With Baidu one of the top-ranked sites in the world, and a veritable powerhouse in China, a targeted Baidu pay per click campaign is an essential part optimising your business’s success in the Chinese market.
Like Google AdWords, Baidu offers a sophisticated marketing platform for advertisers called Baidu Phoenix Nest.
Inside Baidu Phoenix Nest
Upon logging in you’ll be presented with a series of tabs similar to those found on the AdWords interface: Campaigns, Ad Groups, Ads and Keywords.
Towards the bottom of the page you’ll find a list of the possible reports that can be generated – data reports, real-time reports, and search term reports – along with a Keyword Tool and Cost Estimation Tool.
Tools to help you with your campaign
Because Baidu search results are heavily influenced by PPC rates, it’s essential to leverage the Cost Estimation and Keyword Tool to your benefit.
The Keyword Tool provides an overview of the popularity of particular terms through search volume analysis, along with the estimated competition for those terms.
The Tool also offers suggested and related search terms that can be used to increase the reach and efficacy of your campaign.
These search terms and keywords can be easily added (or removed) if they’re not deemed relevant to your campaign.
Baidu Optimisation basics
Where Google’s algorithms take into account backlinks and content relevancy, Baidu’s Chinese PPC results are heavily skewed towards the bid amount on a particular keyword.
As Baidu’s paid results appear alongside organic results, this underscores the importance of a focused PPC campaign.
Once you’ve selected your keyword terms, you’ll want to optimise them to ensure that they’re as effective as possible.
For example, you may wish to target users from a particular region, or to set your ad to be displayed during a particular day or the week, or even time of day.
Automatic bidding for Baidu’s top three search positions is one of the most common options for Baidu PPC; unlike Google AdWords it’s not possible to manually reduce or increase your Chinese PPC bid.
However, like AdWords, Baidu Phoenix Nest offers sophisticated retargeting options that allow you to follow your audience across the network.
Reporting using Baidu Tongji
Baidu Tongji is Baidu’s Analytics equivalent, and provides a comprehensive analysis of clicks, ad impressions, conversions, and bounce rates.
Further functionality is the ability to track individual users and how they’re using your site – in real time – and the ability to set and track goals for your site.
Baidu Tongji also offers a site speed tool, an index tracking tool that allows you to see which of your sites or pages have been indexed by Baidu, and a heat map option that offers a visual display of where users have clicked.
The challenges of Baidu Phoenix Nest
Available only in Chinese and requiring a sophisticated understanding of both the Chinese language and the Chinese market, Baidu Phoenix Nest involves a steep learning curve.
Our team of PPC Sydney consultants have extensive experience with Baidu, so get in touch if you’d like to implement an effective Baidu PPC campaign.
