2025 Red Note (Xiaohongshu) Advertising Guide: How to advertise on Red Note (Xiaohongshu)?

What is Red Note?

Red Note app (also known as Xiaohongshu or RED), China’s premier Social Commerce and Lifestyle Interest Community, reaching over 300 million monthly active users (MAUs) in 2025. The primary demographic consists of Gen-Z consumers and high-spending young millennial Chinese consumers (typically aged 20-35) from first and second-tier cities, making it a prime channel for lifestyle,  beauty, fashion and consumer product brands.

With a high search penetration rate (over 70% of active users utilize the search function daily). Red Note has built a powerful full marketing funnel that effectively transitions users from initial product discovery (Seeding) to ultimate purchase conversion (Weeding). Brands use high-quality content assets  (known as notes) to initiate the “seeding” process, nurturing user desire before activating the final purchase intent via paid advertising and compelling narratives.

Brands leverage Red Note for organic content marketing (“seeding”) and paid ads to attract potential customers, nurture purchase intent, and ultimately drive conversions.

What is Red Note Advertising (Paid Ads/ Paid Campaigns)?

Red Note advertising (Paid ads) enables brands to reach high-intent consumers with precision targeting, provides essential visibility boost and rapid impression scaling for newly verified brand accounts which has a challenge at the cold-start phase for user acquisition.

Content Exposure & Awareness: As users browse RED, they encounter ads presented as native notes (posts), blended naturally with other regular content. 

Interest/ Inspiration/ Evaluation: Once an ad captures user interest, they click into the note to explore the product or service in more detail. If curiosity grows, users typically continue researching across other social platform or through friends before making a decision.

Decision & Conversion: Ultimately, if nothing in their discovery process creates friction or doubt, users convert and complete the purchase.

Red Note offers several paid advertising products. each accessed via specialized campaign management platforms tailored to distinct marketing objectives:

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How to Advertise on Red Note (Xiaohongshu) as an International Brand?

Launching a successful Red Note advertising campaign requires a structured approach. Below is a streamlined, brand-ready setup process: Step 1: Create and verify your Red Note business account（专业号认证）

Initiate your journey by registering and completing the required Business Account Verification on Red Note (Xiaohongshu). This step is crucial, as a Verified Business Account immediately unlocks access to critical advanced advertising tools (e.g., Juguang Ad, Pugongying Ad and Chengfeng Ad/ Qianfan Ad), proprietary analytics dashboards and instantly bolsters platform credibility with the discerning Red Note consumer. This is the prerequisite for all professional paid campaign deployments.

Step 2: Develop a Red Note Advertising Strategy

Craft a comprehensive paid advertising campaign strategy aligned with your business objectives, brand awareness, lead generation or conversion. This includes defining your target audience, selecting ad placements (Juguang Ad, Juguang Lite Ad, Shutiao Ad, Pugongying Ad or Chengfeng Ad/ Qianfan Ad), designing creative assets and mapping the customer journey on Red Note.

Step 3: Launch your Red Note Campaign

Activate your paid ads with optimized creatives, targeting and cost models. Ensure your content follows Red Note best practices, including:

• Authentic Storytelling: Content must look like a high-quality user note (UGC), not a standard banner ad.

• Visual-First Content: Prioritizing compelling imagery and short video formats.

• Keyword-intent optimization: Aligning ad copy with consumer search behaviour uncovered in Step 2.

Step 4: Performance Monitoring and Real-Time Optimization

Track campaign performance across key metrics: impressions, engagement, CTR, CPC/ CPE, follower growth and conversion rate. Adjust targeting, creatives, budget allocation and bidding strategies to maximize ROAS and campaign efficiency:

• KPI Tracking: Track critical KPIs beyond vanity metrics

• A/B Testing: Conduct simultaneous A/B tests on different elements (e.g., cover images, headlines, CTA language and audience segments)

Step 5: Review and Summarize Campaign Performance

Compile a detailed performance report to evaluate outcomes, key learnings and audience insights. Use these findings to refine future Red Note advertising strategies and continuously improve brand impact on the platform.

What are the Benefits of Paid Advertising on Red Note?

Case Study: How a Global Ride App Reached Chinese Travellers?

• Brand Overview

This European transfers, rides, and delivery app operates in over 180 countries worldwide and is now planning to enter the Chinese market. Its target audience includes:

• Chinese travelers abroad looking for reliable ride services or airport/train station pickups.

• Chinese Business travelers seeking convenient transport solutions overseas.

• Overseas local Chinese residents who require safe, efficient, and familiar transportation options.

  
  

To ensure a successful market entry, the brand partnered with HnE Marketing Consultancy to establish its Chinese social media presence on key platforms, including WeChat and Red Note (Xiaohongshu), and to implement paid Red Note campaigns to accelerate visibility.

• Brand Challenges

As a new entrant in the Chinese market, the brand faced several critical challenges:

• Zero social media presence on all Chinese social media channels, resulting in a “cold-start” problem.

• Need to rapidly acquire followers and impressions to generate awareness and trust among Chinese travelers.

• Limited time to test advertising effectiveness while establishing a local brand identity.

• Targeting a niche audience: Chinese travelers and expats abroad, which requires precise audience segmentation.

• Strategy Overview

HnE Marketing Consultancy designed a customized advertising strategy for Red Note, focusing on:

• Social media account setup: Creation and verification of the Red Note account from scratch.

• Paid advertising deployment: Utilized Juguang Ads (聚光) to boost exposure for high-quality posts.

• Content planning: Developed engaging notes that highlighted the app’s key service benefits, aspirational international travel experiences, airport/train pick-up solutions, and trust-building visuals.

• Lead generation: Added promo codes and clear calls-to-action to convert impressions into qualified leads.

• Campaign Details

  • Ad Placement: Juguang Ad

  • Campaign Duration: 1 month

  • Baseline Metrics: Brand-new account (0 followers)

  • Objective: 

    • Drive rapid brand awarenss

    • Generating premium leads in record period

• Campaign Performance

Despite running for only half a month, the campaign achieved remarkable results for a brand starting from zero:

• Follower Growth: The account gained 400+ new followers in just 15 days.

• Impression & Engagement

  • Impressions: 70246

  • Clicks: 3846

  • CTR (Click through rate): 5.48%

  • CPC (Cost per click): 1.82 CNY

• Leads Generated: More than 30 high-quality leads were collected, demonstrating effective targeting and engagement.

• Key Insights

  • Paid ads accelerate visibility: Even a short-term Juguang Ad campaign can overcome the cold-start challenge for new accounts.

  • Content + targeting drives engagement: Well-crafted notes combined with precise audience targeting lead to measurable results.

  • Quick testing and iteration: Short campaigns can validate messaging, creatives, and audience preferences before scaling.

How HnE Marketing Consultancy Designs the Red Note Paid Advertising Strategy for your brand?

At HnE Marketing Consultancy, we don’t simply run ads. We build a full-funnel Red Note growth framework tailored to your brand’s market position, audience, and business goals. Our strategic approach ensures measurable results, whether you’re entering China for the first time or scaling existing visibility.

1. Understand Your Brand

We begin by conducting a comprehensive analysis of your brand’s:

• Business model, audience, objectives, challenges and industry competitiveness in the Chinese market;

• Clearly define the brand's Unique Value Proposition (UVP) and its relevance to the platform's focus areas (e.g., Chinese Beauty, Chinese Travel, Lifestyle upgrades);

2. Build Your Red Note Foundation

A successful campaign starts with a strong, credible Red Note presence. We support brands with:

• Red Note business account setup & verification

• Determine the foundational topics, visual identity and content styles (the "notes") that align with the brand's identity while adopting the platform's native, soft-sell aesthetic.

3. Choosing the Optimal Paid Ad Placements

Selecting the correct tool is paramount to maximizing campaign efficiency and achieving your defined Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).

We recommend aligning your campaign with the following core strategic variables:

• Financial Commitment (Budget & Scale)

  • Strategic Focus: Evaluating the available Media Spend and the required minimum investment threshold. This determines the feasibility of large-scale, systematic platforms (Juguang Ad requires a higher entry budget) versus lower-cost, high-accessibility tools (Juguang Lite or Shutiao).

• Time-to-Market & Growth Velocity

  • Strategic Focus: The desired speed of growth and traffic acquisition. Platforms like Juguang are designed for rapid, scalable Impression and Performance boosting, whereas Pugongying Ad (KOL/KOC seeding) is a longer-term investment for building Brand Equity and Social Proof.

• Audience Precision and Targeting Needs

  • Strategic Focus: The complexity of your audience segmentation and targeting requirements. Core performance tools (Juguang Ad) offer advanced demographic, interest, and Behavioral Targeting capabilities crucial for precise mid-to-bottom-funnel activation.

• Industry Verticals and Content Fit

  • Strategic Focus: The natural alignment between your Industry Characteristics (e.g., C-Beauty, Travel, Technology) and the platform's user consumption habits. Certain verticals benefit disproportionately from Live Commerce optimization (Chengfeng Ad/Qianfan Ad) due to high demand for immediate product interaction.

• ROI and Conversion Expectations

  • Strategic Focus: Defining the desired output, whether it is Top-of-Funnel Awareness, Engagement Rate (ER), or a hard financial metric like Return on Ad Spend (ROAS). High conversion focus necessitates tools that link directly to the in-app store (Chengfeng Ad) or drive high-intent search traffic (Juguang Ad).

4. Creative Localization and High-Impact Content Asset Design

On Red Note (Xiaohongshu), the performance of your paid media investment is directly correlated with the authenticity and quality of the underlying content asset. Effective ads are indistinguishable from high-performing organic notes. This demands a strategic approach to creative localization.

Our content strategy focuses on deploying creative assets that inherently resonate with the platform's visual-first community and drive high engagement rates:

• Native Storytelling Integration

• Native Educational & Value-Driven Content (“干货” in Chinese)

• Audience-Centric Narrative

• Festival & Cultural Campaigns

• Regional Customization (China's regianl cultures differ, especially North vs. South)

• Search & Performance Optimization within Red Note ecosystem

• A/B Content Testing

5. Precision Targeting for Maximum Return on Investment (ROI)

We leverage Red Note advanced proprietary Performance Marketing tools to execute highly granular audience segmentation, ensuring that every ad impression is served to a qualified, high-value user segment. This focus on precision targeting is the direct driver of maximized Return on Ad Spend (ROAS).

• Psychographic and Behavioural Segmentation

• Robust Demographic Profiling

• Active Search Intent and Keyword Targeting

• Industry-Specific Custom Audiences and Signals

6. Campaign Execution: Launch, Real-Time Monitoring and Optimization

Once all paid media assets are activated across the selected placements (e.g., Juguang Ad, Pugongying Ad and etc.), our team begins real-time performance monitoring to ensure every ad dollar drives measurable results. This stage turns live data into actionable insights for ongoing optimization.

• Core Performance Indicator (KPI) Tracking

• Community Sentiment Analysis & Strategy Refinement

7. Post-Campaign Audit & Strategic Data Synthesis

This final stage concludes the campaign cycle, transitioning raw performance data into actionable business intelligence that justifies investment and informs the next phase of the China market strategy.

Key Deliverables:

• Comprehensive Performance Audit & ROAS Analysis

  • A detailed report compiling all core KPIs (e.g., CTR, CPA, Conversion Rate) and providing a clear, top-line Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) calculation for the Red Note channel.

  • Provides financial accountability and transparently measures the efficacy of the paid ads campaign investment against pre-defined business objectives.

• Actionable User Behaviour & Creative Insights

  • A deep-dive analysis identifying which Creative Assets (Notes) and Targeting Segments yielded the highest engagement and conversion rates. We detail user psychographics, preferred content formats (e.g., short video vs. carousel), and the most effective keywords used in search to discover the brand.

• Next-Phase Scaling & Optimization Roadmap

  • Clear, prioritized recommendations for the subsequent campaign cycle, including proposed adjustments to bidding strategies, allocation shifts between different placements. Provides a clear Go-Forward Strategy, ensuring a continuous cycle of iterative improvement and sustained growth momentum.

• Integrated Cross-Channel Alignment Strategy

  • Strategic suggestions for how Red Note learnings can be leveraged to optimize other platforms (e.g., WeChat, Douyin (TikTok China), and Tmall). This includes advice on using Red Note's authenticity-driven creative assets on Douyin, or utilizing Red Note high-intent keywords to refine Tmall store SEO.

    
    

    Ensures that the Red Note success is not siloed but contributes to a cohesive, integrated digital marketing strategy across the entire Chinese social and e-commerce ecosystem.

  
  

The Red Note platform represents a unique, high-value nexus of social commerce and search-driven consumption in the Chinese market. Our commitment is to support and guide international brands beyond simple ad placement toward achieving sustainable, resilient market growth.

We establish an authentic presence, turning high-intent user traffic into loyal customers. Partner with HnE Marketing Consultancy to navigate the complexity of the Red Note (Xiaohongshu) ecosystem and secure your position as a trusted, high-performing brand leader in Greater China.