Baidu Launches International Marketing Efforts

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By Frank Watson

Chinese search engine Baidu quietly launched more of its international efforts with the help of a Singapore-based partner and their new website – Baidu International – and a Twitter account to start following people in the search industry.

The Twitter profile states it is "Baidu International, the trading name of China Search Int (CSI), a Baidu partner focused on helping companies access consumers through advertising on Baidu."

Last month the company branched out to Egypt and Thailand, in addition to their presence in China and Japan. Now it appears they are reaching further abroad, looking to get advertisers to buy paid search and "Brand Zone" advertising.

The site's Product and Services page explains the two. The Brand Zone looks to be similar to the banner ads above the results pages prevalent on early search engines. It could be interesting to see if these spots garner high click-through rates, given they charge by click.

The site explains:

"Brand Zone offers a unique opportunity for brands to advertise in China with Baidu. Brand Zone allows an advertiser to bid on certain, core brand related keywords, and when a consumer searches for these words, both text and graphical advertising units are served.

This ad-unit controls the top of the search results page and delivers huge brand impact and a significant increase in click traffic.

The only equivalent to this on other search engines would be returning multiple paid and natural results at the top of Google, along with a graphical advertisement when a consumer searched for your brand/products. The results are truly amazing. Search for major brands such as BMW, Mercedes, Hilton, Chanel and others and see the power of this ad-unit."

CSI is smart reaching out to search people to make them aware of the new venture. There are 1.3 billion people in China and according to the site with China's growing economic prosperity an "estimated 160 million Chinese consumers have already purchased products online. This number is projected to grow exponentially as online access becomes even more widespread in the coming years".

If you are marketing internationally this new site could be worth a look.

This article was originally published Oct. 6, 2011 on SearchEngineWatch.com.