China is not a translated market: How global game publishers can prepare for growth

• Scale is not the hard part of working in China - readiness is.
• Start before the media plan or campaign goes live.
• Don't just translate the game - localise the intent.
• Give Apple Ads a specific job.

China offers massive potential for global mobile games, but sustainable growth starts long before the media budget is deployed. Kash Ismail of Ann9 | MStars.ai outlines how publishers can lay the foundations to test, learn and scale with control. 

When global publishers look at China, the first thing that catches their eye is scale. But scale isn't the hard part - readiness is. 

Across 15-plus years in paid search, social, programmatic, e-commerce and international performance marketing, I keep seeing the same pattern: media performs best when the operating foundation underneath it is already solid. A great game and a generous budget can buy attention. They can't buy clear market ownership, real localisation, or fast decision-making - and without those three, no amount of spend closes the gap. 

For publishers planning to enter or expand in Greater China, preparation happens in a few distinct layers. 

1. Start before the media plan 

Before a single campaign goes live, your team should be able to answer four practical questions: 

• Is the publishing and approval route clear? Local authorisation, policy requirements, claim guidelines, review timelines, and anything else that could stall promotion. 
• Who owns execution? Global and local teams need clear lines on campaign management, reporting, approvals and escalations - decided before launch, not during it. 
• Is your App Store presence actually localised? Translating the title and metadata isn't localisation. Screenshots, core value propositions, product pages and keyword coverage all need to reflect how local players actually search for and talk about games. 
• How are you measuring post-install success? A launch built to explore a new market shouldn't be judged against the same metrics as a mature, scaling campaign. 

Skip any of these and more budget won't fix it - it just means learning the same lesson at a higher price. 

2. Translate the game, localise the intent 

Discovery usually starts well before a player lands on the App Store page - through short-form video, livestreams, creator content, gaming communities, or comparisons to a familiar local title. By the time someone types a query into search, they already have a specific vocabulary and a specific set of expectations. 

High-intent search terms in China lean on local genre slang, specific gameplay mechanics, abbreviations, IP references and competitor comparisons. A translation can be grammatically perfect and still miss what players are actually searching for. 

This is where local market knowledge earns its keep. Keyword research has to bridge real player culture with performance data - and feed that straight back into campaigns and App Store Optimisation (ASO), not sit in a separate report nobody reads. 

3. Give Ads on the App Store a specific job 

Apple Ads works best with a clearly defined role inside a broader launch strategy: capturing high-intent demand at the moment of download, protecting branded terms, expanding into category keywords, and surfacing which queries actually drive high-value players. 

The goal isn't just buying volume. It's understanding where those players come from and what to do next with that information. 

That means a campaign structure that explicitly separates intent: 

• Brand 
• Category / Genre 
• Competitor 
• Discovery 

Each pillar needs its own objective, budget and measurement logic. Skip the separation and results blur together - scaling turns into guesswork. 

4. Let AI close the gap between data and action - not set the strategy 

On an account running thousands of Chinese search terms, AI is genuinely useful: clustering terms into intent groups, catching emerging local slang or IP references before a human would spot them, flagging CPT or CPI anomalies across keyword sets, and pulling together the weekly recap so the team spends its time on decisions instead of formatting. 

What it shouldn't do is quietly set direction. Brand positioning, regulatory compliance, cultural read, and major budget calls still need an operator who's actually done this before. 

The model that works: AI spots the patterns and prepares the options. Experienced operators decide what goes live. 

5. Pair local execution with global visibility 

For international publishers, leaning on local expertise shouldn't mean losing the wheel. Your on-the-ground China team needs room to move fast; global leadership needs transparent reporting, standardised KPIs and a consistent operating rhythm. 

Ann9 is our operating entity in China and an official Apple Ads Partner in Greater China - handling local strategy, Chinese keyword intelligence, campaign structuring and hands-on bidding. 

MStars.ai sits on top as the global platform layer - full visibility, cross-market analytics, unified reporting and governance for international teams. 

Technology provides the structure. What actually drives results is the operating cadence underneath it: what changed, why it changed, what we recommend next, and who owns the action. 

Final thoughts 

China isn't just another market to translate. Publishers who put in the time on an agile local operating model, genuine player intent, and a tight test-and-learn loop end up in a far stronger position to scale profitably.