Boasting over 400 million users, Baidu is China’s largest search engine.
That’s why it’s considered the way into the Chinese market for Western as well as local businesses. It’s where business owners go for paid search marketing.
Even if you have prior experience with Google AdWords, you’ll need a crash course in how things work over at Baidu because they have a very different process.
Read on to find out more!
- Avoid Reseller Agencies
Search marketing agencies in China do things differently compared to their western counterparts.
For instance, there are a lot of reseller agencies that basically work for Baidu on a commission basis. This means that they get paid twice; by Baidu and by the client whose account they’re managing.
As you can imagine, these types of agencies are invested in the Baidu platform and only offer services related to it. They’re not equipped to work on your website specifically or offer any insightful analysis of it.
They probably won’t use any Web analytics for that matter and they’ll base the changes they make based on advertiser feedback. That’s marketing in China for you.
- Offer Support in Real-Time
People in China are all about chat boxes and that’s how most businesses offer customer support.
This means that you need to adapt to the country’s fast-paced communication methods which include not only chat boxes but phone and QQ messenger as well.
The most important thing is to provide real-time communication to your customers and make sure that you have a human being ready to answer their questions.
Research shows that a campaign with real-time support is 3 to 4 times more likely to get conversions compared to one without. Of course, real-time chat is essential for e-commerce websites.
- Integrate Analytics
If you’ve ever worked with AdWords then you know that it’s easy to integrate it with Google Analytics.
Interestingly enough, the same can’t be said about Baidu’s pay-per-click platform. This means that anyone with an existing Google Analytics account will need customized Google URL parameters to provide useful insights and data.
Alternatively, you can use the analytics platform offered by Baidu, which as you would imagine, is well integrated into the platform. Other benefits of using Baidu Analytics is that it offers an effective heat map tool and a reporting tool.
The only issue is that Baidu Analytics isn’t always accurate and it’s only available in Chinese.
- Focus on Localization
The Chinese market is massive and highly competitive so it’s important to put the customer first in everything that you do because customers are used to getting their way.
This means that you need to do more than just translate your content to the local language in order to get people’s attention. The location process goes way beyond that and requires a bottoms-up approach.
You’ll need to adjust your entire business model to the Chinese market, which might even mean developing new products that are customized to suit Chinese customer preferences.
