Opening a Baidu PPC account is far more complicated than Google, Yandex, Yahoo-JP or any other PPC platform.It requires local presence, Chinese language skills and market-related paperwork, which makes it near impossible for non-China based companies to “go it alone”. Whilst I highly recommend using a company with Baidu PPC expertise, below are a few key thing you will need to open a Baidu PPC account:

1. You will need a business certificate

Baidu will require you to upload qualification information including official ID and certification. There is no quick fix for this, this information is required by law and Baidu will not grant activity to an account before this has been logged. This certificate needs to be translated into Chinese.

A word of warning! Be wary who you choose to translate your certificate. Baidu can be (and quite rightly) a bit funny towards translated documents when they don’t know the source of translation.

If your business is within the sectors of healthcare or airline ticketing, expect even more certification requirements and heavier translation scrutinising.

2. You will need to sign contracts

Unlike Google, where any man and his dog can sell any service via any means (as long as it qualifies within Google policy), Baidu takes a more structured approach to account openings.

Contracts will be provided by Baidu and will require you to sign privacy terms and advertising policy acts to allow you to begin advertising. These are available in English but the request and email delivery are in Chinese.

3. You will need a Chinese Bank Account

Payment on Baidu is quite difficult for non-China based businesses as the platform does not accept any international credit cards such as MasterCard, Visa, Maestro etc. It also does not accept online money transfers through western platforms like PayPal.

If your business or residence is not China based, you can not apply for a Chinese bank account, this is also the same situation with the Chinese version of PayPal – 99bill.com.

Quick fix options are to use a Chinese search agency or to utilise a global search/localization agency which has set up connections to Baidu payment platform. You might have to pay transactional fee costs, but at least you know exactly who your money is going to.

4. You will need a Chinese Phone Number

Whilst Baidu’s security system does make your personal information and details safe, it does also make it difficult for non-China based companies to use the system. The Baidu security system requires a Chinese telephone number for verification codes.

Unfortunately, UK or international phone numbers don’t work. You could try to set up a China telephone number to use for this verification code but this is time-consuming and extremely cost-heavy. Use an agency which has these networks in place already or failing that – grab hold of a random China resident. It can go to any telephone number (although they will then have your verification code and access!)

5. You will need to understand some Chinese.

Great news! Baidu does provide an offline Editor which is available in English. The bad news is the interface itself is still in Chinese. Google translate can help to an extent but as most of the content is in image form and the complex SEM specific language means Google translate often fails.

Quick fix is to either borrow your friends’ mate who did a year of Chinese at school (that year spent learning PPC terminology), or use a company that knows Baidu and can set up optimal Baidu PPC accounts. The interface still holds the reporting, optimization, set up and budgeting side of Baidu PPC so you would be using it quite often.

Have you had issues with opening a Baidu PPC account? What issues have you come across? Or do you just want to know how to start the process? Please leave questions via comments.