Insights · Market entry marketing
Marketing in Japan: a practical starting point for overseas teams
Hand someone the job of marketing in Japan and most of what they will find comes in two flavours: cultural mystique, or a channel list copied from the home market with the names swapped. Neither answers the question you actually have, which is what to do first, and what to spend on.
Start with the shape of the market, not the folklore
Japan's advertising market is large, measured annually, and increasingly digital. In 2025, total advertising expenditure reached a record high, and internet advertising crossed a line it had never crossed before: "accounting for more than half of total advertising expenditures for the first time at 50.2%," as Dentsu's annual study puts it (Dentsu, March 2026 release, confirmed 6 August 2026).
Two things follow. First, a digital-first entry into Japan is not a budget compromise; it is how the majority of the market now spends. Second, the other half still exists — television, newspapers, out-of-home, direct mail, events. If you sell to consumers at scale, those channels are part of the conversation. For most overseas B2B and SaaS teams, they are not where the first budget goes.
The channels, and what each one is for
Search
This is where Japanese buyers compare vendors, and it is Google-first: Yahoo! JAPAN's search service runs on Google's engine, by its operator's own statement, and Google's share on phones has been large and stable for the past year. The device-level data, with sources, is in Japanese search engines: what the data actually shows. AI-generated search summaries draw on the same foundations, so work done for search is not lost when the answer arrives as a summary.
Paid search
The fastest way to put a Japanese message in front of a Japanese buyer and find out what happens. Google Ads and Yahoo! JAPAN's ad products are separate systems even though organic search shares an engine — which is why paid search is where the Yahoo! JAPAN question genuinely matters. The U.S. International Trade Administration's commercial guide lists search advertising on Google and Yahoo! among the standard ways to reach Japanese customers (ITA country commercial guide, updated November 2025, confirmed 6 August 2026).
LINE
LINE is the messaging layer of Japanese daily life: 100 million monthly active users in Japan, 81.3% of the population, by LY Corporation's own count as of 31 March 2026. What that means for you depends on what you sell. For consumer businesses, LINE official accounts are a serious retention and repeat-purchase channel. For B2B, LINE is more often a communication and support surface than an acquisition channel — acquisition usually starts at search.
Social and video
Social and video are the fastest-growing corners of the digital half: social ad spend grew 18.7% in 2025, and video advertising passed one trillion yen for the first time since estimates began (Dentsu, same annual study). Which platform matters shifts by category, and the honest position is that a market-level chart cannot make that call for you. Pick the platform where your category's buyers demonstrably spend attention, and check the assumption with your own measurement.
Everything that is not digital
Trade media, exhibitions and long relationship-building remain a normal part of B2B life in Japan. The ITA guide's observation is blunt: "Relationships are critical in Japan, and customers tend to be loyal to these long-term, well-maintained relationships." How much weight that carries in your plan depends on industry and deal size, not on a rule about the country. The practical implication is narrower than the folklore: marketing that produces a first conversation is worth more here than marketing that produces clicks.
The order matters: what to do in the first 90 days
You can spend a first Japan budget in almost any order. Most of the expensive mistakes come from picking the wrong one — a rebuilt site before anyone checked what Japanese buyers search for, or thirty articles before a single page could convert. The sequence below is ordered so that each step makes the next one cheaper.
- Check Japanese demand first. Which queries exist for your category, in which script variants, with what intent — and what already ranks for them. This is days of work, not months, and it changes every decision after it.
- Build one Japanese page around what you found. Not a translation of your homepage: one page aimed at the highest-intent queries, carrying the company information and proof a Japanese buyer expects. Whether a full site build is warranted also falls out of step 1 — that is Japanese website localization territory.
- Wire measurement before anything launches. Search Console, analytics, form events. If step 4 runs before this exists, its budget teaches you nothing.
- Run a small paid-search pilot. Paid is the cheapest fast test of Japanese messaging against real queries, and its search-terms data feeds the organic plan.
- Decide the content programme from data. Steps 1 and 4 tell you which topics deserve articles. Thirty articles first is the expensive version of guessing.
- Review the mix quarterly. Device split, channels, and what actually produced conversations. Market data like the chart above is the backdrop; your own analytics are the decision.
None of these steps requires a large retainer, and the first two are close to fixed-scope by nature. That is deliberate: the sequence exists so the cheapest learning happens first.
What does not transfer from your home market
- Keyword lists. Japanese queries are not translations of English ones. Script variants change intent, and some of your core terms have no meaningful Japanese equivalent at all.
- Proof. Logos and case studies that carry weight at home may mean nothing in Japan. Japanese B2B pages tend to carry explicit company information, terms and delivery detail — a page without them can read as incomplete to a buyer comparing vendors.
- Forms. Field expectations, required-field handling, confirmation steps and stated reply times differ, and this is repeatedly where localized sites lose the inquiry after everything else went right.
- The sales rhythm. Longer evaluations, more stakeholders, more weight on after-sales support — the ITA observation quoted above — with the caveat that this varies by industry and deal size far more than country-level advice admits.
Where the lines are
A marketing programme can build visibility, evidence and inquiries. It cannot register your company, hire your first employee, or answer your regulatory questions. For those, JETRO's Investing in Japan service is the public starting point, and the ITA guide linked above is worth reading in full for distribution and partnership strategy.
Our own lane is the layer in between: Japanese search demand, the pages built on it, the content and paid programmes that feed those pages, and the measurement that says whether any of it is working — Japan SEO services.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
How much should we budget for marketing in Japan?
There is no honest single number, and published minimums usually describe an agency's needs rather than yours. The structural answer: the first two steps of the sequence above — a demand check and one focused Japanese page — are close to fixed-scope, and a paid pilot runs on a budget you control week by week. Scale after those produce data, not before.
Is digital marketing in Japan different from other markets?
The tools are the same: Google, paid search, analytics. The inputs are not — queries, proof, form expectations and the weight of company information all change. In 2025 internet advertising crossed half of Japan's total ad spend for the first time, so a digital-first plan is the norm, not a shortcut.
Do we need a local agency or partner?
For distribution and sales, the ITA guide recommends local agents or distributors with industry relationships. For marketing execution, the requirement is narrower: someone who can research and write Japanese, and someone who reads the results. Where those sit — in-house, contractor, agency — matters less than whether both exist.
Does LINE work for B2B marketing?
LINE's reach is real: 100 million monthly users in Japan, by the operator's count. Its strength is retention and communication rather than B2B acquisition. Most B2B teams are better served starting with search, then revisiting LINE once there are customers to communicate with.
Is English content enough to start?
Some Japanese buyers read English, and English pages are fine for validating early interest. The comparison and decision content that wins inquiries is Japanese. When you want inquiries rather than signals, the priority pages need to exist in Japanese, built for Japanese queries — localization work, not translation.
How long until SEO produces results in Japan?
No one can promise a timeline, and we do not. Speed depends on the competition for your queries and the state of your site. The sequence above exists partly for this reason: a paid pilot produces learning in weeks while organic work compounds, and measurement tells you which is doing what.
If you want the demand check done for you
The first step of the sequence — which Japanese queries exist for your category, what ranks for them, and what that implies for your pages — is exactly what our written, fixed-scope review covers. Send your site and where you are with Japan, and we will reply with fit, an approach and a quote. That reply is free.