Baidu is China’s number one search engine. The search giant received 28.9% of the total digital ad revenue in China in 2014; nearly 5% of all digital ad revenue globally (source: Search Engine Watch). Huge brands including BMW, Rolex, and Starbucks all use Baidu advertising to help them reach an audience of over 600 million internet users.

A successful Baidu PPC advertising campaign can result in increased brand exposure, more website traffic, and new leads. These six tips will help your campaigns to be successful.

Don’t try to mirror your Google campaigns

A common mistake Western companies make when moving into China is to simply translate their marketing materials from one language to the other. This is a bad idea, especially when it comes to Chinese PPC keywords. Chinese customers don’t necessarily want the same thing as their Western counterparts. Even when desires are identical, you might end up using an uncommon or obscure word that few people will search for.

You should tailor the message behind your campaign in order to tap into Chinese cultural desires and aspirations, which means choosing proper Chinese keywords to match.

Know what to do with people who show interest

A click on your advert is an expression of interest. You want to hold the attention of these people for as long as possible, giving them all the information they require to make a decision. For exmaple, a company offering real estate in the US to Chinese investors can use targeted keywords to capture the attention of high net worth individuals and send them to a landing page full of information about a certain property. These landing pages are specifically targeted at people likely to be interested in high value US real estate in order to maximise the chance of a conversion.

Match level of exposure with your budget

The more you spend, the more you get noticed. This is true with most advertising, and as with most advertising, a Baidu PPC advertising campaign with a modest budget can still bring in good results. The highest bids will get you into the prime spot above search listings. Before you decide your budget, you need to know what you’ll be getting in return for your money.

Create ads that match your campaign objective

It is very importance to understand user behavior when targeting keywords. Users will likely follow one of the four main search patterns – Solution, Information, Value, or Access (SIVA). Understanding which of these behaviors you want to be targeting will help you select keywords and target your adverts. Are you trying to build brand awareness (Information) or get people to buy your affordable alternatives to other products (Value)?

Use Brand Zone to bring a high conversion rate

Baidu Brand Zone allows you to dominate search results for chosen keywords with text, links, video and images about your brand. Your Brand Zone can take up to two thirds of the first page of search results, and features a short description of your company, a link to your website, sitelinks to products/services pages, and multiple images. You can even have scrolling tabs containing special offers targeted to different users. It has an incredibly high conversion rate, but it comes at a cost. If you have the budget to spend £10,000+ per month on Baidu PPC, Brand Zone is a good investment.

Get a Baidu PPC management agency to make things simple

There may be some similarities between Baidu and Google, but it is still a foreign search engine, in a foreign language. There are going to be many things that you might not understand unless you have a good grasp of Chinese, and the pitfalls are many. You could waste a lot of time and money trying to do Baidu PPC yourself, or you could hire a Baidu PPC management agency to do it right first.