At Nanjing Marketing Group we like to provide a complete service to our clients. As well as serving their specific marketing needs we like to also keep our clients abreast of new developments. We want to provide knowledge that they might need to make strategic decisions to foster success within their company.
Doing business on the Internet means constantly learning and adapting to achieve success. The market in China is huge and without understanding market nuances your business will struggle. We want to give our clients every chance of success. We do this by sharing our insights into the Chinese market.
10 billion dollar industry
Selling products and services on the Internet in China is a 600.41 billion Yuan industry (9.7 billion US dollars). Forecasts predict that it will reach 1.72315 trillion Yuan (2.8 trillion US dollars) by 2017. These figures show why many businesses are using our services to help enter this market.
The online advertising market itself had revenue of 110 billion Yuan (1.8 billion US dollars) in 2013. The Internet is bringing massive changes to the way that people buy and sell products in China.
Without a doubt the Internet has been embraced in China. But even so only 46 per cent of the population use the Internet according to CNNIC. That means there are 618 million Internet users in China. 500 million people access the Internet via mobile. That is 81 per cent of Internet users doing so using a mobile device.
E-commerce, something I’ve written about a lot on this blog, has taken off in a huge way. CNNIC suggest that there are 302 million e-shoppers in China. The favoured search engine amongst these shoppers is without a doubt Baidu.
The power of Baidu
Baidu had 59 per cent search engine market share in March 2014 (website in Chinese). Most people who search for products and services online do so using Baidu in China.
Much like Google has cornered the market amongst western Internet users, Baidu serves a massive demand in China. This demand has lead Baidu to create certain products to help companies sell to an ever growing number of online buyers.
There are three categories of products that Baidu provides:
- Paid Search
- Display Network
- Brand Zone
Using a pay per click program is how many businesses first enter the Chinese market. It is effective and easy to control costs. We have written about it extensively on our blog.
Brand Zone is a high-end Baidu product used by well-branded companies who want maximum exposure of their products to a Chinese audience. I have not written about it in detail, but it’s something I will do in future.
The basic idea with Baidu Brand Zone is paying a fixed price to have an eye catching brand logo in a prominent position, with a company introduction and tailored content.
Baidu display advertising
Finally there is Baidu Display Network. This product is available to any company that already has a pay per click account. It is targeted display advertising on 600,000 third-party websites and software providers that are partnered with Baidu.
The crux of Baidu Display Network is that the display ads can be shown on those websites in different forms. This adds up to 5 billion impressions in total, significantly more than a pay per click search engine. It’s a great way to get brand exposure.
Image from renren yingshi (人人影视)
Baidu tracks the behaviour of its users very precisely. It tracks where web users go, what sites they visit, what search terms they use and what they say on social networks. All this information helps to build profiles of users. It helps the Display Network to target exactly the right audience for the right products.
The Display Network uses contextual targeting, placement targeting and behaviour targeting to place display ads in front of the people who want to see them. The great thing is that the display advertising can be in different formats: text, images, flash and floating adverts.
The Display Network also uses interactive banner ads. For example, if someone is waiting for a video or game to load a banner ad targeted to that person would appear onscreen while they wait.
The Display Network helps companies target customers extremely precisely.
Another example might be someone who has searched for computers and mobile phones or has previously entered these types of websites searching for products. When a person clicks through to a website partnered with Baidu the Display Network will read and record this and display ads associated with this previous behaviour.
Image from renren yingshi (人人影视)
But the real key is how the ads are targeted. Clients who use this service can choose to target their ads in very specific ways by:
- Region
- Part of the day
- Time of the day
- Industry
- Keywords
- Web traffic
- Specific websites
- Personal interests
The level of control over how and when the display ads are targeted is a strong feature of Baidu display advertising.
The benefits of using Baidu display ads
So, what are the benefits of using Baidu Display Network? In a nutshell it is control over the targeting of your brand. This product by Baidu allows you to expose your brand to a wide audience who already have an interest in your type of products.
- Targeted advertising on 600,000 third-party websites and software providers partnered with Baidu
- Expose your brand with 5 billion impressions
- Display ads using different formats including text, image and flash
- Use floating ads and interactive ads to engage potential customers
- Target your ads in very specific ways depending on your goals
If you have any other questions about Baidu products or would like a more comprehensive view of a comparison between Baidu and Google Display Network then please feel free to contact me using the social media links below or leave a comment.
We hope that the information and knowledge that we provide is useful and of value to our customers. If there is anything that you are unsure of then please leave a comment below and I’ll get back to you right away.