The Huawei Ads Platform: Everything You Need to Know About the New Ad Network and How to Run Your First Huawei Ads Campaign

Huawei Ads is a paid advertising service that allows businesses to market their products to Huawei device users. It enables advertisers to reach Huawei consumers via a variety of third-party and Huawei apps, including Huawei Video, Huawei Music, and the Huawei Browser.

Huawei Ads have been incorporated into all of these Huawei applications, and they enable display ads, search ads, and ads displayed on the Huawei AppGallery. Huawei Ads reaches a worldwide audience of over 700 million Huawei device users with a variety of major ad types such as native ads, banner ads, incentive ads, and interstitial ads.

By creating different campaigns in Huawei Ads, advertisers can advertise a range of products or services, such as Android apps, web pages, shopping items, hotels, and local stores, to boost the exposure of their businesses.

In this article, we are analyzing and discussing the new Huawei Ads platform and also presenting you with a guide on how you can set up your first advertising campaign with Huawei Ads.

Advantages of Huawei Ads for Advertisers

Huawei ads offer advertisers a new advertising opportunity with large unexplored traffic sources that have over 700 000 000 users globally. And with a new ad platform, there are several benefits for advertisers to take advantage of including:

• Abundant traffic sources from large entries increase your odds of converting users in a variety of circumstances.
• Informative and personalized tags are available for comprehensive user profiling.
• Strong Ad performance that is improved by precise data processing.
• High cost-cutting ads with great performance

• Multiple bidding types (CPM, CPC, and CPI) for advertisers to choose from.
• Ad distribution strategies that can be adjusted in real-time using AI models like Remarketing and Lookalike.
• Ad performance can be evaluated way more easily with unified attribution using OAIDs.
• A great UI — UX that results in high user engagement through unified visual experiences which guarantee advertisers steady brand consistency.

Where to Advertise with Huawei Ads

Currently, Huawei Ads allows you to deliver ads on:

1. The Huawei AppGallery
2. The display network
3. The search network

1. Huawei AppGallery

Huawei AppGallery allows you to advertise your apps through display ads and search ads. Just add your app and set targeting, bid, and other desired information for ad delivery. The rest will be automatically optimized to help users find you.

If you want to deliver an ad with a search or display ad slot on Huawei AppGallery to promote your app, you can set Network to AppGallery during campaign creation.

• Search Ads

Search ads are the ads that promote your app on the Huawei AppGallery search engine. It's based on keywords search and allows using up to 200 keywords per ad.

Requirements for setting up search ads on Huawei App Gallery:

• Media: AppGallery
• Strategy: Bidding
• Slot: App search
• Promotional purpose: App download
• Asset type: Image
• Dimensions: 216x216

• Display Ads

Display ads are ads that are shown within the Huawei App Gallery. They can either be delivered in a Recommended apps placement or in a Standard placement.

Requirements for Setting up Display Ads on Huawei App Gallery

• Media: AppGallery
• Strategy: Bidding
• Slot: Recommended apps or Standard
• Promotional purpose: App download
• Asset type: App icon
• Dimensions: 216x216

2. Display Network

The display network enables you to promote your apps or web pages through Huawei apps and third-party apps integrated with Huawei Ads Publisher Service. Such ads will appear when users surf within the display network, helping increase your site's visits, boost your app downloads, or improve user engagement.

If you want to promote ads for your apps or web pages across this display network, you need to set Network to Display network. These ads will help you reach more users and better achieve your business goals through a large number of media channels. You can create ads in different formats and show them in different ad slots across our display network.

The Huawei Ads display Network Accepts the Following Ad Formats:

• Banner ads
• Native Ads
• Rewarded/ Incentive Ads
• Interstitial Ads
• Splash Ads
• Roll Ads

• Huawei Display Banner Ads

These ads appear in banner form within apps installed on Huawei devices. They are ideal for heavy traffic scenarios which involve frequently accessed pages with longer stay times.

Specifications:

• Media: Third-party apps
• Strategy: Bidding
• Promotional purposes: Web page promotion, app download, and app engagement
• Asset type: Image
• Dimensions: 960x150, 960x300, 900x750, 1080x96, 1080x150, 1080x170, 1080x270, and 1080x432
• Display device: Phone

• Native Ads

Native ads are ads that provide high immersive viewing in full range. They support multiple ad types like text, images, and videos.

Specifications:

• Media: Huawei and third-party apps
• Strategy: Bidding
• Promotional purposes: Web page promotion, app download, and app engagement
• Asset types: Image and video
• Dimensions: 1080x607, 1080x432, 1080x170, 225x150, 450x450, 720x1280, and 640x360
• Display device: Phone

  

• Rewarded Ads/Incentive Ads

Rewarded ads are ads that incentivize users to view video ads from start to the finish and then reward them with an in-app token, progress level or to continue using the free app. They facilitate a higher user engagement and conversion rate.

Specifications

• Media: Third-party apps
• Strategy: Bidding
• Promotional purposes: App download and app engagement
• Asset type: Video
• Dimensions: 640x360 and 720x1280
• Display device: Phone

• Interstitial Ads

Interstitial Ads are ads that are shown during natural in-app transition points. They have a strong visual impact that often leads to high click-through rates.

Specifications

• Media: Third-party apps
• Strategy: Bidding
• Promotional purposes: App download and app engagement
• Asset types: Image and video
• Dimensions: 1080x1620, 1920x1080, 640x360, and 720x1080
• Display device: Phone

• Splash Ads

Splash ads are ads that are shown when an app is launched. They are displayed for 3 to 5 seconds as the apps are being launched and they provide advertisers with high brand exposure.

• Media: Huawei and third-party apps
• Strategy: Bidding
• Promotional purposes: App download and app engagement
• Asset types: Image and video
• Dimensions: 1080x1620, 1080x1920, 1920x1080, 720x1280, and 1280x720
• Display device: Phone

• Roll Ads

Roll Ads are video ads that are displayed 15 to 30 seconds before, during, or after a user views a video. They are shown on the Huawei Video app and other third-party applications.

Specifications

• Media: Huawei and third-party apps
• Strategy: Bidding
• Promotional purposes: Web page promotion, app download, and app engagement
• Asset type: Video
• Dimensions: 640x360
• Display device: Phone

3. Search Network
Huawei devices come with their very own search engine called Petal search. Advertising on Petal search lets you jump to the front of the line when users search for products or services like yours, helping you increase sales, acquire more potential customers or boost website traffic.

If you want to serve your ad to users who search for your products or services on Petal Search, you can set the Network to Search network during campaign creation.

Huawei search ads are promoted in the following formats:

• Web page search ads
• Android App search ads
• Shopping Ads
• Brand Keyword Ads
• Hotel Ads
• Local Ads

• Web Page Search Ads

Your ad that links to a web page will appear in the search results when users are searching with terms related to one of your keywords on Petal Search. For details about how to create such an ad, please refer to Creating a Web Page Search Ad.

• Media: Petal Search
• Strategy: Bidding
• Promotional purpose: Web page promotion
• Asset types: Text and image
• Dimensions: 256x256, 1248x400, and 400x400
• Sub URL: To redirect users to different other URLs, toggle this switch on and add three sub URLs at most.
• Tag: To display multiple product attributes and selling points to users, toggle this switch on and add six tags at most.

• Android App Search Ads

Your ad for promoting an app will be prominently displayed in the search results when users are searching with terms related to your keywords on Petal Search. For details about how to create such an ad, please refer to Creating an App Ad Shown on the Search Network.

Specifications

• Media: Petal Search
• Strategy: Bidding
• Promotional purpose: App download
• Dimensions: 160x160

• Shopping Ads

Your shopping items will be displayed to users who are searching for related products or services on Petal Search, helping you reach the potential users. For details about how to create such an ad, please refer to Creating a Shopping Ad.

Specifications

• Media: Petal Search
• Strategy: Bidding
• Promotional purpose: Shopping item promotion

• Brand Keyword Ads

When users search for one of your brand keywords on Petal Search, your ad will display in the way you specify. To deliver such ads, you have to sign a contract with Huawei. For details about how to create such an ad, please refer to Creating a Brand Keyword Ad.

Specifications

• Media: Petal Search
• Strategy: Contract
• Ad slots: Standard, Advanced, VIP, and Shopping VIP, from which you can select one as needed.

  

• Hotel Ads

This section is mostly used to promote hotel businesses. When users search for hotels on Petal Search, your hotel information will be displayed. For details about how to create such an ad, please refer to Creating a Hotel Ad.

Specifications

• Media: Petal Search
• Strategy: Bidding
• Promotional purpose: Hotel promotion

• Local Ads

Local ads help to promote local businesses through the Petal search map section. Your business information will appear in search results when users search for information related to your local business on Petal Search. For details about how to create such an ad, please refer to Creating a Local Ad.

Specifications

• Media: Petal Search
• Strategy: Bidding
• Promotional purpose: Local store promotion

The highlight boxes in the figure above are the Huawei local ad slots on Petal.

Ad Bidding System on Huawei Ads

The Huawei Ads bidding system allows the advertiser to create and manage ads in Huawei Ads. Your ad needs to participate in bidding against other ads to show to your target audience and will be charged for the ad performance that it achieves.

After your ad wins the bidding, it will appear at specified ad slots in different media channels. You have full control over the audience targeting, bids, and creatives, and you can utilize our tools to further optimize your ads. In this way, you can reach your potential customers precisely and maximize your return on investment (ROI).

The bidding ads supported by Huawei Ads are display ads, search ads, and ads shown on AppGallery. The available bid types are CPM, CPC, and CPI.

Huawei Ads also has a contract bidding system for brand keyword ads on Petal search. Contract ads are good for enhancing the exposure of your products or services and helping build brand loyalty.

Huawei Ads Account Types

Huawei Ads supports the following account types:

• Direct advertiser account: Create this type of account if you want to advertise your own products and services.
• Partner account: Create this type of account if you are an ad agency dedicated to promoting other businesses. For details about partner account registration, please refer to Registering for a Huawei Ads Partner Account.

Requirements for Registering a Huawei Ads Account

The materials and requirements for registering different types of Huawei Ads accounts are as follows:

• Supporting documents must be uploaded as images, and the image size must be less than 5 MB.
• The country/region you select to register for a Huawei ID must be the same as that on your business license. Otherwise, the Huawei Ads account registration will fail.

Huawei Ads Payment Methods and Billing

After registering a Huawei Ads account, you need to top up your cash account, or apply for the post-payment function and add an enterprise credit card for billing. The payment methods you can use to pay for Huawei Ads are as follows:

• Offline top-up: This allows you to make a bank transfer to a specified Huawei recipient account, and submit a top-up application in Huawei Ads. After the application is approved, the value will be added to your cash account, which can be used to fund advertising.
• Online top-up: This allows you to top up your cash account online in Huawei Ads to maintain funds for ad delivery.
• Postpayment: With this function, you only need to add a credit card, and no longer need to top up your account in advance. Huawei Ads will deduct fees from your bank card when the accumulated ad spend reaches $500 or your spending lasts for seven consecutive calendar days, whichever comes first. You can apply for the post-payment function if you meet these conditions.

How To Advertise On Huawei Ads

Huawei Ads offers a number of ad delivery networks: display network, search network, as well as Huawei's app store AppGallery.

The Huawei Ads campaign structure comprises three levels: campaigns, tasks, and creatives. Each account will hold multiple campaigns, each campaign may contain one or more tasks, and each task can have one or more creatives.

NOTE: Only a display network campaign or an AppGallery campaign can have multiple tasks. Campaigns running on other networks are limited to only one task.

• Campaign: At the campaign level, you can set the campaign goal, campaign type, ad delivery network, type of your product, and daily budget. These settings cannot be modified once the campaign is created.
• Task: At the task level, you can set the delivery type, product details, slot, ad schedule, bid, and targeting conditions such as the location, carrier, language, device, and behavioral tag. The targeting conditions vary depending on the ad delivery network. It's more like the Adset from Facebook campaigns.
• Creative: A creative is the ad content shown to users. Creatives can be text, images, videos, and other formats. They must be eye-catching enough to drive conversion actions such as downloading your app. Each task can have up to five creatives.

Huawei Ads Creation Process

To create ads on Huawei ads, you need to follow the 4 step procedure below to configure the campaign goal, campaign type, ad delivery network, targeting conditions, and creatives.

1. Creating a campaign
2. Creating an ad task
3. Adding the ad creatives
4. Submitting the ad

​​​​​​​Step 1 — Create a campaign:

Sign in to Huawei Ads and go to New > Create campaign. Set the parameters such as Strategy, Goal, Campaign type, Network, Drive users to, Daily budget, and Campaign name.

1. Strategy: Here the default value is bidding. Each time a user initiates an ad request, your ad bids in real-time with ads from other advertisers. Huawei Ads will sort the ads based on their effective cost per thousand impressions (eCPM). The impression opportunity will go to the ad with the highest eCPM.
2. Goal: A campaign goal is the main objective that you want your business to achieve. After you select a goal, the system displays only the campaign types and networks supported for this goal and will optimize your ad during delivery accordingly.

• Sales: Boost sales or increase app downloads.
• Brand awareness: Reach extensive audiences and build brand awareness.
• Automated app promotion: Encourage more users to download and install your app or boost user engagement.
• Local store visits and promotions: Improve users' awareness of your store, and stimulate them to visit your store.
• Without a goal's guidance: Select this option if you do not have a specific goal in mind. You will see all the available campaign settings.

3. ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Campaign type: A campaign type determines in which scenarios users can see your ad. The options are:

• Display: Your ad will be displayed when users browse information or use apps.
• Search: Your ad will be displayed in search results when users perform searches matching the keywords you specified.
• Shopping: Your ad will be displayed when users browse or search for shopping items.
• Hotel: Your ad will be displayed when users search for hotels on Petal Search.
• App: Your ad will be displayed when users browse information or use apps.

4. Network: A network is where you want to run your ad. The options are as follows:

• Display network: Your ad will be displayed in Huawei and third-party apps.
• AppGallery: Your ad will be displayed on Huawei AppGallery.
• Search network: Your ad will be displayed on Petal Search.

5. Concurrent delivery: 

This function is available to common app ads, automated app ads, and web page ads running across the display network. To increase ad exposure and boost ad performance, Huawei Ads allows you to deliver a display ad to both the display network and Petal Search (search network) concurrently by automatically combining ad assets to fit different networks, enhancing ad management efficiency.

Huawei Ads will automatically target audiences without any additional settings being required, helping you quickly reach the right audience. When users enter keywords matching those in the title, description, or other assets in your ad on Petal Search, your ad will be displayed in the search results.

The campaign's daily budget is shared by the display and search networks. If you modify the budget, you can opt to make it effective immediately or on the next day.

6. Drive users to: Specify a proper value based on the product to be advertised.

• Web page: Select this option if you want to drive users to a web page, where you provide your service, introduce your brand, offer a subscription, or introduce your app and offer download links.

Note: If you want to use Google Analytics or your own analytics tool to monitor and identify where your web page traffic comes from. You can add macro parameters to your web page URL to track ads delivered in Huawei Ads. To see more about the tracking macro parameters offered by Huawei Ads, click here.

• Android app: Select this option if you want more users to download your app or engage with users who have downloaded your app. You can promote downloads of apps released either on Huawei AppGallery or on other app stores, but you can only engage users for apps released on Huawei AppGallery.

Note: If you want to monitor and identify where your app traffic comes from, for example, which ad campaigns and tasks bring you the most users when advertising an app released on Google Play, you can add macro parameters to the app's landing page URL or deep-link to track ads delivered in Huawei Ads.

• Quick app: Select this option if you want to drive users to your quick app. Quick apps are a new form of installation-free apps, occupying little storage space. Users can directly use your quick app by clicking your ad with no need to install it. Only common app ads shown on the display network can promote quick apps.

7. Daily budget: Specify the maximum daily amount that you'd like to spend for all tasks under the campaign. If the actual spend reaches the daily budget, the campaign will be paused for the rest of the day and then resumed on the next day. You can change the daily budget up to 10 times a day, and opt to make a change effective immediately or on the next day.
8. Campaign name: Enter an easy-to-understand campaign name, for example, Product + Campaign goal + Network + Target audience, to differentiate this campaign from others under your account.

​​​​​​​Step 2 — Create an Ad Task

After creating the campaign, click Next and set parameters to create a task and make your selections in the following ad task settings:

1. Delivery type: Choose a delivery type. You can select from Official or Test.

• Official: To officially launch your ad to target users, select this option. Your ad will then generate data such as cost, impressions, and clicks.
• Test: To preview your ad display effect before officially launching your ad, select this option and specify the devices where your ad will be shown.

2. Product details: The parameters to be set vary depending on the product type.
3. Targeting: Targeting conditions vary depending on the ad delivery network. You can set conditions like locations, gender, age, behavioral tag, and devices, or select an existing targeting template.
4. Slot: Select a slot to specify where your ad will be shown. You can preview the layout. Each slot has its own minimum bid. If your ad is a common app ad shown on the display network, you will see three types of ad slots which are differentiated based on their traffic source:

• Slots in third-party apps: slots in third-party apps integrated with Huawei Ads Publisher Service, including the Global 3rd-Party and 3rd-Party slots.
• Global 3rd-Party slots: Support the CPM, CPC, and CPI bid types, suitable for advertising apps released on Huawei AppGallery.
• 3rd-Party slots: Support the CPM and CPC bid types, suitable for advertising apps released on app stores other than Huawei AppGallery. You are not advised to place ads promoting apps released on AppGallery in these slots.
• Slots in Huawei apps: slots in Huawei apps such as Huawei Video and Huawei Music. The slots include Huawei Own Media and other slots.
• Mixed: slots in Huawei apps, third-party apps integrated with Huawei Ads Publisher Service, or apps integrated with third-party SSPs. The slots include 3rd-Party_SSP and other slots.

5. Run duration:

• No end date: To run ads all the time without an end date, select this option. When you create an ad task, its start date is set to "today" by default. You may also specify a future start date otherwise.
• Date range: To run ads on specific dates, select this option and specify the start and end dates.

6. Time:

• All-day: Select this option to run ads all day.
• Specific hours: To run ads at certain times every day, select this option and specify the hours.
• Specific hours (advanced): To run ads at different hours every day, select this option and specify the hours for each day of the week separately.

7. Bid: Set an appropriate bid based on the goal of your ad, which may be impressions, clicks, or conversions.
8. Task name: Enter an easy-to-understand task name, for example, Task type + Product + Country/region + Slot + Bid type, to differentiate this task from others under your account.

• To create a task under an existing campaign, go to New > Create a task and select a campaign from the Existing drop-down list box. Then click Next and set parameters to create this task.

Step 3 — Add the creatives
Upload images or videos and set the brand name and description as required by the campaign type, ad delivery network, and slot you have specified.

• Creative name: Enter an easy-to-understand creative name, for example, Slot + Creative type + Dimensions + Creative number, to differentiate this creative from others under your account.

​​​​​​​Step 4 — Submit the ad

Pay attention to the message displayed when you submit the task. The system determines whether to trigger ad reviews based on the task type.

The review result will be sent to your contact email address. You can also view the review result in Huawei Ads by clicking the notifications button in the upper right corner. In most cases, the review will be completed within 24 hours, but it may be slower (up to 48 hours) in complex scenarios.

Once the review is successful, then your ads will start running.

Conclusion

Huawei Ads is a fairly new advertising platform that helps advertisers to reach an untapped audience of over 700 000 000 Huawei device users. It offers a lot of growth opportunities for brands and new ways to attract customers in crowded markets.

The platform offers a variety of advertising choices, including direct placement on Huawei smartphones in Huawei mobile apps and other third-party apps, placement in AppGallery, and placements in Petal Search which is Huawei’s search engine.

It also provides a gateway for Western brands in the Middle East to reach large Asian marketplaces including China where the majority of Huawei users reside.