Advertising in South Korea with Google Ads: how to launch and what changes

In short

• Which language to write in? Korean. Google removed the language setting from Search campaigns: the language of your ads decides. Ads, keywords and landing page in Korean; English, Japanese or Chinese need their own campaign or ad group, for an audience that does not read Korean.
• Is translating your keywords enough? No. Brands and loanwords are typed in Hangul as well as in Latin letters, and an expression of several words can be typed spaced or run together. Rebuild the list in Korean and check it in the search terms report.
• Is Google Ads enough to be seen? No: in the facts table, Naver stands close to Google, and it sells its ads separately, with its Advertiser Center and its Powerlink product. It is the number one particularity of the country.
• Who sends the invoice, with which tax? Google Korea LLC or Google Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd., depending on the agreement signed, with Korean VAT. No country-specific surcharge in Google's list.
• Which sectors are regulated? Gambling (a few products, state-run or state-licensed operators) and others such as alcohol or health; Naver adds its own criteria.
• When to slow down or speed up? Around Seollal and Chuseok, two lunar calendar breaks whose dates move from one year to the next: watch them in Google Trends set to South Korea.

Key takeaway: Build a separate Korean campaign, in native Korean, with both the Hangul and Latin-letter spellings of your brands; read the Korean Google page of each keyword before you pay for a click; treat Naver as a distinct decision, with its own account.

Country fact sheet

Data verified on 14 October 2026. Each value was read on its source on the date shown. It may have changed since: the source prevails.

The method, step by step

1. Step 1 — Build a campaign reserved for South Korea

   Keep this market apart from the others to read its results without mixing. In the settings, add South Korea as the location. Google recommends the broad Presence or interest option for Search and keeps Presence for those who only want people located on the spot: choose based on your offer.

2. Step 2 — Write in Korean, one language per campaign

   For the audience of the country, write ads, keywords and landing page in Korean, since Google matches ad and search based on language. For foreign visitors or residents, open a separate campaign or ad group, in their language. The facts table at the top of the page gives the languages Google Ads recognizes.

3. Step 3 — Rebuild the keywords in native Korean

   Do not translate: open Keyword Planner set to South Korea and Korean. For each idea, note the Hangul spelling, the Latin spelling when there is one, and the spaced and run-together versions. Our guide on how to choose Google Ads keywords covers the method.

4. Step 4 — Read the Korean Google page before any bid

   Open the Google results page from South Korea, in Korean, for each keyword, and note the ads, the pages that rank and the local block. The Should I Bid intent analysis automates this reading and returns a Bid, Test or Skip verdict.

5. Step 5 — Fix the politeness level and have it reviewed

   Choose a single ending for all your copy, then ask a native Korean speaker to review the ads and the landing page. State your prices in won and delivery, return or service terms that apply in South Korea.

6. Step 6 — Identify the billing agreement and VAT

   Check in your account, or with Google support, which of the two Korean agreements concerns you. Depending on that agreement and your status, Google adds VAT, or sends a monthly electronic invoice to a company with a business registration number. Go over with your accountant what is recoverable.

7. Step 7 — Check the rules of your sector at Google and at Naver

   Some sectors follow country-specific rules. For gambling, Google only accepts certain products and state-run or state-licensed operators in South Korea. Naver also applies its own registration criteria: read both before you write.

8. Step 8 — Test, exclude, then weigh Naver

   Start with a capped trial budget, go through the search terms report and exclude each spelling that brings clicks with no buying intent. With those results in hand, judge whether a Naver account for Powerlink deserves the investment.

Writing in Korean: ad language, Hangul, spaces and politeness

The language of a Search campaign is now decided in the text of your ads: write them, with your keywords, in Korean. Since Google removed the language setting from Search campaigns, each ad is shown according to its own language, and Google puts forward those that match the language of the search. The geographic location is what you use to choose the audience. To keep things clear, plan one campaign, or at least one ad group, per language. The Framework Act on the Korean Language names Korean as the official language of the country. The facts table at the top of the page lists the languages Google Ads recognizes: English, Japanese or Chinese only serve if you want to speak to visitors or residents who do not read Korean, with ads and keywords written in their language.

Hangul is the alphabet of Korean, and your keywords do not fit in a single spelling. Wikipedia describes a language written with an alphabet, with spaces between words (which neither Chinese nor Japanese have), and whose Chinese characters, hanja, are mostly kept for specific cases such as newspapers. The article states that recent loanwords, overwhelmingly from English, are written in Hangul following transcription rules. A hotel is thus written 호텔 and a smartphone 스마트폰, while a brand can circulate in two forms, for example iPhone and 아이폰. The same search can therefore target a product under several spellings.

What internet users type is observed, not presumed. The Framework Act lists Hangul spelling and loanword spelling among the norms of the language, without guaranteeing that every user applies them when typing. Open Keyword Planner set to South Korea and Korean, run a test, then pick out of the search terms report the forms that trigger your ads: Hangul, Latin letters, spaced version, run-together version. Add the missing forms as keywords and as negatives: according to Google Ads Help on negative keywords, a negative does not apply to close variants. Our comparison of negative keyword tools helps you keep those lists up to date.

The politeness level is part of the message. Wikipedia on Korean speech levels counts seven levels, marked by the verb ending. The formal polite level is cited there for addressing customers, the less formal polite level for exchanges between colleagues or strangers. The same sentence can therefore end in 합니다 or in 해요 and sound very different. Decide based on your brand and your audience, then apply the same level to the ads, the landing page and customer service.

Entrust the writing to a native speaker of Korean, or at least the review. A machine translation tool chooses neither the tone, nor the politeness level, nor the spelling your customers type for your brand. The following list sums up the variants to go through for each keyword idea.

• Brands and acronyms: Hangul form and Latin-letter form, for example 아이폰 and iPhone.
• Loanwords: Hangul spelling, for example 호텔 for hotel, to compare with the Latin form.
• Expressions of several words: spaced version and run-together version.
• Politeness level: a single ending for all the ads, for example 합니다 or 해요.
• Negatives: one entry per spelling, since a negative does not target close variants.

Google or Naver: who captures searches, and on which devices

A Google Ads campaign only reaches part of the searches in the country: in the facts table at the top of the page, Naver stands close to Google. Ads bought in Google Ads do not show on Naver, on Daum or on Bing. Before you set a volume goal, look at the share of each engine and ask yourself which audience you leave aside.

Naver is a full ad platform of its own: its search ads are ordered from it. Naver's page on search advertising (in Korean) says it is reached through its Advertiser Center. The basic product, Powerlink (파워링크), appears when a user types the chosen keyword and is billed per click, within a budget the advertiser sets. Other products complete the offer: shopping search, which assumes a store listed on Naver Shopping, brand search, sold under a fixed-term contract, and place search, reserved for businesses registered on Naver Smart Place.

On Naver's results page, Powerlink comes after other blocks. The same page gives the order of the integrated search: first brand search, then content that Naver offers itself (information about a public figure, exchange rates, weather), then Powerlink, then the sites of the 비즈사이트 (Biz Site) area. Naver warns that a priority block can appear above an ad that is already running, and that the advertiser can then cancel at no charge. Go and look by hand at Naver's results page, from South Korea, before you plan a budget there.

A company established outside South Korea can open a Naver account. The page Naver devotes to international advertisers answers yes to the question, presents official partner agencies (Global Growth Partner) that assist in English and other languages, and says no minimum budget is fixed. To learn which documents a foreign company is asked for, ask Naver or one of those agencies before you cost out this channel.

Naver applies its own acceptance criteria, separate from Google's. Its advertiser guide (in Korean) requires following its registration criteria. It judges inappropriate, among others, ads lacking the authorization or the filing that the law requires, products whose online sale is restricted (tobacco, medicines, alcohol, contact lenses), counterfeits, links to a site other than the one that was checked, and false or exaggerated claims of effectiveness. A message approved by Google is therefore not a given at Naver.

The facts table puts desktop slightly ahead of mobile in page views in South Korea. So test your landing pages on both kinds of screen rather than designing them for mobile alone. Once the campaign is running, compare with your account's device report: a split of page views at the scale of a country is not the split of your customers.

Billing, won and Korean VAT

The agreement you sign determines who invoices you, not the country where your ads show. In its South Korea section, Google's page on taxes by country describes two agreements: Google Korea LLC and Google Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd. It does not say which account address matches which agreement. Open your account, or write to Google support, to find out which one is yours.

VAT applies depending on the agreement and on your status. According to Google, it is paid to the Korean tax authority and is not included in the bids and budgets you enter: add it to your calculations. Under a Google Korea LLC agreement, it is added to all transactions. Under a Google Asia Pacific agreement, it is added too, except for a business advertiser that provides a valid business registration number, in the format xxx-xx-xxxxx. The rate can be read in the facts table and comes from the Value-Added Tax Act. Your accountant will tell you whether you can recover it: it all depends on your status and your country.

A company with a business registration number receives an electronic VAT invoice every month. Google says its local invoicing partner, MakeBill, sends it and that it is used for the tax filing, whereas an individual advertiser does not receive one. If you pay by card, the card receipt comes on top without replacing it. The page also describes a prepayment through LG U+, which deducts VAT from the payment, and monthly invoicing in won. Settle the payment method with your accountant before the first payment.

Google's surcharge list does not mention South Korea. The page on jurisdiction-specific surcharges lists other countries, but not this one: no local markup is therefore added to your test budget under that list. Check it again before a significant commitment, because Google can change it.

The won is the monetary unit of the country. The Bank of Korea Act names it as such. The currency of your Google Ads account is a separate choice, made when it was opened. On the customer side, show your prices in won, in the ads as well as on the landing page.

Advertising rules: gambling, alcohol and health

For gambling, Google sets a short list of allowed products in South Korea. Its page on country-specific rules keeps lotteries, sports betting and motorboat, bicycle and horse racing, provided the operator is state-run or state-licensed. Other online gambling is not given there as allowed. The same page places Korea among the locations where promoting offline gambling is prohibited. In this sector, read the page to the end, certification procedure included, before you write anything.

Other Google rules mention South Korea. The alcohol policy includes it in the list of countries where these ads can be targeted, subject to local laws. The healthcare and medicines policy allows there, with limitations, online pharmacies to promote over-the-counter medicines in line with local law. For finance and regulated products, open the policy page of your sector and look for South Korea before you write your ads: a rejection delays going live and blurs your first measurements.

What Google admits can remain restricted at Naver. Naver's advertiser guide classes alcohol and medicines among the products whose online sale is limited. If you aim at both platforms, have each message validated separately and note what each one accepts or refuses.

Look at who already advertises in South Korea before you set your messages. Our guide to the Google Ads Transparency Center shows how to filter ads by country, and the one on who bids on your keywords compares other methods. Have the ads you spot read by someone who understands Korean: without that, you will not know what your competitors say.

Calendar: Seollal, Chuseok and substitute days

Seollal and Chuseok are two major breaks of the lunar calendar, and each runs over three public holidays for government offices. The Regulations on Public Holidays of Government Offices, in the English translation of the Korea Legislation Research Institute, keep for each the day before, the day itself and the day after, according to the lunar calendar. The facts table at the top of the page gives their lunar dates: their place in the usual calendar therefore changes every year.

A substitute day can extend the break. The regulations provide that, if one of these breaks falls on another public holiday, Sundays included, the first non-holiday day that follows becomes a holiday. The page of Korea's Ministry of Personnel Management (in Korean), which sums up the holidays in force, states the same rule when the Seollal or Chuseok break falls on a Sunday or on another public holiday. The real length of the break therefore varies with the week: consult the official calendar of the year before you settle budgets and schedules.

The effect on your searches can be measured. Set Google Trends to South Korea, compare your keywords around these breaks over several years and note whether demand climbs, falls back or shifts. Then raise, reduce or suspend your budgets, depending on what you deliver and on who answers your customers on those days.

These public holidays are those of government offices. The regulations do not say whether your customers, carriers or providers are working: ask a local specialist for your teams and your contracts.

Common mistakes before launching in South Korea

Do not let the default geographic targeting decide for you. Google Ads Help on geographic targeting presents the broad Presence or interest option as a best practice for Search, and keeps Presence for cases where you only want people located in specific places, or for a sector with strict restrictions. For an offer that only serves South Korea, compare both on a test budget and read the location reports.

Do not carry over the structure of another market. Split campaigns by country and language to read each budget and each bid without mixing. Here, add one level: if you test the Hangul spelling and the Latin-letter spelling of the same keyword, name the ad groups after the spelling, to see which one converts.

Do not judge the Korean Google page by the one from your country, or by Naver's. Ads, ranking pages and local results depend on the country, the language and the engine: look at the results page from South Korea, in Korean, before you bid. Our guide to search intent in Google Ads teaches how to read it.

Should I Bid does this reading for you, one keyword after the other. Its intent analysis opens the Google results page of the country and language chosen, among 50 countries, returns a Bid, Test or Skip verdict with a score out of 100 and recommends negatives. It can also aim at a large city of the country, an optional setting useful for a local business. It reads Google, not Naver. It works with credits, one credit per keyword analyzed: see pricing.

FAQ

How do I launch a Google Ads campaign in South Korea?

Build a campaign reserved for South Korea. Write ads, keywords and landing page in native Korean, since Google matches ads based on their language, and test the Hangul spelling as well as the Latin one. Fix a politeness level, check the rules of your sector and your billing agreement, then start with a capped trial budget. Naver, which has its own ad platform, is a separate decision.

Should I write my keywords in Hangul?

Yes, in native Korean. Brands and loanwords are typed in Hangul as well as in Latin letters, and an expression of several words can be written spaced or run together. Open Keyword Planner set to South Korea and Korean, note the spellings in the search terms report, then add the missing ones to the keywords and to the negatives.

Does a Google Ads campaign also show on Naver?

No. Naver search ads are bought from Naver, through its Advertiser Center, with a basic product named Powerlink, billed per click. A foreign company can open an account there, with the help of official partner agencies. Measure your results on Google first, then judge whether this platform justifies a budget, reading its advertising rules too.

Who invoices Google Ads in South Korea, and with which tax?

Google describes two agreements for this country: Google Korea LLC and Google Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd. Korean VAT is added depending on the agreement and your status, and a company with a business registration number receives an electronic invoice every month. Your accountant will tell you what is recoverable. The rate is in the facts table at the top of the page.

How do Seollal and Chuseok influence a Google Ads campaign in South Korea?

They are two lunar calendar breaks, three public holidays each for government offices, with a substitute day when the break falls on another public holiday. Their dates move every year. Check the real effect in Google Trends set to South Korea, then adjust budgets, ad schedules and customer service accordingly.

Does Should I Bid analyze keywords on Korean Google?

Yes. It opens the Google results page of the country and language chosen, among 50 countries, including South Korea and Korean, weighs it against your offer and returns, for each keyword, a Bid, Test or Skip verdict with a score out of 100. It reads Google, not Naver. Free analyses, no credit card needed, let you try it: see pricing.

Sources

• Google Ads Help: taxes in your country (South Korea section: Google Korea LLC and Google Asia Pacific agreements, VAT, MakeBill) — Google Ads Help
• Google Advertising Policies: gambling and games, country-specific rules (Korea) — Google Advertising Policies Help
• Google Advertising Policies: alcohol (list of countries that can be targeted, including South Korea) — Google Advertising Policies Help
• Google Advertising Policies: healthcare and medicines (South Korea) — Google Advertising Policies Help
• Google Ads Help: jurisdiction-specific surcharges (South Korea is not on the list) — Google Ads Help
• Google Ads Help: About language targeting (setting removed from Search campaigns) — Google Ads Help
• Google Ads Help: target ads to geographic locations (Presence, Presence or interest) — Google Ads Help
• Google Ads Help: About negative keywords (no matching to close variants) — Google Ads Help
• Naver Advertiser Center: search ads (Powerlink, shopping search, brand search), in Korean — NAVER Corp.
• NAVER Ads: Global Growth Partner (foreign companies, partner agencies, minimum budget) — NAVER Corp.
• Naver Advertiser Center: advertiser guide and ad registration criteria (in Korean) — NAVER Corp.
• Framework Act on Korean Language, Article 3 (English translation, Korea Legislation Research Institute) — Korea Legislation Research Institute
• Bank of Korea Act, Article 47-2: the won (English translation) — Korea Legislation Research Institute
• Value-Added Tax Act, Article 30: the tax rate (English translation) — Korea Legislation Research Institute
• Regulations on Public Holidays of Government Offices: Seollal, Chuseok and substitute days (English translation) — Korea Legislation Research Institute
• Ministry of Personnel Management (인사혁신처): public holidays of government offices, substitute rule (in Korean) — Ministry of Personnel Management
• StatCounter: search engine market share in South Korea — StatCounter Global Stats
• Wikipedia: Korean language (Hangul, spaces between words, hanja, loanwords) — Wikipedia
• Wikipedia: Korean speech levels (seven levels, formal polite, casually polite) — Wikipedia