How to run PPC Campaigns in China, India, Japan and South Korea
Running PPC campaigns in Asia is challenging and is a very different ballgame from that in the US. It’s required to run targeted campaigns at each one of those countires and within them micro-targeted campaigns to address different segments of the population. I’d say you’d have to first slice the populations within those countries culturally and then demographically. but, I digress. Let’s discuss some PPC.
It’s a given that a segment of the middle-class will frequent the international sites like Google/Yahoo/MSN. But, then PPC campaigns on these search engines can be geo-targeted but not culturally or demographically targeted. That’s where social networks (Facebook/MySpace PPC)come into play. Note that Facebook’s fastest growing segment is the 35+ age group not not the 17-22 year old as is believed. I would earmark 25% of my ad budget on these platforms. Now, let’s look at some of the local search platforms :
- China : a) Baidu, being the leading search engine also has a collaborative encyclopedia (like Wikipedia) as well as a strong discussion platform. They have over 800mil web pages indexed and have more than 20 mil visitors annually. Plus, they have over 70% of the Chinese search engine market. The process for Baidu is similar to setting up a Google PPC i.e., you open your Baidu Ad account, you choose your keywords and create your Ad copy, You set up a daily budget and individual CPCs and you run reports as desired.
b) Zhanzuo : China very own Facebook or at least it’s hoping to be called that. Not surprisingly, Facebook did try to buy them out last November for $85M. Not bad for a localized social network.
c) Friendster/MySpace : Both these companies have localized Chinese versions of their social platforms.
-India : a) Yahoo’s definitely ahead here with Alta Vista and Google in the game too. I’d do PPC on them for
sure.
b) Local players : Rediff.com (Like the Indian yahoo.com), Jadoo.com (India’s supposedly first search engine), WebIndia.com and Kohj.com are more focused on business. Also, try Cricinfo as cricket in big in that part of the world. You’ll have to run banner CPM ads on these web properties since their PPC is a bit lacking.
- Japan : Market share is as follows- Yahoo Japan has 65%. Google Japan has 22%, Google US has 6%, MSN has 2.5% and BiGlobe has 2%. Google just partnered with Docomo one of Japan’s leading mobile providers and this could help them increase share. Earlier this year, in Jan, Baidu just launched its Japanese version with web search, image search, blog search and video search. So, go ahead and PPC on these platforms freely. Yahoo directory interestingly has a onetime listing fee only as opposed to the annual fee model in the US. Also, advertising for the adult segment costs 2 or 3 times more. Interestingly, according to the big brains at SEOmoz, Google now has higher market share in Japan and is ahead of Yahoo by a few points.
- Korea : We’ve just started playing in the Korean market and it’s interesting, to say the least. From what I’ve seen, SK with its dense clusters of populations and it’s strongly wired society (70% of the total population use the Internet) is extremely appealing to marketers interested in micro-targeting. The number one player Naver works differently from Google and relies on user generated content, (like Yahoo Answers) though its algorithm is much more sophisticated. Market share for Naver is 75%, Daum is 11%, Yahoo Korea is 4.5% and Google has a miniscule share of 2%. I’ve included some sites below for you to
check out.
http://kr.yahoo.com/
http://www.chol.com/
http://www.naver.com/
http://www.empas.com/
http://www.nate.com/
http://www.hanmir.co.kr/
http://www.daum.net/
Well, that’s a long post. Pardon my rumblings. But, the information above describes the search landscape in China, India, Japan and Korea. It’s a blast working one’s way through all the cultures. Hope the above helped in some way.
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hi
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good luck