Xiaohongshu (often called RED) is where many Chinese consumers research products before buying them, especially in beauty, fashion, mother and baby, travel and home categories. For overseas brands it is frequently the first Chinese platform worth testing — but paid promotion there runs through a specific set of accounts that confuse first-time advertisers. This article explains how the pieces fit together and how an overseas brand actually gets an ad account opened and funded.
Three pieces: brand account, Juguang and the ad account
The first piece is the brand account, technically a professional account (专业号). This is your brand’s verified identity on Xiaohongshu: the profile that posts organic notes, appears in search results and anchors your presence on the platform. Verification confirms that a real registered business stands behind the name.
The second piece is Juguang (聚光), Xiaohongshu’s advertising platform. Feed ads and search ads are created, targeted and funded here. The ad account inside Juguang holds your prepaid balance and your campaigns, and it is normally linked to your brand account so that ads can run under the brand’s identity and point to its notes and profile.
The third piece, Pugongying (蒲公英), is the platform’s creator-collaboration marketplace, where brands commission KOL and KOC notes. Pugongying is a separate system from the ad account — you do not need it to buy media — but many brands use both, and promoted distribution for creator content is often planned alongside Juguang campaigns. Keeping the three roles separate in your mind makes the opening process much easier to follow.
How overseas brands get an account opened
As with other Chinese platforms, there are two broad paths. A company with a Chinese entity can open accounts directly under that entity. An overseas brand without one normally works through an agency: the agency submits the brand’s overseas business registration for brand-account verification where applicable, opens the Xiaohongshu ad account on Juguang, links the two, and handles top-ups and troubleshooting afterwards.
The document set is similar to other Chinese platforms: business registration from your home jurisdiction, your website or store links, and brand or trademark documentation where relevant. One difference is emphasis. Because Xiaohongshu is a product-research platform, reviewers pay close attention to whether the products being promoted are properly documented for the Chinese market — which leads directly to the category checks below.
What to prepare before you apply
Applications go more smoothly when a few things are settled before any form is submitted. The first is your Chinese brand presentation: how the brand name is written in Chinese, and whether that name and your trademarks are protected in China. Trademark registration in China is not always a formal requirement for account opening, but reviewers may ask for brand documentation, and having the Chinese-market position clear prevents delays later, particularly if local distributors or resellers also sell your products.
The second is a product documentation pack for exactly the items you intend to promote first: registrations or filings where they exist, ingredient or specification sheets, and the claims your current marketing makes about each product, collected in one place. Reviewers work through this material category by category, and a brand that arrives with it organised will usually clear review faster than one assembling documents in response to follow-up questions. The third item is a realistic first content plan — which existing notes, product pages or creator content the ads will point to — because the ad account review looks at destinations as well as documents.
Categories that get extra scrutiny
Beauty and personal care, health supplements, food, and medical-adjacent services face the closest review, because they dominate the platform and because Chinese rules on product claims are strict. Depending on how your products enter China — general trade or cross-border e-commerce — different documentation applies. Products sold through general trade generally need the relevant Chinese registrations or filings, such as cosmetics filing, before they can be advertised with full product claims. Cross-border products are advertised under a different set of constraints, and what your ads and product pages may say is narrower.
Claims are the other recurring issue. Efficacy language that is routine in Western beauty marketing — whitening guarantees, anti-ageing promises, weight-loss claims for supplements — is restricted or prohibited, and reviewers check note content and ad copy against those rules. Brands entering Xiaohongshu should expect a compliance pass over their existing copy, not just a translation of it. None of this makes the platform closed to overseas brands; it means the document and copy preparation is a real workstream, not a formality.
Feed ads, search ads and Pugongying: what the ad account actually does
Feed ads appear in the discover feed as promoted notes, blending with organic content and optimised toward actions such as profile visits, product clicks or messages. Search ads appear against keywords, and they matter disproportionately on Xiaohongshu because users treat the platform as a search engine for product decisions — searching a category, a problem or a brand name before they buy. Both formats are bought and managed inside Juguang, funded from the ad account’s balance.
Pugongying, by contrast, is where you pay creators, not the platform’s ad system: budgets there go to commissioned notes. In many setups, strong creator or organic notes are then given paid distribution through Juguang, which is why the two are often planned together. An agency such as ADFFY can coordinate the account side of this, but the distinction is worth keeping: media budget sits in the ad account; creator fees do not.
Top-ups and running the account
Juguang accounts are prepaid. On the agency route, you pay the agency — commonly by wire transfer, with some agencies accepting USDT — and the account is credited in RMB. Ask how conversion and handling are charged before the first top-up. The Juguang backend is in Chinese, reporting is issued against the account entity, and campaign planning usually has to take account of Chinese shopping festivals and seasonal demand peaks, when competition for the same audiences rises sharply.
If you are opening accounts on several platforms in the same quarter, the entity and document logic repeats with platform-specific variations; our overview of agency ad accounts summarises how the routes compare.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need a brand account before I can open an ad account?
In practice, yes. Ads on Xiaohongshu run under a verified brand identity, and the Juguang ad account is linked to the brand’s professional account. The two are usually set up together as one workstream: brand verification first, ad account alongside it.
Can an overseas company verify a Xiaohongshu brand account?
In many cases, yes — brand verification can be completed with an overseas business registration, sometimes with additional brand documentation. Eligibility varies by category, and regulated categories may need Chinese-market filings as well, so it is worth confirming your category’s requirements before starting.
Which product categories need extra documents?
Beauty and skincare, health supplements, food and medical-adjacent products are checked most closely. Depending on whether products enter China via general trade or cross-border channels, registrations or filings for the Chinese market may be required before full product claims can run.
Is Pugongying the same as the ad account?
No. Pugongying is the marketplace for commissioning creator notes; the ad account on Juguang is where media budget sits for feed and search advertising. Brands often use both, and creator notes are frequently given paid distribution through Juguang, but the budgets and systems are separate.
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