The Ultimate Guide on Baidu Advertising (SEM) in China 2023
As one of the world’s largest and fastest-growing markets, China has many differences from most other countries, and the search engine is one of them.
When it comes to search engines, Baidu dominates the Chinese market while Google dominates the rest of it. Baidu has long been the go-to search engine for information in China, including online advertising.
According to the latest data from Statcounter, Baidu accounts for 82.47% of the search engine market share in China, in terms of all platforms (82.47%), desktop (40.07%), and mobile (94.74%).
In comparison, only 2% of internet research was done with Google in China. Therefore, running search marketing campaigns on Baidu is undoubtedly the best choice for most brands looking to grow their business in China.
3 facts about Baidu
1. Baidu — the most commonly used search engine in China.
Baidu was founded in Beijing on January 1, 2000, which made China became one of the only four countries in the world with core search engine technology outside of the United States, Russia, and South Korea. Now, Baidu is serving more than 1 billion internet users in China and processes billions of search queries every day.
2. AI — one of Baidu’s core businesses.
Although Baidu is known for its search engine giant, in China, Baidu has been vigorously developing AI technology in the past decade, and now Baidu has become one of the four largest AI companies in the world. Baidu’s AI technology has been applied to many of its products and services, including Baidu PPC advertising.
3. Mobile Internet — another area where Baidu is fully deployed.
With the popularity of smartphones in China in the last decade, mobile apps are gradually taking over most of the Chinese people’s spare time. In fact, Baidu also keeps up with the pace of the development of the mobile Internet and has dipped into a lot of markets, and operates more than 50 different mobile apps such as Baidu App, Baidu Map, and iQiyi (a big entertainment streaming site) over the years. Incidentally, brands can advertise on these apps as well.
Advertising on Baidu
Google Ads offers brands a range of paid ads including search ads, display ads, text ads, shopping ads video ads, and app ads.
Similar to Google Ads, brands can also manage a much broader range of Baidu advertising products. Alongside the above formats that Google offers, there are additional unique product offerings, like Brand Zone, and Baidu Knowledge.
In detail, there are four main advertising products including Baidu Keywords Search Ad, Feed Ad, App Startup Ad, and Brand Zone.
Baidu Keywords Search Ad (Baidu PPC)
At first glance, Baidu Keywords Search is very similar to Google’s but there are still some differences.
The search ads triggered by keywords are more interactive and media-rich compared to Google’s, allowing brands to occupy the top position on the SERP. Brands can create unique ads suited to different marketing needs with images, videos, lists, etc.
On the search engine results, it is hard to distinguish the paid ads and organic search results because there is only a subtler reference below the ad text itself. However, this is beneficial to brands engaging in PPC as the organic results seem to merge with the paid results.
Baidu Brand Zone
Brand Zone is a derivative product of Baidu Keywords Search Ad and is an exclusive marketing zone on the Baidu search results page.
This is one of Baidu’s innovations and compared to text ads, Brand Zone can show more information in many formats, which means brands can deepen users’ first impression of the brand and increase users’ favorable impression of the brand.
Baidu Feed Ad
More like Google’s discovery ads, Baidu Feed Ad shows brands’ ads on Baidu Feeds — Baidu App and Baidu Tieba.
Compared to Baidu Keywords Search Ad, Baidu Feed Ad is adaptive and will present brand messages as people are browsing.
With millions of people scrolling every day to catch up on the latest news, topics, videos, and posts, brands can reach potential audiences at the right moment.
According to the latest data from Baidu, the total number of users on Baidu App are 700 million and the daily active users of Baidu App are over 200 million while the daily active users of Baidu Tieba are over 80 million.
Baidu App Startup Ad
You may not find this kind of ad in your country but it is everywhere in China. Baidu Startup Ad will show instantly once people open Baidu series apps.
Nowadays, Chinese people are used to using their favorite apps many times per day. As one of the most popular apps in China, users tend to use Baidu App more than 10 times a day according to Baidu data which means a great opportunity for brands to advertise.
Startup Ad helps brands reach audiences in the most straightforward way — click apps. There are several styles brands can choose:
Considering the popularity of short-form videos nowadays, startup ads with video formats can literally perform better than other styles. According to data shared by Baidu, the CTR of dynamic video ads is more than 30% higher than that of static advertisements.
Tips about advertising on Baidu
1. Baidu only ranks Chinese/Mandarin sites.
Therefore, as long as you want to enter the Chinese market, you have to own a Chinese website before advertising.