3 Killer Vietnam Digital Marketing Platforms to Enter the Market

28 Feb , 2022

Vietnam digital marketing can be hard, but a must for foreign brands to penetrate the Southeast Asia market. Little did we know that Vietnam, who was once closed off to the world decades ago, would become a black horse — one of the fastest growing world economies now.

Over 70% of Vietnamese access the internet every day for different purposes. Though the COVID-19 remains a tough situation for businesses, Vietnam has turned the challenge into opportunity with its escalated digital transformation. Its digital economy is projected to increase by 31% and reach $57 billion by 2025, indicating Vietnam’s enormous group of digital customers. The potential digital ad spending of US$934 million this year further cements Vietnam’s position as the favourable market to enter. The question is, how to join this fierce competition? In this article, we are going to introduce three killer Vietnam digital marketing platforms to enter Vietnam market as a foreign company.

1.        Vietnam Digital Marketing Platform: Coc Coc 

2.        Vietnam Digital Marketing Platform: Zalo 

3.        Vietnam Digital Marketing Platform: TikTok 

1. Vietnam Digital Marketing Platform: Cốc Cốc

Without surprises, Google is the dominating browser in Vietnam. What we cannot neglect is the rising of the second largest competent, Cốc Cốc, the locally developed browser in Vietnam. According to the 2020 report of search engine market, Cốc Cốc with a share of 6.52% has grown doubled that of the same period in 2019 and led to the record low market share of Google.

99% of the locals use Vietnamese as the main language and the remaining 1% use English. Although Cốc Cốc supports both Vietnamese and English, it chose to completely focus on the local market. Its Vietnamese lingual tone created by the localized team differentiates itself from competitors which is also what Google, the multinational browser, is hard to accomplish. Cốc Cốc has now 25+ million monthly active users and 9 million users from Vietnam’s top 6 cities, expecting to gain an even larger piece in the market this year. If you aim to target the Vietnamese with high spending power, Cốc Cốc is suggested for your Vietnam digital marketing platform in 2022.

Ad formats and tools provided by Cốc Cốc:

1.1 Cốc Cốc Search Ads

Last year, digital search ads gained over 110 million ad spending which is the highest amongst all the digital channels in Vietnam. With the pandemic restrictions keeping most people at home, they turned to search engine immediately when they look for anything. Cốc Cốc Search Ads offer products such as Shopping Feed, Search Ad and Search Banner, reaching more of your customers by showing up at the top of their search results. Localized content with the strategic keywords in Cốc Cốc Search Ads is the key to attract the audience right when they are in need.

1.2 Cốc Cốc Display Ads

Image-based display is always the eye-catcher on a website page. With more than 6 display products offered, including New Tab Banner, Big In-feed Banner, Video Banner and etc, Cốc Cốc seamlessly shows the display ads at the top, sides or even full screen to drive clicks from its users. OPPO, the mobile telecommunication company, utilized Cốc Cốc display ads to promote its photo contest with the launch of the new product and gained 28% more participants.

As the second largest search engine in Vietnam, Cốc Cốc advertising also provides mobile ads, brandlift survey and other premium solutions for clients of numerous industries. Cốc Cốc AI-powered personalized content, Vietnamese focus and wide audience network proven by its 20,000+ monthly campaigns make it an ideal digital marketing platform to enter the Vietnam market.

1.3 Cốc Cốc Icon Ads

Icons are one of the unique features on Cốc Cốc that are located at the top of new tab or on the news column. Users often click the icons as quick shortcut to the trendy websites with more than 50,000 clicks per day, indicating the Cốc Cốc user behaviour of checking out the icons without much thinking.

The icon ads allow brands to use brand logo or product image in small dimension which look like all the other normal icons to reach new audience easily and lead to high conversion rate. It is suitable for many businesses like games, e-commerce, news, online movies, food delivery, etc. Another factor of successful icon ad delivery is that Cốc Cốc only sells a limited number of icons to advertisers, meaning icon ads will not be shown very much like an advertisement! Your icon ad will sneakily trigger the users to click and direct them to your ideal landing page.

1.4 Cốc Cốc Website Traffic Boosting Service

Last year, Cốc Cốc introduced its website traffic boosting service on its ad platform, particularly targeting online newspaper and blogs. In order to catch the first sight of Cốc Cốc users, this ad offering will place the advertisers’ site as the top newsfeed. With localized content management, the new website traffic boosting service can lead to enormous amount of high value traffic which ramps up your website ranking and sales.

2. Vietnam Digital Marketing Platform: Zalo

Zalo is a popular instant messaging mobile app in Vietnam with 62 million monthly active users since its launch in 2012. Owning 154.4 million of mobile connections, Vietnamese highly depend on mobile applications to connect with friends and family and see Zalo as one of the best options for the locals. Majority of them are young people from 18 to 34 years old who are tech savvy and open-minded to new trends. In years of time, Zalo has surpassed Facebook Messenger and become the top mobile messaging app in Vietnam. As a “latecomer” in the market, what makes Zalo run ahead of other global giants?

The answer is Zalo’s all-in-one specialty. Zalo has developed into more than just a communication tool, but a super app similar to WeChat in China. Besides the basic chat functions, it has games, news and entertainment content, community service such as electricity bill payment and appointment scheduling available on the app. With a payment platform employed, e-commerce activities from ordering to payment and delivery are allowed on Zalo as well. The multiple everyday functions have offered great convenience to the locals and for sure, benefitting business to have another source of sale.

Just WeChat Official Account, Zalo Official Account (OA) is the personalized Zalo advertising solution for brands to build a local community, provide customer care and run e-commerce all within the Zalo Official Account. Many international brands, such as Coca Cola, EON and P&G, have their Zalo Official Accounts registered to enter the Vietnam market and reach the local customers easily.

Furthermore, Zalo’s ecosystem contains Bao Moi, Zing News, Zing MP3 and Zing TV which are news aggregator, online news platform, music streaming and TV streaming app respectively. Not only does the ecosystem allows ad placements all around the connected apps, with millions of monthly visitors in the ecosystem, it also streamlines the enormous Vietnamese audience data to empower precise ad targeting and reach the most Vietnamese users possible. Setting up a Zalo Official Account and having Zalo as one of your Vietnam digital marketing platforms is worth-investing to enter the Vietnam market and increase your sales.

Ad formats provided by Zalo:

2.1 Zalo Official Account Ads

Brands with a Zalo Official Account are like wearing an authorized badge around the neighbourhood to show off your brand’s credibility. New brands entering the Vietnam market can effectively reach potential customers and build your follower base by applying Zalo Official Account Ads. Expose your brand to the Vietnamese users!

2.2 Zalo Video Ads

When your brand is new to the Vietnam market, don’t expect the audience to trust your product and services completely with solely images and text. Zalo video ad is an attractive format to build your brand awareness and increase sales with localised Vietnamese content and detailed product introduction.

2.3 Zalo Website Ads

If your brand has a website already, Zalo website ad is strategic in driving quality traffic besides Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Search Engine Optimization (SEO). No matter your purpose is to drive sales on your e-commerce site or to drive leads, Zalo website ads bring the potential customers to access your landing page.

2.4 Zalo Article Ads

Content remains a determining factor in your Zalo advertising performance. Brands can regularly publish elaborative content about your products and brand specialties on your Zalo Official Account, then advertise it as a post. The article ads will be displayed on the Zalo app and Zalo network with a call-to-action button, asking the audience to click and read. With Zalo’s optimization in speed and user interface, your Zalo article ads are promised with satisfying view rate and in turn raise your brand awareness and traffic.

2.5 Zalo Form Ads

Zalo Form Ads allows your brand to collect the potential customers’ detail such as name, contact number, email and even address. The short and customized form can generate quality leads for your future remarketing use.

3. Vietnam Digital Marketing Platform: TikTok

TikTok is not just a fad. With the pandemic ongoing around the world, Vietnamese, especially the Gen-Zs, started feeling bored about the never-ending zoom. TikTok becomes their way out and that is why in Vietnam, TikTok has been downloaded by up to 30% of all the Vietnamese mobile users. Amongst the 16.69 million TikTok users in Vietnam, Gen-Z, who are the future of our society, has shown a 55% penetration by the end of 2021. The latest report from Decision Lab also revealed that despite the introduction of “reels” by Instagram and other social media platform updates this year, TikTok is the only social media with the stable growth in usage, which is from 15% in 2019 to 37% now.

Perceiving the growth of TikTok in Vietnam, the platform launched TikTok for Business in the region in 2020 to empower the inbound and outbound marketing strategies of businesses. Certainly, the short video platform emphasizes video content more than any other ad setting because at the end of the day, content is what keeps the loop go on in the community! Besides, 97.6% of Vietnamese internet users aged 16-64 consume online videos regularly.

As one of the biggest Vietnamese brands in telecommunication, Viettel has taken KOL marketing strategy on TikTok. It invites mega Vietnamese KOLs such as Bich Phuong, famous female Vietnamese singer, and Quang Hai, Vietnamese football player, to dance in a TikTok video and create noise for the brand’s TikTok hashtag challenge (#cuumang). The campaign has thrived in the community and raised huge awareness for Viettel. Considering the popularity of video marketing in Vietnam, TikTok advertising is very much suggested for your Vietnam digital marketing strategy. Based on the research report by Kantar in 2021, 92% of the TikTok users would take action after watching a TikTok video. So, what is the point of hesitation in using TikTok as your Vietnam digital marketing platform?

Ad formats and tools provided by TitTok:

3.1 TikTok In-Feed Ads

Vietnamese scroll their social media platforms for averagely 2 hours and 21 minutes daily. Displaying your video ads in the user’s customized “For You Page” can incorporate well with the TikTok native feed and be unneglectable by the user.

3.2 TikTok Brand Takeover Ads

As powerful as the name sounds, TikTok Brand Takeover Ad allows you to “take over” the full screen of the user’s TikTok app interface when they open the app. The displayed video ad then turns into an in-feed format to attract the audience attention and click to know more on the landing page. Great brand awareness can be created.

3.3 TikTok Top View Ads

The difference between TikTok Top View Ads and TikTok Brand Takeover Ads is that the prior format does not show up right after opening the app. Instead, it is played automatically with sound as the first feed to the user to catch their eyes and hence awareness.

3.4 TikTok Branded Hashtag

Hashtags just never get old in social media platforms. In TikTok for business, branded hashtags can be created to lead users to your landing page on TikTok. Users can not only view the video ads but be involved in the campaign by videotaping themselves and post with the hashtags again. As you can imagine, it pushes engagement and expand the brand awareness quickly.

3.5 TikTok Branded Effects

An alternative for driving brand awareness and engagement is to use TikTok Branded Effect. With your own branded filter effect available on the app, users can use it in their videos and share it out. Such a fun way to promote your brand!

Summary of 3 Killer Vietnam Digital Marketing Platforms

We have just suggested three killer Vietnam digital marketing platforms to make your journey to the Vietnam market a little easier. But the truth is even though the economic and digital condition in Vietnam is favourable for your business expansion, there are still plenty of market challenges to face. For example, unfamiliarity with Vietnam advertising policy and unknown Vietnam advertising trends. Most importantly, the language barrier! It may look like tons to worry about but with AsiaPac’s support from our local Vietnam team and our years long expertise in Southeast Asia Digital Marketing, we can ensure that you will experience no pain points to enter the Vietnam market. Contact us for more Vietnam digital marketing service information!

About AsiaPac Net Media

With an extensive digital marketing experience of serving more than 2,500 clients across Asia in sectors such as ecommerce, finance, gaming, travel, retail, beauty, FMCG, education, health products etc., AsiaPac’s expert team is highly recognized for the excellence in providing performance-driven services to businesses across Asia, and global corporates targeting Asia markets. If you’d like to learn more about AsiaPac and the work we’ve done, visit our Cases page. For more information on AsiaPac/ AdTech and our services, please contact us at info@asiapac.com.hk/ info@adtechinno.com.