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Marketing in Korea, explained

If you are bringing a product or a shop to Korea, most of what you know about search and social media still applies. Three things do not. Naver comes before Google.

Reviews feed the search engine directly. And the law asks for a few things before you sell. This guide covers those differences, using official documents wherever we could get them.

About this site

An independent guide for businesses entering Korea. We sell nothing and collect nothing. Every claim rests on the platforms' own documents or the statute text; Korean quotes are verbatim and checked against our archive on every build.

Where we could not find a source, we say so.

How to use it

  1. Pick a platform in the tabs above. Naver, Google, Selling, and the law before you start.
  2. Read the evidence mark under each title. A means we hold the original text; B means secondary sources, written as "reportedly".
  3. Korean version: the 한국어 button at the top right opens the same article in Korean.

Where Koreans actually search

Numbers here carry the survey, the year and who was asked. Without those three, a number is not worth repeating. We checked each figure against the publisher's own page on 2026-09-18. A

ServiceUsed in the last 3 months (Opensurvey, AI Search Trend Report 2026 H1, 1,000 people aged 10 to 59, Dec 2025)
Naver81.6%
YouTube72.3%
ChatGPT54.5%
Gemini28.9%

Naver and YouTube are trending down and the AI services up. In the H2 report (July 2026) ChatGPT reached 58.1% and Gemini 52.2%. Still, when people look for everyday local information, 67.1% open Naver first. The direction is set. But today, most of your customers still start on Naver.

A plan that starts with Google and Instagram will miss most of them.

Generative AI use reached 44.5% of the whole population in 2025 (Ministry of Science and ICT survey, 50,750 people aged 3 and over). Among internet users it was 87.4% in 2026 (KT Nasmedia NPR; the publisher's summary does not state the sample size). Both are correct.

They asked different people. Keep the sample next to the number.

Sources: Opensurvey AI Search Trend Report 2026 H1 and H2 summary; KT Nasmedia 2026 NPR key findings; Ministry of Science and ICT, 2025 Survey on Internet Usage press release. All opened on 2026-09-18.

All posts

Before you start 1

Law 1

  1. Before you sell in Korea: the law2026-09-11

Naver 3

Search 1

  1. How Naver search works, and what it removes2026-09-11

Place 1

  1. Naver Place: the listing local customers see first2026-09-11

Ads 1

  1. Paid channels in Korea: where the money leaks2026-09-11

Google 0

Domain 0

No posts yet.

Selling 1

Smart Store 1

  1. Selling online in Korea: Smart Store, Coupang, Instagram2026-09-11

How to read the grades

MarkMeaning
AWe hold the full official text. Korean passages in “quotes” are verbatim and are checked against our archive every time the site is built. English renderings next to them are ours.
BSeveral secondary sources agree, but we could not open the original. We write "reportedly" and do not state figures as fact.
Editor's noteAn interpretation we made by joining two sources. No document says it that way.

Platform rules are re-checked every six months, AI topics every three, laws at each amendment. Each page shows its publish and update dates.