PPC In China

Where to get the best price?

[cabbagehead]

Anyone know where I can get the best prices for PPC in China?

I'm currently doing AdWords and its costing me $15 per conversion compared to $1 per conversion in the US. I thought it would be just the opposite! So I figure there must be a more cost effective way to promote my site there. Any thoughts?

[redstorm]

You are required to provide detail description so that we can help you to work out a good solution. May i conclude you are doing PPC through Google China as you referred "adwords"?

[cabbagehead]

"PPC through Google China"

Boy I'm not sure. I just specified in my PPC campaign that China was my target country.

... I know there must be some more intelligent way of doing this or some more dominant player in China that Google perhaps? Because the amount that I am paying per customer aquisition in China is just crazy - maybe 15x higher than US customer aquisition. And this is for a *FREE* dating site.

Any thoughts?

[bill]

Well, for starters you need to first start looking at PPC with Baidu. They have a much larger reach than does Google in the China market. That's the first place most Chinese searcher will look for anything.

[cabbagehead]

Yeah I 've heard about Baidu but it looks like its all in Chinese. I guess I'm specifically trying to reach the English speaking minority in China. What is best in that case?

[bill]

I found Google difficult to use in China. A lot of the services I use outside China were either blocked or difficult to access. I found myself using Baidu for its speed and accessibility. But most of the search work I was doing was in Japanese or Chinese, and not as much English. I would still guess that Baidu would have the best market reach even for English speakers in China.

By restricting your audience this way you're looking at a very small market that has a lot of limitations to it. That could be the topic of an entirely separate thread though...

[cabbagehead]

Hi Bill,

Well I guess I would identify my key demo in this case as being people in China who want to meet westerners. No, this is not a mail order website or anything like that - but it is a English/Wester centric social and dating site ... and I'm just trying to figure out how to tap into these outher countries that might have interest in socializing with people from Canada, US, and UK. So, this is why I figured I would stick with English .. well that and I only know maybe 2 words in Manderin. ;-)

Well, it sounds like from your feedback that there isnt really an easy solution for me. If I want to tap into China I need to do Baidu and do it in Chinese. Correct?

[bill]

Well, doing it in Chinese opens you up to a market of a few billion more than what you seem to be after. ;) However, you can certainly bid on English words in Baidu's PPC. If you were bidding on Chinese words the visitors might expect a Chinese language site.

[cabbagehead]

Well - I've gone to Baidu.com and everything is in Chinese so I seem to be stuck. Do you know how I can bid on words? Do they have an english entryway by chance?

[bill]

Their entire interface is in Chinese I'm afraid. You'll run into that a lot in China. ;)
I don't believe that you'll be able to run a machine translator over their keyword management system, so you may need to look for someone who reads Chinese to help you out.

[redstorm]

Because the amount that I am paying per customer aquisition in China is just crazy - maybe 15x higher than US customer aquisition.

This may indicates you are having problems in marketing strategdy, or you are entering a market with lower demand than that of USA(when people have no interests to your offer/service, they would surely not enquire you even though they have clicked your website). Who knows!
If you are targeting the minority of English speakers in China, google English(www.google.com, the one you are using in the USA) is enough for you to start the PPC campaign with. You don't have to make tailored advertingsing for them. As google English is largely queried by Chinese English speakers than any others.
If you want to get large traffic through the PPC campaign, as Bill said, Baidu is the good platform to start with. Just my own opnion for your reference!

[Shak]

cabbagehead

if you are serious about getting the eyeballs of the 400 million + chinese users, then the only way forward is:

Baidu
Google Chinese version

a very very small % of users in China search in English, and imo, they are not the 1s you want. even many of the English speakers will search in Chinese if you get mt drift.

contrary to popular belief, there are PPC bid management companies in China, and unlike the West where a $100 spend can run a test, in China where the audience is so huge, a bit more speculation may be required, but as we know, if you crack that baby, you have it made.

good luck

and for the record, NO, I do not offer any of managed services above,

Shak

[ccton]

I may look into what cabbagehead describted.

Target Area: Mainland China
Target People: English Speaking
Business Type: Dating (Free)

Right?

[meabul]

I'm a chinese, may be I can help you.

[cabbagehead]

yes - this is correct. If you have any suggestions, please let me know! :)

Target Area: Mainland China
Target People: English Speaking
Business Type: Dating (Free)

[ccton]

$15 per conversion compared to $1 per conversion

It is possible. If you went to baidu, imho the rate could be higher.

Trying to reach an understanding of your situation (correct me if I were wrong), I think you are talking about Conversion instead of Click. Then,

Your situation means you have spend a lot on the clicks, but ver few clicks turned into conversions. That can be imaged. Your site for people in U.S. is quite normal, they click on yr ad, find it good, then join.

But here is different. You target at those Chinese who want to date with western people, that is not much comparing to the algo amount of internet users. The otherside is western people who want to date with Chinese, how many you think they will be?

I mean, people clicked at your ad, are very likely to just curious but not really ready to get involved. The higher the rate of Curious vs Ready to get Involved, the more you are going to pay per conversion.

You will need to find out which platform where the most possible Members (not visitors) are gatherring. I'd like to say you'd better choice Google, if there's a problem then contact Adword team to get help.

Cuz the user group of Baidu and Google is different. Say, in Mainland China:

Google users are likely to be well educated, having sort of English skills, they are more likely to be your customers;

MSN is a little simlar with Google, though it is not that popular than Google;

Yahoo, don't know much about it;

Baidu's users are more likely to be non-English speakers (comparing to Google), yes they will click at your ad and you will pay for the clicks;

Just think about the conversion rate :)

[ccton]

The above suggestion involved in Search Engines only, in a matter of fact, I think there are load of other things can be done.

* Make news :) There isn't any news about site, so make it, get it spread via traditional medias, this works very well.

* Get some co-operation from existing good dating sites here in China. Make some deal with them. They have their members, some of their members may want to date with forgein guys, talk about this part to the webmasters of these guys.

* Publish your message around sites where clubs, bars normally publish their info on.

etc...