverse array of frequencies. The largest segment (28.3%) shops online two to three times a month, while 22.8% do so once a month. A notable 17.6% make purchases every two to three months, with 13% shopping weekly. Less frequent habits include 6.6% shopping biannually, and a small percentage (around 2-6%) either shop nearly daily or just once a year. This data highlights that regular online shopping is deeply rooted in the habits of most Japanese consumers.
Often referred to as the “Amazon of Japan”, Rakuten is one of the nation’s largest eCommerce platforms. Established in 1997, Rakuten has transformed into a global marketplace offering an extensive selection of products, from electronics to fashion, along with services such as travel bookings, banking, and digital content.
For affiliate marketers and media buying professionals, Rakuten provides money-making benefits through its affiliate marketing program. Affiliates can profit from sales by recommending Rakuten goods and increasing traffic to their marketplace. Publishers who target Japanese customers or those interested in the international areas where Rakuten operates have a lot of potential for profit because of the company’s high brand recognition and wide range of products.
Although local enthusiasm in investing is as great as in other Tier-1 nations, only a few affiliates have entered into Japan GEO, which explains the low level of competition in this area.
One significant barrier for Japan as well as other Asian regions is the language challenge — all advertising materials must be in Japanese. Despite its high level of development, Japan has a low level of English competence because English and Japanese grammar, syntax, and pronunciation differ greatly. Since English is now only spoken by around 30% of Japanese population, English-language creatives are useless in this market.
To deal with this challenge, consider hiring native speakers through platforms like Fiverr or Upwork. For smaller texts, apps like HiNative can be helpful, or you might utilize AI tools like ChatGPT for language assistance.
During our campaign, we tested a variety of ad formats available on HilltopAds, including Popunder, In-Page, Banners, and Video VAST. Each campaign typically ran for a minimum of five days, allowing us to evaluate performance. Early on, we opted for mobile traffic due to its historical success with eCommerce offers. We frequently had to end campaigns that were overbudgeted and failed to provide acceptable outcomes.
Since mobile traffic has historically done well for eCommerce offers, we decided to use it for our campaigns from the very beginning. We can state with confidence that Popunder mobile advertising produced the highest conversion rates for our offer after completing all of these test campaigns. As a result, we choose to move forward with this ad structure for more testing.
Visual appeal is crucial in Japanese advertising. Utilizing bright colors and striking headlines is essential. Additionally, Japan’s rich culture of “kawaii” = cuteness isn’t merely an aesthetic; it’s a potent marketing strategy. Brands that create adorable, relatable characters foster emotional connections with their audience, which contrasts sharply with the bold themes found in many Western ads.
Incorporating fantasy elements into creatives can also resonate well, especially given Japan’s passion for anime and manga. If your offer can tie into a popular anime, be sure to leverage that connection. While Japanese models are preferred in imagery, Western models can still perform effectively in certain scenarios.
To make an impression in the eyes of Japanese consumers, it’s vital to embrace their collective cultural mindset. Unlike the individualistic approach commonly used in Western cultures, Japanese consumers prefer products that support social norms and group identity. Highlighting a product’s popularity with phrases like “everyone is buying” or “people are lining up” can significantly enhance conversion rates.
Japanese consumers appreciate a balance of tradition and innovation, a theme that runs throughout their culture. Successful campaigns should honor this duality, appealing to both modernity and centuries-old values.
Above all else, quality is paramount in Japan; consumers are willing to pay a premium for products that exhibit craftsmanship and attention to detail. Highlighting quality and backing claims with evidence is crucial for establishing trust and driving success in this market.
Understanding Japan’s seasonal calendar is vital for effective marketing. While this may seem straightforward, it’s important to grasp the unique cultural significance of Japanese holidays. For instance, Christmas in Japan resembles Valentine’s Day more than a family gathering, often celebrated with partners or friends at parties. Conversely, New Year’s is a family-centered occasion marked by visits to Shinto shrines. Tailoring your eCommerce ads to align with these specific events will enhance audience engagement.
To succeed in the Japanese market, begin by translating your landing page into Japanese and using the local currency — yen. It’s essential to have a high-quality translation, as most Japanese consumers aren’t fluent in English. Furthermore, your marketing materials should resonate with the subtleties of Japanese culture.
Don’t overlook the importance of page load speed — one-third of users expect a web page to load in two seconds or less. These adjustments can significantly boost your conversion rates and potentially enhance your ROI by 50%. Based on our findings, Popunder mobile ads emerged as the most effective format for driving conversions in our campaigns.
Before launching a campaign on the HilltopAds ad network, ensure you’re registered as an advertiser. To create your campaign:
It’s also required to set up Postback for tracking campaign results. For guidance on Postback and its placeholders, refer to our comprehensive guide.
In simpler terms, include parameters in your final URL to track conversions and source IDs. The parameter for passing conversions is click_id, and the source ID is zone_id. Your Final Destination URL should look like this:
https://my_offer.net/?&click_id={{ctoken}}&s1={{zoneid}}
In your targeting settings, configure as follows:
Additionally, you may set up campaign filters and allow or disallow campaign-related Proxy and WebView traffic. But in our situation, we have turned off every filter for the Mainstream eCommerce offer:
We decided to manage the quantity of impressions for our campaign rather than imposing daily spending caps. In particular, we limit the number of impressions to 25,000 per day. This approach allowed for better control over performance while maximizing reach without overspending — critical in a market like Japan where engagement fluctuates with timing and creative appeal.
Before launching your ads, set your Cost Per Mille (CPM) — cost per thousand impressions. Monitor the Traffic Volumes graph to determine appropriate bidding strategies. We initiated our campaign with a bid of $0.73, which is recommended for testing new offers to evaluate effectiveness.
Advertising campaign’s key settings:
To keep traffic and expenditure under control and collect performance data, we established a daily limitation of 25,000 impressions for the first five days of our campaign. Following this time frame, we changed to the image’s automated optimization settings. Within a 24-hour period, we set up the algorithm to respond if any zone had more than 1,500 impressions but less than one conversion. In particular, zones that satisfied these requirements were blacklisted by the automated rule, which essentially shut off sources of underperforming traffic.
In addition to raising our overall budget, this switch to automated rules produced a notable boost in traffic and conversions. The data are displayed in the picture below. The campaign ran for 14 days in total.
The following outcomes were attained after 14 days of meticulously adjusting the advertising campaign:
One of the most important metrics in digital marketing that lets you evaluate an ad campaign’s performance is Return on Investment (ROI). Simply said, Return on Investment is the proportion of advertising spending that have been earned through ad revenue.
ROI may be calculated using the basic formula, the following one:
ROI = (Total earnings – Total cost) / Total cost * 100%.
A strong return on investment is demonstrated by the net profit made from the Mainstream eCommerce offer that launched in the HilltopAds ad network. With $836.68 in total revenue and $360.64 in advertising costs, the campaign made $476.04 in net profit.
This highlights how well the HilltopAds advertising network performs as a useful tool for marketing deals like Mainstream eCommerce in Tier-1 markets.
Careful study and analysis are necessary when entering a new market, particularly one as distinct as Japan. Take the time to thoroughly learn about Japanese advertising trends, consumer behavior, and cultural peculiarities if you plan to work with Japanese traffic. If addressed strategically and wisely, the very rich and low-competition Japanese market is open for opportunity.
Our own experience demonstrates that challenging bravery and patience resulted in a $836.68 profit, or a 132% return on investment. In this attractive market, you may likewise get comparable outcomes with the correct strategy. Best wishes to your campaigns!
We’re excited to announce a special promo code — ECOMJP20. Use it with your first deposit of $100 or more at HilltopAds to receive an additional 10% bonus.
We hope this case study serves as an insightful guide to conquering Japan’s affiliate market. Ready to get started? Register with HilltopAds today and join a rewarding journey!
(Konnichiwa!) こんにちは
Greetings from the perspective arena of affiliate marketing in Japan! Japan is the second-largest affiliate market in the world behind the US, with a remarkable worth of $3.3 billion. However, this thriving sector still mysterious and needs to be discovered to many affiliates from the CIS, Europe, and America.
In this case study, we’ll explore successful tactics for marketing eCommerce offers to Japanese audience, looking at consumer trends, demographic data, and the nuances of creating eye-catching ad creatives. Get ready for an exciting adventure into one of the world’s most distinctive and engaging markets!
Ganbaru! がんばる Come on, let’s go!
Key highlights:
In our prior articles, we’ve explored the eCommerce vertical and shared insights on how to promote AliExpress offers for a diverse audience from various regions, including Israel, Poland, and Spain. For a deeper dive, check out our detailed article here.
According to Statista, the Japan eCommerce market is going to be huge, with revenue expected to hit around $190.50 billion by 2025. This will continue to grow at an annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8.05% from 2025 to 2029 and reach around $259.70 billion by 2029.
While the Japan eCommerce market is big, it’s still behind China where revenue is expected to hit $1,383.00 billion in 2025. But Japan’s user base will grow to around 93.9 million by 2029. User penetration will be 75.8% in 2025 and further increase to 87.3% by 2029.
And the average revenue per user (ARPU) in Japan’s eCommerce space will be $2,390, so there’s a lot of potential to drive revenue as more people shop online. This is a growing trend among Japanese consumers and the market is going to be exciting in the next few years.
As of March 2024, Japanese online shopping behaviors reveal a diverse array of frequencies. The largest segment (28.3%) shops online two to three times a month, while 22.8% do so once a month. A notable 17.6% make purchases every two to three months, with 13% shopping weekly. Less frequent habits include 6.6% shopping biannually, and a small percentage (around 2-6%) either shop nearly daily or just once a year. This data highlights that regular online shopping is deeply rooted in the habits of most Japanese consumers.
Often referred to as the “Amazon of Japan”, Rakuten is one of the nation’s largest eCommerce platforms. Established in 1997, Rakuten has transformed into a global marketplace offering an extensive selection of products, from electronics to fashion, along with services such as travel bookings, banking, and digital content.
For affiliate marketers and media buying professionals, Rakuten provides money-making benefits through its affiliate marketing program. Affiliates can profit from sales by recommending Rakuten goods and increasing traffic to their marketplace. Publishers who target Japanese customers or those interested in the international areas where Rakuten operates have a lot of potential for profit because of the company’s high brand recognition and wide range of products.
Although local enthusiasm in investing is as great as in other Tier-1 nations, only a few affiliates have entered into Japan GEO, which explains the low level of competition in this area.
One significant barrier for Japan as well as other Asian regions is the language challenge — all advertising materials must be in Japanese. Despite its high level of development, Japan has a low level of English competence because English and Japanese grammar, syntax, and pronunciation differ greatly. Since English is now only spoken by around 30% of Japanese population, English-language creatives are useless in this market.
To deal with this challenge, consider hiring native speakers through platforms like Fiverr or Upwork. For smaller texts, apps like HiNative can be helpful, or you might utilize AI tools like ChatGPT for language assistance.
During our campaign, we tested a variety of ad formats available on HilltopAds, including Popunder, In-Page, Banners, and Video VAST. Each campaign typically ran for a minimum of five days, allowing us to evaluate performance. Early on, we opted for mobile traffic due to its historical success with eCommerce offers. We frequently had to end campaigns that were overbudgeted and failed to provide acceptable outcomes.
Since mobile traffic has historically done well for eCommerce offers, we decided to use it for our campaigns from the very beginning. We can state with confidence that Popunder mobile advertising produced the highest conversion rates for our offer after completing all of these test campaigns. As a result, we choose to move forward with this ad structure for more testing.
Visual appeal is crucial in Japanese advertising. Utilizing bright colors and striking headlines is essential. Additionally, Japan’s rich culture of “kawaii” = cuteness isn’t merely an aesthetic; it’s a potent marketing strategy. Brands that create adorable, relatable characters foster emotional connections with their audience, which contrasts sharply with the bold themes found in many Western ads.
Incorporating fantasy elements into creatives can also resonate well, especially given Japan’s passion for anime and manga. If your offer can tie into a popular anime, be sure to leverage that connection. While Japanese models are preferred in imagery, Western models can still perform effectively in certain scenarios.
To make an impression in the eyes of Japanese consumers, it’s vital to embrace their collective cultural mindset. Unlike the individualistic approach commonly used in Western cultures, Japanese consumers prefer products that support social norms and group identity. Highlighting a product’s popularity with phrases like “everyone is buying” or “people are lining up” can significantly enhance conversion rates.
Japanese consumers appreciate a balance of tradition and innovation, a theme that runs throughout their culture. Successful campaigns should honor this duality, appealing to both modernity and centuries-old values.
Above all else, quality is paramount in Japan; consumers are willing to pay a premium for products that exhibit craftsmanship and attention to detail. Highlighting quality and backing claims with evidence is crucial for establishing trust and driving success in this market.
Understanding Japan’s seasonal calendar is vital for effective marketing. While this may seem straightforward, it’s important to grasp the unique cultural significance of Japanese holidays. For instance, Christmas in Japan resembles Valentine’s Day more than a family gathering, often celebrated with partners or friends at parties. Conversely, New Year’s is a family-centered occasion marked by visits to Shinto shrines. Tailoring your eCommerce ads to align with these specific events will enhance audience engagement.
To succeed in the Japanese market, begin by translating your landing page into Japanese and using the local currency — yen. It’s essential to have a high-quality translation, as most Japanese consumers aren’t fluent in English. Furthermore, your marketing materials should resonate with the subtleties of Japanese culture.
Don’t overlook the importance of page load speed — one-third of users expect a web page to load in two seconds or less. These adjustments can significantly boost your conversion rates and potentially enhance your ROI by 50%. Based on our findings, Popunder mobile ads emerged as the most effective format for driving conversions in our campaigns.
Before launching a campaign on the HilltopAds ad network, ensure you’re registered as an advertiser. To create your campaign:
It’s also required to set up Postback for tracking campaign results. For guidance on Postback and its placeholders, refer to our comprehensive guide.
In simpler terms, include parameters in your final URL to track conversions and source IDs. The parameter for passing conversions is click_id, and the source ID is zone_id. Your Final Destination URL should look like this:
https://my_offer.net/?&click_id={{ctoken}}&s1={{zoneid}}
In your targeting settings, configure as follows:
Additionally, you may set up campaign filters and allow or disallow campaign-related Proxy and WebView traffic. But in our situation, we have turned off every filter for the Mainstream eCommerce offer:
We decided to manage the quantity of impressions for our campaign rather than imposing daily spending caps. In particular, we limit the number of impressions to 25,000 per day. This approach allowed for better control over performance while maximizing reach without overspending — critical in a market like Japan where engagement fluctuates with timing and creative appeal.
Before launching your ads, set your Cost Per Mille (CPM) — cost per thousand impressions. Monitor the Traffic Volumes graph to determine appropriate bidding strategies. We initiated our campaign with a bid of $0.73, which is recommended for testing new offers to evaluate effectiveness.
Advertising campaign’s key settings:
To keep traffic and expenditure under control and collect performance data, we established a daily limitation of 25,000 impressions for the first five days of our campaign. Following this time frame, we changed to the image’s automated optimization settings. Within a 24-hour period, we set up the algorithm to respond if any zone had more than 1,500 impressions but less than one conversion. In particular, zones that satisfied these requirements were blacklisted by the automated rule, which essentially shut off sources of underperforming traffic.
In addition to raising our overall budget, this switch to automated rules produced a notable boost in traffic and conversions. The data are displayed in the picture below. The campaign ran for 14 days in total.
The following outcomes were attained after 14 days of meticulously adjusting the advertising campaign:
One of the most important metrics in digital marketing that lets you evaluate an ad campaign’s performance is Return on Investment (ROI). Simply said, Return on Investment is the proportion of advertising spending that have been earned through ad revenue.
ROI may be calculated using the basic formula, the following one:
ROI = (Total earnings – Total cost) / Total cost * 100%.
A strong return on investment is demonstrated by the net profit made from the Mainstream eCommerce offer that launched in the HilltopAds ad network. With $836.68 in total revenue and $360.64 in advertising costs, the campaign made $476.04 in net profit.
This highlights how well the HilltopAds advertising network performs as a useful tool for marketing deals like Mainstream eCommerce in Tier-1 markets.
Careful study and analysis are necessary when entering a new market, particularly one as distinct as Japan. Take the time to thoroughly learn about Japanese advertising trends, consumer behavior, and cultural peculiarities if you plan to work with Japanese traffic. If addressed strategically and wisely, the very rich and low-competition Japanese market is open for opportunity.
Our own experience demonstrates that challenging bravery and patience resulted in a $836.68 profit, or a 132% return on investment. In this attractive market, you may likewise get comparable outcomes with the correct strategy. Best wishes to your campaigns!
We’re excited to announce a special promo code — ECOMJP20. Use it with your first deposit of $100 or more at HilltopAds to receive an additional 10% bonus.
We hope this case study serves as an insightful guide to conquering Japan’s affiliate market. Ready to get started? Register with HilltopAds today and join a rewarding journey!
Blog
Blog
