Baidu SEM FAQ

Yes. Baidu supports account opening for foreign companies and entities. You don't need a Chinese domestic business license to get started — we handle the process for you.

No functional difference. The only distinction is in the ad display: the company name shown at the bottom of your ads will be either your foreign company name or your Chinese company name, depending on which entity the account is registered under.

Required documents:
(a) Business license copy + certified translation (stamped with company seal)
(b) Enterprise info screenshot from government website + certified translation (stamped with company seal)
(c) Bank account certificate + translated document from designated institution (stamped with company seal). Examples: bank transfer records, bank statements, local tax certificates, checks, monthly statements
(d, optional) Screenshot of landing page homepage (stamped with company seal)

If you have any difficulty providing these documents, we are happy to assist.

Yes. There is an annual account authentication fee of CNY 600. For new users, this fee is refunded to your ad account after the first year — effectively making it free for the first year.

Baidu's official rule is a minimum top-up of CNY 2,400. However, to save on transaction fees and reduce transfer time, we recommend a single top-up of CNY 10,000 or more.

Pre-paid advertising fee: minimum CNY 2,400
Service fee: starting from USD 100, which includes document translation, document review, and submission handling

If you have difficulty providing the required documents, we are happy to assist.

No. Baidu only supports pre-payment. You must have sufficient balance in your account before your ads can run. There is no credit or post-pay option.

Cost-per-click (CPC): You are charged only when a user clicks your ad.
Your CPC = (Competitor Bid × Competitor Quality Score ÷ Your Quality Score) + CNY 0.01
You can also use oCPC (optimized CPC), where you pay for completed conversions rather than clicks.

Cost per click: There is no uniform price. Low-competition keywords may cost a few yuan per click. In highly competitive industries, popular keywords can cost dozens to over CNY 100 per click.
Minimum monthly budget: The minimum daily budget is CNY 50, which means the theoretical monthly minimum is CNY 1,500. The actual cost depends on search volume for your target keywords. There is no upper cap.

No. Ads cannot run until your account passes review. You must resolve the rejection issues and get approved before any ads go live.

Common rejection reasons:
• Expired qualifications or licenses
• Content contains prohibited words
• Website is unreachable or offline
• Content is false, exaggerated, or misleading
• Any other compliance violations

Common prohibited words include absolute claims such as:
• "cheapest"
• "number one in the country"
• "100% effective"
• "guaranteed results"
And similar superlative or unverifiable claims.

Use Baidu's prohibited word detection tool and refer to China's Advertising Law for self-inspection before submitting your ads.

Follow these steps:
Step 1: Read the review notes carefully
Step 2: Revise the specific content flagged
Step 3: Re-submit for review
Step 4: If you believe the rejection is incorrect, file an appeal for special review

We handle this process for our managed clients.

Yes. Regulated industries such as healthcare and finance must:
• Provide industry-specific licenses (e.g., medical institution practice license)
• Avoid efficacy claims in all ad copy and landing page content
• Ensure all claims are substantiated and compliant with Chinese advertising regulations

Not with proper targeting. Baidu's data lets you narrow audiences by location, interests, and search intent, so your ads reach people who actually match your customer profile. Irrelevant impressions drop sharply once campaigns are dialed in.

It's low. You can pay per click or per impression, and the minimum daily spend is CNY 50. You stay in control of spending the whole time, which makes it easy to test the waters without committing heavily.

You can. Your account manager helps set up the account, generates ad creatives using AI tools, and advises on landing page optimization. You don't need an in-house marketing team to get going.

They blend in. Feed ads appear natively within Baidu App content streams — news, articles, and similar browsing contexts — so they don't disrupt the user experience. Acceptance rates for native feed ads are generally higher than for traditional display placements.

All data is accessible in real time. The dashboard shows impressions, clicks, and inquiries as they happen, and you can trace the full conversion path. ROI is straightforward to calculate.

Yes. Baidu's user base is massive, and the targeting system works well with long-tail interests and behavioral signals. Even for smaller industries, the combination of broad reach and narrow targeting usually surfaces enough relevant prospects.

You set basic criteria — age, gender, location — and Baidu's system handles the rest. It looks at your creative content, industry, and past campaign data to find high-quality audiences automatically. The idea is to save you from manual trial-and-error while keeping cost stable.

Baidu provides built-in tools for images, video, and headlines — you don't need third-party software. The platform can also generate creatives automatically. Regular A/B testing on images and copy typically moves the needle more than any single creative tweak.

Brand Zone is a dedicated display area at the top of search results — it shows your logo, product line-up, and a link to your official site all in one block. Regular search ads are text-based and mixed in with organic results. The main advantage is visibility and credibility: you get the full first-screen placement, which also means competing brands don't appear above you.

Pricing is flexible. You choose the display format and campaign length based on your budget — there's no mandatory minimum spend. Compared to traditional brand advertising channels (TV, print, out-of-home), Brand Zone usually comes out ahead on cost per impression, and the targeting is far more precise.

Targeting is granular. You set the industry, region, and core keywords, and your brand zone only appears when someone searches for terms related to your brand or product category. That cuts down wasted impressions considerably compared to run-of-network placements.

You have full editorial control. Plan your brand story, product highlights, and campaign landing pages however you want — images, video, carousels, it's all supported. Changes can be made at any time during the campaign, so you're not locked into one creative direction.

The reporting covers impressions, clicks, average session duration, and click-through to your official site. You can track these over time to see whether brand interest and engagement are trending up. It's not as precise as last-click attribution, but the direction is clear.

No in-house work required. Baidu assigns a dedicated team to handle the full cycle — strategy, page design, creative production, and ongoing optimization. Even if this is your first brand campaign on Baidu, they handle the heavy lifting.

oCPC (optimized cost-per-click) is Baidu's AI-driven bidding model. Instead of you setting bids for each keyword, the system estimates the conversion probability of every click in real time and adjusts the bid accordingly. It pushes harder on clicks likely to convert and backs off on those that aren't. The result: lower cost per conversion and more of them.

oCPC runs in two stages. Stage one is a learning period — the system collects conversion data to build its model. You need enough conversions during this window (typically 30+ within a few days, depending on your industry) before the system promotes you to stage two, where automated bidding takes over. If you're not hitting that threshold, your account manager can suggest ways to widen targeting or lower conversion actions.

The usual reasons are: not enough conversions coming in, conversion data isn't being passed back to Baidu correctly, or the conversion action you chose is too far down the funnel (e.g., "completed purchase" instead of "submitted lead form"). Switching to a shallower conversion action often helps the model learn faster.

First, confirm whether you're still in the learning period (the first 3 days after launch). Overspending is normal there. If you're past that, check whether your target CPA is set too low relative to market rates, whether conversion tracking is accurate, and whether you recently changed campaign settings. Our team monitors this and adjusts as needed.

Baidu offers an invalid-lead compensation policy for oCPC campaigns. If a lead doesn't result in a real inquiry or sale (wrong number, spam, etc.), you can report it. Baidu will investigate and, if confirmed, credit your account. The exact rules depend on your campaign settings and the type of conversion you selected.

Common causes include: a delay between Baidu's count and your CRM update, conversion tracking code placed on the wrong page, or duplicate conversions being counted. Start by checking the Baidu oCPC platform to see how many conversions were actually sent back. If the numbers still don't line up, your account manager can audit the tracking setup.

Shared budget lets multiple campaigns draw from a single daily pool. If Campaign A hits its cap while Campaign B still has room, the system automatically shifts funds to A. This is useful when you have several campaigns targeting similar goals and don't want to micromanage individual budgets. It doesn't change your total daily spend — just how it's distributed.