Korea is one of the few countries (like China and Russia) where Google is not the largest search engine. Advertising on it can greatly help your organization reach its goals. But why should you do any advertising? There is scientific evidence that advertising will increase your revenue, profit and market capitalization.
The empirical results support the authors’ hypothesis that advertising spending has a positive and long-run impact on firms’ market capitalization. Investors are willing to pay a premium for aggressive advertisers.
Also, companies that recovered most strongly from recessions did not cut their marketing spend – and in many cases actually increased it.
So let’s explore all aspects of advertising on Korea’s largest search engine, Naver! This blog post consists of the following parts:
- About Naver
- Naver SERP
- Naver marketing
- Keyword research
- Naver vs. Google
- Types of ads
- How to start
About Naver
Naver (from “navigate”) was founded in 2009 and a short bio of the founder is below. Both the founders of Naver and KakaoTalk worked together for a while. Other apps owned by Naver are Line, Band and Snow.
Lee Hae-jin was born in Seoul in 1967. He studied computer science at Seoul National University and KAIST before joining Samsung SDS in 1992. He left the company in 1999 to set up Navercom (currently Naver) which was originally an in-house venture at Samsung. The next year he joined hands with Kim Beom-su, who joined Samsung SDS the same year, merging Kim’s game portal Hangame. The two oversaw Naver together, listing the company (2002) and putting it at the top of Web portals (2004), before Kim left to set up Kakao Corp. in 2010.
What is the market share of Naver Korea’s search engine market? Numbers vary greatly, but according to our experience we found the percentages below to be the most representative (depending on the product).
The market share percentages are as follows:
| Naver | 45% |
| 30% | |
| Daum | 25% |
But Google’s market share is relatively large for mobile, this is probably because Chrome is the default browser on Android smartphones.
Naver SERP
What does the Naver Search Engine Results Page look like? Naver is technically not a search engine, but looks more like a portal (like Yahoo). This is because in the SERP there is a lot of UGC (user generated content) from its own services like Naver Blog (comparable to Medium), Naver Cafe (Facebook Group or subreddit) and Naver Q&A (Quora). The SERP layout can change depending on keyword and platform (desktop or mobile). The Naver SERP can contain the following parts:
| Naver SERP | Equivalent (if applicable) |
| Blog | Medium |
| Cafe | Facebook Group / subreddit |
| Q&A | Quora |
| Shopping | Amazon |
| Post | Mobile blog |
| Video | YouTube |
| Encyclopedia | Wikipedia |
| Website | |
| Images | |
| Dictionary | |
| News | |
| Realtime | |
| Map | |
| Books | |
| Music | |
| Academic | |
| Audioclip |
An example of a Naver SERP (top part) is below.
I M P O R T A N T !
As you can see above, there are no websites ranking high organically. This is very often the case if your company is not well known in Korea. There are usually only 3 organic websites listed on the first page on the Naver SERP. If you are new to the Korean market, it is possible that a Naver Blog will outrank your website – even if you use your company name as a search term! This is why, for your Korean digital marketing strategy, it is important to also use Naver Blog, Cafe, Q&A, etc.
Naver marketing
If you want to promote your company on Naver using search engine marketing, there are several things that you can do. Below are the ones that are the most common:
| Naver ads | Board ads (display) Brand Search ads Keyword ads Blog ads Shopping ads |
| Naver SEO | Website Naver Blog / Post Naver Cafe Naver Q&A |
Naver PPC ads will be explained more in detail below (Types of ads). The Naver SEO part can also be achieved through influencers, in Korea also called “viral marketing”.
If you want to run online search ads in Korea, you need to have certain information about your company on your website. This is required by Korean law. The info to put on your website (usually in the footer) is:
| English | Korean |
| Official company name | 상호 |
| CEO name | 대표 |
| Business registration number | 사업자등록번호 |
An example of a footer with company info is below.
If you want to run online shopping ads or sell things online with a payment gateway on your website in Korea, you also need a Korean e-commerce license.
Keyword research
When doing Naver paid search, (or SEO and even social media for that matter) it is very important to do (long tail and semantic) keyword research. As you may know for English or other languages you can use Google Keyword Planner to find keywords. Naver also has a keyword tool. Compared to Google Keyword Planner, Naver keyword tool usually generates more relevant and related keywords. Below is a screenshot of the interface. (We are aware of and use other keyword tools too, but they will not be covered in this blog post.)
The Naver keyword tool has the following important functions and data:
- Keyword input
- Monthly searches (desktop and mobile)
- Average monthly clicks (desktop and mobile)
- Average monthly click through rate (desktop and mobile)
- Competition
Naver vs. Google
Below is a list of the most prominent differences between Naver and Google Ads.
| Naver | ||
| Ad types | Keyword, Brand Search, blog, places, video, display | Keyword, video, GMB, display |
| Match types | Exact | Broad, BMM, Phrase, Exact |
| Ad headline(s) | One headline, 15 characters | Three headlines, 30 characters each |
| Ad description(s) | One description, 45 characters | Two descriptions, 90 characters each |
| Location | Korea, international (can only select rest of world as a whole) | Korea, international (can select individual countries) |
| Target | Website, online shop, Blog | Website, app, video |
| Conversion tracking | HTML tag does not work with GTM | With or without GTM |
| Ad extensions | Yes | Yes |
| UTM tags | Yes | Yes |
| Editor | API | Yes |
| Retargeting | Only exclusion possible with banner ads | Yes |
| Targeting | No | Audiences |
| Responsive ads | No | Yes |
Types of ads
As mentioned earlier, there are five types of Naver ads. (ClickChoice and V Live ads are not covered in this blog post. ClickChoice is very similar to keywords and V Live ads are similar to YouTube ads.)
- Board ads (display)
- Brand Search ads
- Keyword ads
- Blog ads
- Shopping ads
1. Board ads are the most eye catching display ads on the front page of Naver. They cost a few thousand USD per hour. Media file type can be video or image. Screenshots of some board ads are below (there are many types).
2. Naver Brand Search ads are most prominent ad types. A screenshot of a Brand Search ad is below.
Brand Search description:
- The cost depends on the number of monthly impressions.
- In our experience, Brand Search ads have higher CTR and generate more clicks than comparable keyword ads.
- The contract duration is 7, 30 or 90 days.
- You can only choose keywords that are related to your company name
- There is no competition for the keywords you choose. Only 1 company can advertise Brand Search ads for the keywords at any given time.
- Depending on the type, there are many images and sitelinks that you can add to the Brand Search ad.
Some important specifications are:
| Spec | Description |
| Cost | CPM |
| Platform | Desktop and Mobile |
| Media file types | Image, video |
| Price | Minimum of KRW 500,000 per month excl. VAT |
| Type | Lite, Premium, Premium Video |
3. Naver keyword ads are very similar to Google Ads, the most important differences and similarities are described in the paragraph above (Naver vs. Google). A screenshot of a Naver keyword ad on desktop is below.
4. Blog ads are to promote your content on Naver Blog, Post or Cafe. You can only select keywords from a spreadsheet provided by Naver. Usually the quality of the traffic from these ads is higher (lower bounce rate, higher CTR and longer time on site) than keyword ads. Also the CPC is lower than that of regular text ads. Perhaps because the Blog ads look like UGC. You cannot be too commercial however: the ads have to be informational and you cannot use the company name above the fold. Blog ads are located right below keywords ads. A screenshot of blog ads is below.
5. There are two types of shopping ads: online store and product catalog. For both types you need a Korean business registration and e-commerce license. You can make your own online store with Naver (StoreFarm) and Naver also has its own Shopping site. Naver Shopping aggregates results from StoreFarm, Coupang, 11st, Gmarket and other websites. A screenshot of a Naver Shopping ad is below.
How to start
To run ads on Naver, you need to make an ad account and send a copy of your business registration. Make sure your website has the company info on it as described above (Naver Marketing)!
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Well, you have given a wrong example in your article. Google is totally blocked in China by CCP’s Great firewall!
Other than this, it was an informative article IMO.
Love this blog. Thank you for sharing.
Thanks for the breakdown of Naver ads! I’ve struggled to understand the ins and outs of Korean marketing and this post was super helpful. The comparison to Google ads was really informative, I never knew there were so many differences!
helpful hints
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Great insights on Naver ads! I appreciate the comparison with Google ads, as it really highlights the unique aspects of marketing in Korea. The tips on targeting and content types are especially useful. Looking forward to applying these strategies in my campaigns!