Well, at least according to an independent Japanese research firm (Video Search). According to their report, Baidu is now ranked fourth, trailing Yahoo Softbank (market leader), Google and MSN.
Personally, for a number of reasons, I don’t really expect Baidu to do that well in Japan, at least not that fast. I will be posting more on this as soon as I get additional information from other sources.
Baidu currently displays no ads with search results conducted on its Japanese site.
I just tried to visit Baidu Japan site (www.baidu.jp) but it was not reachable. I was able however to get to it through a proxy site. Is Baidu Japan blocked in China or just a network glitch? I will try to connect to it from office and post updates here.
Baidu has announced that it will implement measures for assisting Japanese advertisers to place ads on its PPC network.
Through the help of its Japanese unit, Japanese advertisers and ad agencies will receive advanced sales support, including translation of ad copy into Chinese and paying locally in Yens for their ad campaigns. So far, the only option for Japanese advertisers (as well us most international advertisers) to advertise on Baidu network was to open an account directly through the head office in a Chinese city and pay in RMB (Chinese Yuans).
The presence of Baidu in Japan explain this move (Baidu has just launched a couple of weeks ago its Japanese search engine baidu.jp); however, one can expect Baidu to start opening sales offices in other developped markets considering the increasing demand for advertising solutions targeting the Chinese market.
Microsoft Adcenter has recently waived its $5 sign up fee, but furthermore the analytics tool, supposed to be the company’s answer to Google Analytics, is now boosting some new features:
-More reports: including more advanced visitor tracking and campaign reporting
-Summary rollups: all-in-one insight about ROI, visitor loyalty, conversions per referral etc.
-Segmented demographic tracking, by age group and gender
-Advanced tools to view and compare PPC campaign performance for multiple ad placement programs
-The ability to track marketing results beyond search ads
For more details, you can visit the Adcenter blog…
Leading Chinese search engine Baidu and US-based analytics firm Omniture have formed a strategic alliance, that will see the later providing analytics technology to the first.
The new partnership should allow Baidu to provide its advertisers with more advanced tools to measure the profitability of their marketing campaigns, while improving their overall experience. Baidu has surpassed last year Sina as the number one player in the fast growing Chinese online advertising market.
Faced with a slowing US market, diversifying to China will also be a boost for Omniture bottom line. Clients of Omniture around the world will also be able to get more relevant analytics data about the Chinese online advertising market and Chinese consumers behavior in general.
Omniture’s major clients include Microsoft, AOL and Ebay.
