With over195 million daily active users, Baidu is the most used search engine in China. So, if you are considering paid search marketing geared towards the Chinese market, you cannot afford to overlook Baidu. Its Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising system—which is also known as Baidu Tuiguang, Baidu Adwords, Baidu Phoenix, and Baidu SEM—allows you to bid on specific keywords that will make your clickable advertisements show up in the search engine results. It can help you to extend your reach and familiarize millions of potential customers with your products and services.

Here are some tips for a successful Baidu PPC campaign:

You must set up an official Baidu ad account

While an official Baidu ad account is essential for launching a PPC campaign, it can be tricky to set up. Baidu requires you to open an account through a reseller agency, and there are many of them, and they may have different rules and regulations for you to follow. Though, you must be able to furnish a business incorporation certificate or some other business documents. Another requirement is that your business website name should be the same as the business name on the incorporation certificate.

There will be a standard account setup fee, and Baidu will also charge you a specified sum for use as an account credit. You must make both payments in yuan.

Baidu doesn’t require you to have a .cn domain, a Chinese government ICP license, or a Chinese phone number, but if you can get these, it wouldn’t hurt your business either. Some companies report getting better visibility in search results.

You must localize your ad campaigns

Hopefully, before launching your business in China, you will have carried out sufficient basic research to ascertain that your brand suits the requirements and sensibilities of the targeted market. Even so, you may need to alter your business to some extent and readapt your products and services to align them better with the local demand. In the highly competitive Chinese market, the consumer’s reign supreme, and you have to deliver what they want.

That includes localizing your marketing content. While an increasing number of Chinese internet users know English, they prefer interacting in their language. You will get more views if your Baidu Pay-Per-Click campaign is in Mandarin, Cantonese, or any other Chinese dialect. However, trying to get by with an online language translator won’t cut it. You will need a native language speaker to vet and translate your advertisements and other content so that there are no chances of making any faux pas.

And when it comes to researching keywords and competitors for your pay-per-click campaigns, you need to do so from the perspective of the Chinese consumers. What search terms are they likely to use the most? What is more likely to get their attention? It will also help to organize and structure the keywords as per the structure of your website.

You can integrate web analytics with your ad platform

Integrating Baidu’s analytics platform with its ad platform will make it easier for you to conduct consumer research. You can get reports on the activities of individual users and make use of a heat map tool as well. That will allow you to tailor your Baidu PPC campaigns to appeal to your target audience and schedule your campaigns to achieve maximum exposure and ROI.

However, since the Baidu analytics platform is only in Chinese, you will either need to be fluent in the language to use it or take the help of a China-focused marketing agency. When hiring an agency, make sure to find one that will focus on website analytics work for you. Reseller agencies that take a commission from Baidu perhaps won’t be as reliable or helpful.

It is possible to use Google Analytics or another third-party web analytics tool with Baidu. You will have to use URL tagging for that, however.

By carefully planning and implementing your Baidu PPC campaign, you can expect a reasonable ROI. You will gain new customers and find it easier to establish and expand your brand in China. Try to maximize your impact as soon as possible, so that you can devote more time to your business.