We recently started running ads in Malaysia and Singapore for an ecommerce brand, while there are differences, we also found some surprising similarities

For context, the brand is into personal care products and has crossed over 20,000 MYR roughly 3.5L INR in the first 21 days, but beyond the numbers, what we learned about these markets was way more valuable

One of the apprehensions we had was language would be a barrier to scale, but we found a workaround for that (covered below), so to minimize testing budget and focus on scaling

1/ Longer ads produce better results
Currently advertising two products and in both the products the best ads are a 60+ second ad with no cuts in between and no crazy hook templates.  It is a single shot customer testimonial describing her experience of using the product and the results she got from it

2/ Type of creative that is universal
Transformational and before after ads that work here also convert very well there. Static ads that make/show a promise of better future alleviated of their current pain, repeatedly work. In the end the innate human desires are same across the globe – respect, be unique, gain higher status.  If an ad concept can tease anyone of this it has a high chance to convert across the globe by just changing the language

3/ On free shipping
While most parents in India offer free shipping even for a low AOV product this is not the case outside, there are certain shipping thresholds and this gives room to optimize and play on AOV. Currently the threshold is at 150 MYR and we plan to push towards 200 MYR as we start to introduce more higher-priced products and launch combo offers

4/ Starting with English ads
Malay and chinese are widely spoken languages in Malaysia with English being the 3rd highest.  Even then we plan to start with English ads and then once we found out the best concepts and add angles we converted them into other languages to reach broader set of population

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We are Bharat Mavens – Growth Marketing Partner for e-commerce and lead generation business.

Over 100cr+ revenue generated across our clients and with experience of growing brands above 1 crore+ in monthly revenue with strategic marketing, high-converting creatives and retention marketing to achieve their targets.

We partner with brands and sovle for

• Google & YouTube ads management
• Creative strategy and direction
• Meta ads management
• Copywriting

Brands who trust us – Bombay Shaving Company, Nuuk, Paaduks, Soulflower, MyBombae

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Looking to scale your brand with expert performance marketing?

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5/ On competition
It’s not just India, but other countries are also moving towards premiumization. The average price of product (in market) which the brand sells for 45 MYR is 30 MYR, if you can show the difference and value at higher price point, customers are willing.

Customers highly value the offline presence of a brand, there are multiple messages of people reaching out asking if they can buy anywhere offline. This might be because to establish trust with a new brand.

Our next steps is to go deeper into the culture of the country and create ads that resonate deeply with that, the kind of stuff Bata does when it enters a new country

Outside Indian market is more similar than most realize, the differences are often around returns, logistics and competition

In the end they are buying a product for the same results as one would buy here