Building a Market Leadership from Scratch in China with Go-Global Merchants

Riskified, a fraud detection and protection platform for ecommerce merchants, was preparing to grow aggressively in China following a 9 figure funding round that put them squarely in Unicorn territory. Riskified had a few customers in China, but no real presence yet. The funding round would allow for the opening of an office and building a dedicated team in the country.

China’s cross-border ecommerce was booming, and merchants were meeting new challenges as they needed to adapt to various regulations, and types of fraud they were not familiar with in China. Riskified came with a proven solution, but little presence or reputation and few case studies that matter to Chinese merchants. At the same time, competitors were targeting China equally aggressively.

Riskified needed an agency that would understand the local merchant’s challenges, and be able to grow its service at the same pace as the business.

Influence Matters built a multi-pronged strategy that would target specific priority industries including travel, retail, technology brands in China that have large amounts of overseas credit card orders, and specific positions in each target company: CTO, CRO, heads of ecommerce, CSOs.

Messaging was designed over two main levels, first to build the corporate reputation of Riskified as a leader in the FDP industry, working with business and vertical media to showcase their experience, understanding of global markets and deep knowledge of the challenges Chinese merchants face when growing overseas. The second level covered product and technology, specifically around Riskified key product, their Chargeback Guarantee and explaining its role in the industry, positioning the company and its solutions as the most advanced and secure solution for merchants.

To deliver the messages and build awareness, Influence Matters engaged in vertical industrial media collaborations to promote through their various multimedia channels, including publishing whitepapers, writing bylines and in-depth articles, and collaborating with the media for CEO/COO briefing in person and virtually China.

In our 3 years (and counting) program process, we continuously adjusted media partnerships and promotional focus through periodic feedback and exposure metrics, supported by media clippings, monthly reports, and other feedback mechanisms. Coordinated marketing campaigns with important e-commerce milestones to assist in the growth of Riskified’s business through a progressive communication plan. By highlighting the key case studies, we could also demonstrate how Riskified’s solutions address the concerns of Chinese merchants entering the e-commerce global market.

To support the marketing effort, Influence Matters built owned platforms including the official WeChat account and the Chinese website, developing content strategies in line with the positioning, and turning them as resources and content hubs for eCommerce merchants in China.