Nearly every aspect of marketing in Japan requires you to rethink everything you thought you knew. This certainly applies to how you should interpret Japanese marketing KPIs (key performance indicators).
The reason is that what we deem as “success” in Japanese marketing can look very different from what you’re used to. While click-through rates and impressions look healthy in reporting, the market may be telling a different story in pure sales.
In This Article
This isn’t to say that you’re employing a poor strategy, just that you might be reading the wrong signals. Today, we’ll share the Japanese marketing KPIs you should pay more attention to, and how they inform your campaign strategy.
Clicks vs Engagement: Prioritize Quality Over Volume
Japanese consumers don’t click on ads as casually as their Western counterparts, so don’t stress too much over low CTR. This is because when they do engage, your landing page is seeing visitors with high interest. In this way, you might have stronger intent from visitors despite lower click and session numbers.
These are the KPIs that should hold a bit more weight than clicks:
- Average Session Duration – The longer someone is on the page, the higher the intent grows.
- Pages per Visit – More pages viewed can indicated trust building. Make sure to optimize your internal linking for value.
- Repeat Visitors – Visitors who return are giving you strong consideration and ongoing interest.
Conversion Attribution: A Multi-Touch Process
The customer journey in Japan is seldom linear. Four common pre-conversion touchpoints that most Japanese consumers interface with include LINE, Yahoo! Japan, Rakuten, and the brand website. Don’t just pay attention to the last-click attribution. Upper- and mid-funnel activities are severely underrated in their value.
To understand what truly led to conversion, make sure you’re tracking these data points:
- Assisted Conversions – Learn which channels nurture trust, since every step in the Japanese customer journey is a confidence building process.
- Time Lag to Conversion – Understand decision cycles by identifying where customers get stuck, and optimize.
- Path Length – Measure how many interactions lead to a purchase, and learn where you can eliminate redundancy.
Brand Sentiment
Trust and reputation directly impact ad performance and sales to a staggering degree in Japan. Even a slight perception of tone-deafness can do serious damage to your brand image. Worse, it’s an uphill battle to change the mind of the consumer once they’ve made their judgment.
Stay in tune with where people are discussing your brand most, in real time. Think social platforms like X (Twitter), LINE, or even Yahoo! Japan’s Q&A platform Chiebukuro where you can find user opinions. Here are the key metrics you’ll want to measure:
- Sentiment Ratio – See how frequently people are mentioning your brand positively and negatively.
- Share of Voice – Learn how often your brand is being brought up amongst your competitors.
- Search Volume Trend – See how frequently or consistently people are actively looking for your products or services.
There are other, more specialized tools to help give you an in-depth look at how consumers view your brand. These include tools such as Brandwatch and BuzzSpreader, among others. At ICJ, we offer a specialized social listening service that allows you to see precisely what kind of impression you’re leaving on your target audience.
Native Appeal
When we’ve discussed localization in past entries, it’s important to understand that it’s more about how your message feels in Japanese than what it says. Without a capable agency to guide you on cultural compatibility, this can be tricky. You’ll want to know if you’re striking the right chord with your ad copy and messaging.
Take these KPIs into consideration when testing your local alignment:
- CTR Variance – You’ll be able to know what resonates better between global and localized ads…although we’re pretty sure which will win out.
- A/B Test Results – Diversify your imagery, tone and formalities and see which yields the best engagement.
- Bounce Rate – Find out which localized landing pages aren’t connecting with your audience.
These KPIs in general can reveal whether your ad messaging is on the same wavelength with the local population.
Get Your Message Out, But Don’t Forget to Listen
Previously, we touched on how digital ad CTR in Japan is lower than that of other major markets. For foreign brands entering Japan, it might be even lower. It may very well be that, when looking at the wrong KPI signals, you’re adjusting your message improperly and making matters worse.
Because Japanese consumers engage with advertising differently, a mental shift is needed. Trust is foundational to the conversion process because trust is the first conversion. Clicks and impressions aren’t telling the whole story. You’ll want to dig deeper into engagement quality, sentiment and retention.
These indicators can help you move your bottom line in the right direction, and with ICJ’s expert native staff, we can help you save time and resources by identifying the right Japanese marketing KPIs for campaign success.
