What is Naver?
Naver is one of the most popular search engines in South Korea, with approximately 40 million people in South Korea (around 80% of the population) being active users.
The screenshot below shows what Naver looks like on a desktop computer:
The screenshot below shows what Naver looks like on a mobile phone:
As you can see, compared to Google, Naver displays a lot more information on its first page, including display banner ads, news, shopping ads, stocks, weather and numerous links to its other services.
Given Naver’s popularity in South Korea, it is an essential part of a successful search advertising strategy in the country – but I understand that this can be daunting if Naver is not a search engine you are familiar with.
Never fear – in this blog post, I will explain the basics of search advertising on Naver. Let’s begin by looking at how search ads display on Naver’s search engine results page (SERP) and how this compares to Google.
How search ads display on Naver’s SERP
The illustration below depicts the typical layout of a search engine results page on Google versus Naver:
As you can see, a major difference between Google and Naver lies in the segmentation of the different sections.
If you look at Google’s SERP on the left-hand side, you can see that search ads and organic results are mixed.
On the other hand, if you look at Naver’s SERP on the right-hand side, you can see that Naver typically prioritises the visibility of ads, with ads being distinctly separated from organic results.
This means that, without advertising, it can be quite challenging to reach users organically on Naver.
Types of Naver search ads
As shown in the example images below, Naver offers various types of ad formats, including:
- Powerlink Search Ads: These ads are text-based ads that appear in the search results when users search for specific keywords on Naver.
- Brand Search Ads: These ads prioritise displaying information about a brand when users search for a specific brand name.
- Shopping Ads: These ads are designed to showcase product listings with images and prices.
- Power Content Search Ads: These ads are more informational in nature.
- New Product Search Ads: These ads are used to promote new products that have been launched in the last 180 days.
Depending on the type of product or service you want to advertise, your keywords and your target audience, you can pick and mix different types of search ads for your campaigns. Choosing the right ad format is crucial to success, so make sure to think carefully.
Search ads on Naver’s content and social platforms
Naver is not just a search engine; it is a platform that strongly emphasises community features, such as Naver Blog (for blogging), Naver Cafe (for community forums) and Naver Knowledge iN (for Q&A).
Naver search ads can be displayed not only on Naver’s search engine results pages but also on Naver’s content and social platforms such as Naver Blog, Naver Cafe and Naver Knowledge iN.
Depending on your product or service, you can leverage the strengths of these platforms to show your ads to a highly relevant community of people on Naver.
For example, if you are a car business, then you can show your ads on a community for car enthusiasts, thus boosting your ads’ efficiently.
Here is a screenshot of an ad on Naver Blog:
Here is a screenshot of an ad on Naver Cafe:
Here is a screenshot of an ad on Naver Knowledge iN:
Final thoughts and tips for search advertising on Naver in 2024
How can you efficiently utilise Naver search advertising in 2024? If you are considering entering the South Korean market and want to quickly increase your brand awareness and generate traffic, I would highly recommend running search ads on Naver, which continues to be one of the most popular online platforms in South Korea in 2024.
Naver offers various ad types, so choose and combine the ones that align best with your products and services to maximise performance.
And remember, to truly connect with your South Korean audience, it is crucial that your search ads are both linguistically accurate and culturally relevant.
Need help with marketing on Naver?
I hope this blog post has been a useful overview of the key tips and trends to think about when doing Naver search advertising in 2024.
If you would like assistance with any aspect of Naver search advertising, reach out to Webcertain today! Our friendly team of South Korean advertising specialists will be happy to help.
Want to learn more?
This blog post is part of a series on APAC digital platforms in 2024. Check out the others below:
- WeChat marketing tips for 2024
- Little Red Book marketing tips for 2024
- Line marketing tips for 2024
- Naver social media marketing tips for 2024
- Baidu search advertising tips for 2024
- Yahoo Japan search advertising tips for 2024
You can also watch our webinar recording on this topic here.
You can also read our full-length guide to search advertising on Naver here. From reading this guide, you will learn how Google Ads and Naver Ad handle the following:
- languages and location targeting
- where ads are shown
- character limits
- match types
- ad extensions
- maximum limits of campaigns, keywords and so on
- budget control
- bid adjustment
- bid suggestions
- keyword tools
- analytics tools
- bulk editing
- other interface functions
Elly Kang
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