How to Use Baidu Paid Advertising in China

How to Use Baidu Paid Advertising in China

Doing business in China is one of the most appealing opportunities for companies around the world. As the Chinese economy keeps on growing and opening up to the Western world, the awareness of this market’s potential keeps increasing among business owners. Nowadays, savvy business managers cannot overlook the pressing Chinese demand for foreign products.

An agile way to establish your presence in the Chinese market and make your brand known to a larger audience is through paid online advertising. This method may already be familiar to you. However, the way you should approach online paid advertising in China may lead to new challenges for your business.

For one, Google is not even in the picture for online advertising in China. Therefore, you must learn how to use Baidu paid advertising if you want to reach the Chinese market.

Baidu vs Google Paid Advertising in China

 

Baidu in China is what Google is for the rest of the world.  Even though the name may not sound familiar to you, Baidu is one of the largest companies on the Internet. Therefore, if you want to reach Chinese customers and want them to see your products or your company, you must abide by Baidu rules.

To be entirely fair, even if you are targeting the Chinese market, you should not completely forget about Google since there is still a massive portion of the world that prefers this search engine. Therefore, Google can still drive some traffic to your online business. However, since Google is officially banned in China and people can access it only through a VPN, you should use it only as a secondary resource. To give you an idea, the effort you should put into ranking high with Google in China should be compared to the resources you would invest to rank high on Bing in the western world. Which is usually only a secondary revenue for your marketing campaigns.

Resources To Promote Your Brand Using Baidu

Let's take a look at what main resources you have at your disposal to use paid advertising with Baidu.

Baidu Tuiguang

This product is basically what Google calls Google AdWords or AdSense. It is a pay per click advertisement tool, and by far the main resource you will use for your Baidu paid advertising.

The use of Baidu Tuiguang is quite straightforward. You bid on selected keywords, and your advertisement will be displayed on the search results pages of Baidu.

Even though you may be familiar with this form of online advertising, when you use pay-per-click on Baidu, there a few things you need to know since there are differences from Google. We will go into the details of that in just a little bit.

Baidu Pay For Placement (P4P)

This product does not exist in Google and may be of use in promoting your online business in China.

As for any other pay-per-click campaign, when you use P4P, you have to bid on keywords, but you can also buy the right to have priority ranking in the search results.

Baidu Pro Theme

This tool is available for Baidu Union members and allows a user to display ad messages on Baidu products like search engine tools, music players, apps for desktops and so on. The ads displayed through this channel are highly targeted and relevant for a specific audience.

BaiduTV

This platform is mainly designed for video advertisement. Baidu TV allows the user to access Baidu Union member's websites and choose exactly where to display a video advertisement.

Getting Started With a Baidu Paid Advertising Campaign in China

As you can see, many of these tools differ somewhat from Google ads tools, but the differences may not look that intimidating.

In reality, there are just a few things that may become roadblocks for those who are new to paid Baidu advertising.

The first problem you may encounter is when attempting to open a Baidu account to start your advertising campaign. Where Google allows you to open your personal or business account at any time and for free, this is not the case with Baidu.

To open a Baidu account, you are required to have a business license and to send a copy of it to Baidu. Then, if you are a foreign company, you are required to pay a deposit for your advertising campaigns. After that, Baidu will ask an agent to open your account, and this process will take more or less one week. Only then you can start to manage your account.

On top of all that, another very important detail that you need to be aware of is that all of these steps have to be completed in Chinese because English is not accepted. Unless you can master the language correctly, you will need somebody to assist you during this process. In this regard, QPSoftware is here to help you open a Baidu account and start your paid advertising campaign in China.

How to Create a Successful Baidu Paid Advertising Campaign in China

As mentioned earlier, Baidu has its own specific rules you must know in order to set up a productive advertising campaign in China. Following are some of the critical elements you need to consider:

Title and Text Length

Baidu allows you to use 50 characters for your title and 80 for each line of text. Considering that you can have up to 2 lines of text, this is enough space to describe your product or company, and you must use it to your advantage. However, Baidu may decide to display only one line of text depending on the search result position. Therefore, pay extra attention to what you write on the first line of text to make sure you generate conversions.

Keyword Research

As you would do on Google, do your homework to find the keywords that are the most relevant to your business and your audience and use them for your PPC campaign. Baidu offers a keyword research tool that may assist you in this.

Speak to Your Audience in the Chinese Language

Never assume that your target audience will be satisfied with English. You must speak to the heart of your audience, and you can only do that if your ads are in Chinese. Furthermore,  if you translate your ad from English, make sure that it resonates with your Chinese audience. Sometimes, your copy may need to be rewritten or modified to achieve better results.

Always Monitor your Campaign

Baidu has some analytic tools to monitor how your website is doing and how your audience interacts with it. Make sure to implement these tools and learn how to use them effectively. Without appropriate monitoring, you may find yourself playing the guessing game, and this will most likely result in a waste of time and money.

Never rely solely on PPC

Even though PPC campaigns can be highly successful, it is essential that you also focus on SEO for your website. If you combine the benefits of a well planned PPC campaign and an effective SEO strategy for Baidu, you will get the maximum desired exposure on the Chinese market.

Are You Ready for Your Paid Advertising Campaign on Baidu?

 

As you can see, advertising online in China may pose some challenges to foreign companies.

However, if you can pass these roadblocks, you will have a chance to expand your business into one of the most lucrative markets on the planet.

QPSoftware is a top web agency in Shanghai, China and we have extensive knowledge of this market. We even know how to plan paid advertising campaigns on Baidu that achieve results.

Our team of international professionals can assist you in opening your Baidu account, planning your advertising campaign in China, and putting into place an SEO strategy for your website or e-commerce.

If you are ready to expand your business into China or if you want to discover more about it, contact us today, and we will assist you with your project.

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