Michael Bonfils mentioned about Baidu Professional Edition or "Phoenix Nest" on his recent article on Search Engine watch titled "Baidu -- A Sleeping Giant Awakens"
I won't try to repeat what Michael already talked about but rather give a quick summary of what has/hasn't changed since Sept 2008. Some of the screenshots i use in this post are taken from Baidu introduction file (I hope that they don't mind :) )
One thing that hasn't changed is that Baidu still commands more than 65% of the search market share in China. From personal experience, Baidu is particularly popular in tier 2 and tier 3 cities in China compared to Google. Wikipedia provides definition on how China divides cities into different tiers. Beijing and Shanghai are of course tier 1 cities.
Baidu is still the third largest search engine in the world after Google and Yahoo according to comScore and Baidu interface is purely Chinese
1. Account set up:
+) The first step is still asking for proposal.
Baidu team can provide for you easily.
They will provide keyword examples, divided into different groups. Each group will then have daily search volume and estimated cost attached to it.
+) Payment term
Baidu still maintains a very tight control over credit terms extended for overseas agencies. If you just start with them, most probably you have to do prepayment through bank transfer.
However, over time, as your credit history builds up, they can provide 15 days or 30 days credit terms. Sometimes even if you don't pay on time, they won't stop showing your ads suddenly but rather giving you warning so it's a good practice.
+) Each URL can only be owned by 1 client/agency at any time.
What it means is that for example, a client/agency opens an account with Baidu to advertise for their domain www.mybusiness.com
After 3 month trial, they stop their campaign since the client wants to move to a new agency.
The new agency, however, can't just open an account with Baidu from scratch like Google, pay the money and start running the ads.
No, the new agency has to ask for the account transfer approval letter/email from the old agency. The concept is getting tricky here because it doesn't seem clear whether the client owns the account associated with their domain on Baidu or the agency.
i.e. with Google, they follow the client/owner of the domain so the only approval Google needs is from the client for a new agency to start handling their Existing Adwords account.
Baidu cares a great deal about credit left/unused in a certain account so if let say the old agency prepaid US $5000 but the media spend so far is only $4000, the new agency will need to go through a great deal of trouble to transfer this account.
2. Advertising model:
Advertisers can choose between "Classic edition" or "Professional Edition"
The screenshot below shows the difference between these two editions
The basic difference between these two platforms are:
- Only more targeted keywords to the landing page can be used under the Classic Edition
- Classic edition account structure is: Account - Ad group - Keyword ; whereas Professional Edition account structure is more like Google Adwords: Account - Campaign - Ad group - keyword
- Each keyword will have one fix ad copy under the Classic edition vs Ad rotation functionality for Professional Edition on the right hand side
- One interesting feature is the different number of possible ads on the first search result page
On the right hand side, however, there are a maximum of 8 advertisers only.
- Under Classic Edition, there are only two keyword matching options (exact match - most of the time and broad match), whereas under Professional Edition, you can have the four matching options just like Google: Exact, phrase, broad and negative match
- If you create a campaign under professional edition, can your ads appear on the left hand side above the natural search result page, one may ask
The way the ads appear is almost identical to that of Google.
In order for Professional Edition ads to be appear on the left hand side, two conditions must be satisfied (ok i may be wrong here so please correct me if needed)
- There is no advertiser bidding on the keyword in question under Classic Edition or there is no advertiser who is qualified for that keyword under Classic Edition
- The Professional Ads must have high Click through rate
Another commonly asked question by client is where most of the clicks happen? Is it the left hand side ads? If yes, what is the percentage of clicks between left hand side (Classic edition) vs right hand side (professional edition).
I asked Baidu representative and they don't have that figure yet. Based on what people have been mentioning about Baidu heat map, one can guess that ads on the right hand side may enjoy higher click through rate because of the longer ads description (able to say more benefits) and the fact that they blend into natural search results.
For Baidu heat map example, please Google it :)
3. Reporting
well, the good news is Baidu started providing impression data. However, this is a very recent development.
Now advertiser can start evaluating ads based on Click through rate
Another aspect is API token. It's very easy to get API token from Baidu nowadays, immediately after the account is being created.
You will need API token if you want to use third party tracking solution to track Baidu campaigns like Omniture Search Center or the like.
Well, that's pretty much it for Baidu at this point.
They are constantly coming up with new service like Baidu Brandlink for example so if i have time i will write more about those.
Screenshot of how Baidu Brandlink works is below
Cheers and Good night!
Chandler
Xem đầy đủ bài viết tại http://www.chandlernguyen.com/2009/07/baidu-chinese-paid-search-update-jul.html
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