Things to Know Before Starting Baidu Advertising

If you are looking to expand in the Chinese market and you want your brand to be discoverable to the most people possible, Baidu is something you cannot ignore. Baidu is the largest search engine in China, and investing in Baidu advertising will ensure your brand is visible to potential customers, but before you start, there are certain things you need to know to make the most out of your marketing efforts.

The Process for Creating a Baidu Account

When comparing the process of making a Baidu account to a Google AdWords account, it is a much more complicated and costly task. When you create a Baidu PPC account for your Baidu advertising, you have to provide an extensive list of documents due to the strict laws in place for the Chinese internet. You should look over the creation guide provided by Baidu to ensure that you have all the documents necessary and that you meet the additional requirements they have, especially as a foreign company. Once your Baidu PPC account is approved, you have to deposit an initial fee into your account before it is finalized. Any payments you need to make to Baidu to pay for advertising have to be deposited manually; there is no automated method.

Character Limits of Baidu PPC Ads

When considering the copy that you place into your Baidu PPC ads, there is a much larger character limit than compared to Google AdWords. With more space, you can be more descriptive in your Baidu advertising. You get 50 characters of space for the ad titles, and for each line of the ad, you get 80 characters of space. However, only the first “like” of your ad description is likely to show immediately on the search results page, so you should focus your most important message in that line; it must be able to stand alone to attract customers.

Baidu Analytic Capabilities

Once you have set-up your Baidu PPC account, you are going to need to understand what keywords are going to work in the Chinese market because they will most likely be different than in the Google environment. Baidu, with its own keyword research tool, gives you a way to research your competition to understand which keywords are going to be the best to use for your Baidu advertising. Baidu’s advertising platform also comes with everything you need to manage your marketing campaign.

Localizing your Ad’s Copy

Don’t waste your time creating an English copy for your Baidu advertising because nobody is likely to click through on your ads that way. Ensure that all the copy you produce for your Baidu ads has been properly translated to Chinese and has been tailored to work with local markets and trends. As well, your site landing page should be in Chinese; if users keep going back from your page because it is in English, it will hurt your quality score for ad placement positioning.

Baidu Ads for Desktop and Mobile

When you are starting your Baidu advertising, you need to understand that, on desktops, a maximum of four ads will appear at the top of the search result pages, followed by organic results, and a maximum of two other paid ad results will appear at the bottom. As well, unlike Google Adwords, the ads that are shown on Baidu result pages are more subtle; they still show that they are ads, but the reference to being a PPC ad is much less noticeable, so many people will not realize that they have clicked on an advertised result.

Baidu Advertising in China

If you are looking to start advertising through the Baidu search engine in China, Westwin can help you create an effective Baidu advertising campaign to ensure Chinese customers can find you.