China’s growing Internet space promises enormous profits for companies interested in expanding their business in the country. However, before they can make a mark in the Chinese market, these companies must leverage the power of the Chinese search engines. There is no other way to reach Chinese consumers via search engine marketing, given the Chinese government’s ban on Google and other foreign search engines.

So, even if your company ranks high in Google and other foreign search engine results in your country, it is not going to make an iota of difference in China. To get your brand before the Chinese people, you must develop a strong presence on the leading regional search engines like Baidu, Shenma, and Haosu.

Of these, Baidu is the one that most foreign businesses gravitate towards, and for good reasons. Let’s look at some of these and understand why Baidu advertising (adstochina.westwin.com/baidu-advertising) is essential for doing business in China:

Baidu is the leading search engine in China

Baidu is the most powerful search engine in China, with a massive 95% reach across the nation. Over 60 million Chinese use Baidu daily, and usually on an average of ten times a day. If your company does not have a presence on Baidu, you might as well as not exist as far as the Chinese consumers are concerned. On the other hand, by advertising on Baidu, you will be able to place your products and services before an ever-expanding audience on Chinese Internet users and gain many new customers.

Baidu offers an effective PPC service

Also known as Baidu Tuiguang and Baidu SEM, Baidu PPC is a pay-per-click service that companies can use for their online advertising. To begin with, you must bid on keywords that are relevant for displaying your clickable advertisements. These will then show in the search engine results every time someone uses these keywords for their searches. Every time someone clicks on them, you will pay a specified fee to Baidu. As these advertisements appear prominently in the results, they can be very effective. Of course, you must make sure that they are well-designed and likely to appeal to your target audience.

Baidu allows you more control on your advertisements

It is not enough to have well-designed advertisements. You must also make sure they reach the right audience. Baidu allows you to carry out segmented and targeted marketing by customizing your advertising campaigns. Through your market research, you can determine who is most likely to buy your products and services. You can then segment your prospective customers by age, gender, interests, profession, location, and more. You can then create advertising campaigns that directly target these segments.

Baidu offers AI technology to improve your advertisements

Baidu uses AI technology to help your advertisements reach a broader audience. They show these to users depending on their location, search patterns, and click history. That means the audience that is most likely to click on your advertisements and use your products and services will see them. Unlike in the West, where many people tend to filter out and ignore such ads, Chinese consumers are more likely to look at them if they think your products and services could be useful to them.

Baidu allows you to track the performance of your advertisements

With Baidu’s PPC service, you can keep track of the overall performance of your advertising campaigns. You can track how many impressions and clicks your advertisements received, how many conversions happened, and what the bounce rate is. That way, you can evaluate how well your advertising campaigns are doing and make any necessary changes to improve them and meet your business goals.

As you see, Baidu advertising can make a huge difference in how well your business does in China. However, keep in mind that you must first officially apply to the Chinese government for an internet content provider license before you can advertise on Baidu. For higher visibility in the search engine results, you must also host your website with a Chinese website hosting company. Baidu gives priority to Chinese hosted websites, and if your site doesn’t have the .ch suffix, you may rank lower or not even show up in their search engine results.