How Xiaohongshu marketing drives 625% search surge in Double 11?

In recent years, China's Double 11 Shopping Festival has faced a critical shift - consumers are no longer driven by impulse buying, but are turning to "rational shopping" - buying less but better. In this shift, Xiaohongshu (rednote) stands out, transforming from a "planting grass" (product discovery) platform to a sales conversion engine.

Take Naitangpai, a niche lingerie brand targeting women with larger busts. By leveraging Xiaohongshu marketing strategies like user insights and KOL collaborations, the brand saw a 625% surge in search index and topped e-commerce rankings. Similarly, Tmall's collaboration with Xiaohongshu ads for the "Double 11 Treasure Goodies" IP generated 4.1 billion+ exposures, proving that authentic content + seamless shopping integration drives sales.

This article explores how Xiaohongshu bridges discovery and transaction, analyzing its grass-planting mechanics, conversion strategies, and measurable success factors during Double 11.

1. Xiaohongshu's Grass-Planting Mechanics

1.1 Data-driven user insights

Xiaohongshu’s competitive advantage lies in its ability to interpret user intent through advanced behavioral analysis technology. For example: Nut Candy Pie discovered a niche but strong user intent search term: "Underwear that makes big breasts look smaller". This search term revealed a dual need - functional comfort and emotional confidence - which became the cornerstone of its content strategy. Notes such as "How to dress confidently and have fuller breasts" combined styling tips with body positivity, driving a 625% surge in search index. And seasonal adaptability further amplified the impact.

1.2 Expert User Portraits and Trust Building

In the Xiaohongshu ecosystem, trust is a critical "currency". With its professional account services, Topkee helps brands build highly authoritative user portraits, and by adopting the "category expert" model, it significantly improves brand engagement among users, with remarkable results.

In terms of content creation, Topkee uses video production services to carefully create tutorials and Q&A posts that fit the brand style. These contents not only clearly present the product advantages, but also successfully cultivate an atmosphere of trust in the community.

In the field of Internet celebrity cooperation, many brands cooperate with micro-influencers (with fans between 10,000 and 50,000). The friendly and natural style of micro-influencers is highly consistent with the brand concept. At the same time, relying on Topkee's interaction management tools, it can ensure the continuity of interaction and greatly increase the like rate of posts.

In addition, Topkee has a complete KOL cooperation framework:

• Authenticity first, more far-reaching impact: Topkee uses fan portrait analysis to accurately screen micro-influencers. These micro-influencers are closely connected to the niche market and surpass celebrities in terms of interaction rate. Based on their deep understanding and close connection with the niche field, they can establish a more real and close interaction with the audience, making brand communication more effective.
• Content synergy, value integration: Topkee deeply integrates the style and tone of the influencer's own style with the core value of the brand, and carefully crafts the communication content. From the unique expression of the influencer to the transmission of the brand concept, seamless connection is achieved to ensure that each piece of information has a strong cohesive force, so that the audience can clearly perceive the brand charm when they are exposed to the content, and steadily improve the brand influence.

1.3 High-Efficiency Grass-Planting

Xiaohongshu relies on the integration of advertising and e-commerce to form a closed-loop ecosystem, which greatly accelerates the conversion process. Key indicators strongly reflect this efficiency: According to the Xiaohongshu report, up to 80% of pregnant and postpartum users can complete the conversion after ≤5 exposures. This data fully demonstrates the platform's powerful ability to shorten the user decision cycle.

The popular posts released by the brand successfully promoted more than 10,000 e-commerce searches with just one tweet, which strongly proves the effectiveness of lead collection and product influence strategies.

To further improve the efficiency of seeding, Topkee provides a series of optimization tools:

• Search interception: With the help of Topkee's precise advertising service, bid on high-intent keywords to accurately reach potential users.
• User-generated content amplification: actively encourage shoppers to share the #OOTD (Today's Outfit) tag, and use Topkee's social customer service to manage interactions to continue to maintain the popularity of communication.

If brands can integrate Topkee's end-to-end operational solutions, that is, starting from data-driven insights, creating trust-building content, and conducting performance advertising, they can effectively convert Xiaohongshu's potential for seeding into quantifiable sales growth.

2. Conversion Strategies During Double 11

2.1 Dual Platform Collaboration (Xiaohongshu + E-commerce)

Xiaohongshu marketing thrives alongside Tmall, combining discovery with transaction efficiency. The "Double 11 Treasure Goodies" IP featured celebrity "Seeding Officers" sharing unboxing content, with a "Get Same Product" button linking directly to Tmall. 

Taking the "Double 11 Treasure Goodies" IP launched by Xiaohongshu and Tmall as an example, the event invited 19 celebrities such as Ouyang Nana and Xu Lu to serve as "Treasure Star Seeding Officers". Celebrities shared real content such as unboxing videos and home guides to showcase their personal selected products, which aroused strong resonance among users. The "Get the Same Product" button in the post directly connects to the Tmall product page, greatly reducing the obstacles in the conversion process.

The cooperation has achieved remarkable results:

• The average search index of participating brands increased by 2165%.
• Ryukakusan topped the Tmall candy and snack category, and "Vigo Projector" became a best-seller in the same category.
• Shiseido’s “Red Kidney” serum sold 220,000 units, solidifying its leading position in the beauty industry.

This synergy fits with user behavior patterns. Data shows that more than 40% of users search for shopping guides on Xiaohongshu before shopping on Double Eleven, making Xiaohongshu a key node in the decision-making chain. Combining Xiaohongshu’s rich content environment with Tmall’s transaction function, brands can capture user needs in advance and achieve conversions efficiently.

2.2 Phased Content Funnel

To maximize conversion rates, brands need to develop targeted content based on the different stages of the user journey during Double Eleven:

• Pre-sale period (October): The focus is on creating an atmosphere of anticipation. Celebrities and KOLs publish “What’s in my shopping cart” related posts to recommend must-have products and stimulate user curiosity and early interest through social proof.
• Mid-term event (November 1-10): Content shifts to comparison and education. User-generated product comparisons (such as “Product X vs. Y”) and in-depth reviews help users evaluate products, eliminate concerns, and enhance purchase intentions.
• Final payment period (November 11): Use "last chance offers" and limited-time discounts to create a sense of urgency. Countdowns, exclusive packages and other means to encourage hesitant buyers to place orders.

At the same time, the "KFS (keyword-focused search) model" further optimizes this content strategy. Brands lock in high-intent keywords such as "Double 11 skin care product sale" to ensure that ads are displayed when users actively search. For example, Naitangpai has an advantage in the search for "summer underwear" by ranking in the top three of "pain point keywords" and placing information flow ads for users who interact with notes related to bras.

2.3 Performance Ads

Xiaohongshu's performance ads are committed to efficiently converting high-intent users. The main strategies are as follows:

• Search interception: Bid for high-intent keywords (such as "comfortable bras for large breasts") to accurately attract users with needs.
• Information flow ads: Secondary positioning and delivery to users who have interacted with related content to strengthen brand exposure during the key period of user decision-making.
• Amplify user-generated content: encourage consumers to share posts with hashtags such as #OOTD (outfit of the day) to promote high-quality content and expand its reach.

For example, Naitangpai combined search advertising with KOL cooperation, and its search index and category dominance increased by 625%. The "Double Eleven Treasures" IP achieved 4.1 billion+ impressions and 130 million+ page views with performance advertising, fully proving that the combination of precise delivery and high-quality content can bring considerable ROI.

By integrating strategies such as dual-platform collaboration, phased content funnels and performance advertising, brands can effectively convert Xiaohongshu's potential for seeding into tangible sales growth during Double Eleven.

3. Success Factors & Metrics

3.1 Reasons for Xiaohongshu’s success: the core driver of conversion

Xiaohongshu has become a highly effective marketing platform because of its unique emotional interaction model, community ecology built on trust, and data-driven precision marketing strategy. Topkee further amplifies these advantages with its professional operational capabilities.

• Emotional resonance + functional solutions

Xiaohongshu is good at using customized content strategies to meet consumers’ psychological and practical needs. Topkee uses a method of in-depth analysis of platform characteristics and user characteristics to create notes that can both trigger emotional resonance and highlight product functions. For example, marketing activities that combine positive self-image shaping with specific product solutions have led to a sharp rise in search indexes, fully demonstrating the powerful power of combining emotional appeals with practical benefits.

• Trust is currency

Xiaohongshu’s community is based on authenticity, and 49% of users will give priority to “real reviews” when interacting with content. Topkee further strengthens this trust by working with micro-influencers (10,000 to 50,000 followers). These micro-influencers, with their expertise and affinity, have received a high like rate of 47% and over 10,000 store visits per post. In addition, Topkee's social customer service team can respond to private messages, comments, and @mentions in a timely manner, further consolidating brand credibility and cultivating long-term stable user relationships.

• Deterministic ROI Framework

Topkee's advertising team uses Xiaohongshu's Keyword Focused Search (KFS) model to efficiently capture high-intent users. By bidding on popular keywords and aligning ads with the rhythm of staged content, the brand achieved multiple exposures and higher page views. This strategy is combined with diversified advertising formats such as short videos and live broadcasts to maximize engagement and conversion rates.

3.2 Quantifiable Impact: Case Studies and Benchmarks

Topkee's approach has achieved significant and measurable results in brand exposure, user engagement, and sales conversion rates, as evidenced by platform benchmark data and customer success stories.

• Precise delivery, category dominance

Topkee uses customized theme scheduling and data-driven insights to accurately match content with user intent, and drives significant growth in search index through pain point keyword searches.

• Full platform efficiency indicators

Topkee's phased content funnel strategy has achieved significant results, with a conversion rate of up to 80% for niche audiences within ≤5 content exposures.

By integrating timely hot topics and implementing interactive management, the community activity is continuously maintained.

3.3 Brand replicable strategies

If brands want to succeed, they can take the following measures:

• Precise delivery: With the help of Topkee's behavioral data tools, content can be aligned with user intent and advertising delivery effects can be optimized.
• Building trustful cooperation: Work with Topkee to discover micro-influencers that are highly matched with the audience and ensure that the participation rate of endorsement activities exceeds industry benchmarks.

Brands can integrate Topkee's professional experience in emotional storytelling, community trust building, and performance-driven strategies to effectively transform Xiaohongshu's "grass planting" potential into sustained and stable sales growth.

Conclusion

Xiaohongshu’s unique “grassroots to sales model” is based on authenticity, data accuracy, and cross-platform agility. For brands, the following points are very instructive:

• Use professional accounts to create an expert and authoritative image.
• Keep content in sync with the user’s journey from pre-sale to final payment.
• Actively cooperate with Xiaohongshu’s commercial IP, such as participating in the “Treasure Good Things” project.

If you need help understanding the Xiaohongshu ecosystem, contact Topkee’s marketing experts to develop a winning marketing strategy!

 

 

 

 

 

Appendix

1. Inside and outside: Use a "smile" to release the product's free imagination
2. "Double 11 Treasures" dig for treasures with Xiaohongshu!
3. Tmall: A one-stop platform for promoting products and making a difference in Double 11