Bilibili is often misread by overseas marketers as a niche anime site. It did start in ACG (anime, comics and games) culture, but it is now a broad video platform with a young, loyal user base and strong communities around games, consumer technology, education, music and everyday lifestyle content. Advertising there works — provided the brand fits the audience and enters through the right account route. This article covers who Bilibili suits, how overseas brands open ad accounts, and what the main formats involve.
Who Bilibili works for
Bilibili’s users skew young and are unusually engaged: long viewing sessions, active commenting and a danmaku (scrolling comment) culture that makes passive, interruptive advertising easy to spot and easy to mock. Categories with a natural fit include games — consistently one of the platform’s strongest areas — consumer electronics and digital products, apps and software, online education, and products aimed at students and young professionals. Brands in these categories are speaking to communities that already discuss products like theirs in depth.
The flip side is audience fit. A brand with no plausible connection to younger users’ interests will struggle to find efficient inventory, and creative that feels like a television commercial transplanted onto the platform tends to underperform regardless of budget. The honest first step with Bilibili is not account opening but a fit check: does your product have a story this audience would voluntarily watch?
Entry routes for overseas brands
Bilibili ad accounts follow the same entity logic as other Chinese platforms. A company with a Chinese entity can open an advertiser account directly under that entity, submitting its business licence for qualification review. An overseas brand without a Chinese entity normally works through an agency, which opens the account under its arrangements and submits the brand’s overseas business documents for the qualification file.
The document set is familiar: business registration from your home jurisdiction, the website or product pages being promoted, industry qualifications where your category is regulated, and brand documentation where relevant. Review covers the business itself, the eligibility of the category, and the landing pages — the same three layers as elsewhere. With documents complete, opening typically takes a few business days, longer for regulated industries. Our account opening and management services describe how this is usually handled end to end for brands entering several platforms at once.
Account opening, step by step
In outline, the process runs in the same sequence whichever route you take. It starts with a category check: confirming that what you sell can be advertised on the platform at all, and which licences your category needs. Next comes the document file — business registration, the product or landing pages to be promoted, brand documentation and category qualifications — submitted either by your Chinese entity or by the agency acting for you. Reviewers then check the business, the category and the destinations; follow-up questions are common, and regulated categories are examined licence by licence.
Once the account is approved, it is funded with a prepaid balance and the promoted assets are configured — the app, website or product pages the campaigns will point to, each of which may have its own short review. Only then do campaigns get built and creatives submitted for their own review. Advertisers new to Chinese platforms often compress these steps in their planning and assume the account is the finish line; in reality the account is roughly the midpoint, and the asset and creative reviews that follow it are where launch dates are won or lost.
The main formats: Bida, creator deals and content promotion
Self-serve media buying runs through Bida (必达), Bilibili’s performance advertising platform. Through an ad account on Bida, advertisers buy placements such as in-feed video and image ads, splash and display inventory, and search-related placements, with targeting and bidding managed in the platform’s backend. This is the part of Bilibili advertising that resembles other performance channels, and it is what an ad account is for.
Creator marketing is organised separately. Huahuo (花火) is Bilibili’s official platform for commercial collaborations with UP主 (the platform’s creators), where brands commission reviews, integrations and dedicated videos under platform contracts. Creator deals are negotiated per creator and are not bought through the ad account, though brands often run both: creator content builds credibility with the community, and Bida placements add controlled reach around it. Smaller-scale content promotion tools — the kind of boosting often grouped under names such as Sanlian promotion — likewise sit on the content side rather than in the media account. An agency such as ADFFY can set up the account side and coordinate timelines, but budgeting should keep media spend and creator fees in separate lines.
Practical notes for overseas advertisers
Localisation on Bilibili goes beyond translation. Creative that performs is usually made for the platform: a presenter or narrative that acknowledges the community, pacing that suits long-form viewing, and titles and covers written the way UP主 write them. Dubbed or subtitled versions of global creative can work for product demonstrations, but they rarely carry a campaign on their own. Expect to budget for creative adaptation, not just media.
Measurement needs the same adaptation. Bilibili campaigns often aim at community actions — follows, favourites, comments, searches for the brand afterwards — alongside direct conversions, and the value of a creator video may keep accumulating for weeks as it is recommended and searched. Judging the platform purely on last-click performance in the first days tends to undervalue exactly what it is good at.
Timelines also differ from feed platforms. Creator collaborations are booked ahead and produced on the creator’s schedule, and Bilibili campaigns are often built around launches, game updates, school terms or platform events. Finally, the usual China-wide points apply: the backend is in Chinese, accounts are prepaid and funded in RMB — through an agency if you have no local entity — and advertising content is reviewed against Chinese advertising law, including its restrictions on absolute and exaggerated claims. If you are weighing Bilibili against other Chinese platforms for the same launch window, our overview of agency ad accounts sets out how the entry routes compare.
Frequently asked questions
Is Bilibili only worth it for gaming brands?
No, though games are a core strength. Consumer electronics, apps, online education and other products aimed at younger users also have established audiences. The real test is whether your product has a story this audience would watch voluntarily; if it does not, other platforms will usually be a better first entry.
Do I need a Chinese company to advertise on Bilibili?
Not necessarily. Brands with a Chinese entity can open an account directly under it; overseas brands without one normally open through an agency, which submits their home-country business documents for qualification review and handles top-ups.
What is the difference between Bida ads and working with UP主?
Bida is the self-serve performance platform: you buy feed, display and similar placements through the ad account with targeting and bidding controls. Working with UP主 is creator marketing, contracted through the Huahuo platform and priced per creator. The two are complementary but budgeted and managed separately.
How long does it take to open a Bilibili ad account?
With complete documents, typically a few business days. Regulated categories take longer because licences are checked individually, and creator collaborations — if they are part of the plan — run on their own, longer production timelines.
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