If you are planning to expand you web presence to the Chinese market, running a Chinese pay per click campaign is an excellent way to get started. With pay per click you can quickly gain traffic and get valuable information on the performance and potential profitability of your website. If you've been successful with English-language pay per click, there's no reason you can't do the same in Chinese. Of course, it can be tricky, especially for somebody that doesn't read Chinese. Follow the advice below and you'll be a lot better prepared to dive into a Chinese pay per click campaign.

The fundamentals of pay per click are the same in English and Chinese. In both cases it requires keyword research, landing page optimization, ongoing analysis, etc. The main differences are language, culture and market conditions. If you don't read Chinese or have experiences with business and Internet marketing in China, you have two choices. The first is to learn all that. The second is to partner up with somebody who knows how to do business in China, market to Chinese Internet users and, obviously, can read and write Chinese. Since teaching Chinese would take a bit too long, the rest of this article focuses on tips for selecting a Chinese pay per click partner.

Ideally, the Chinese pay per click campaign, other Chinese-language internet marketing and the creation of your Chinese website should be viewed as a whole - not as separate elements to be outsourced to different people. The ideal Chinese marketing campaign isn't 'translated' from English, but created from the ground up and managed on an ongoing basis. It is of the utmost importance to choose a Chinese marketing partner that understands this.

Imagine you are selling the ever-famous "widgets." You could have somebody translate your webpages and pay per click ads about widgets and that might work. But creating your entire marketing message from the ground up gives you a much much higher chance of success. What if there are multiple words for "widget" in Chinese? An experienced Chinese pay per click manager would do the proper keyword research to choose the appropriate term, or perhaps choose to build multiple ads and/or landing pages to determine what works best. What if the profit margins for blue widgets are high in your country but low in China? What if there's nobody selling purple widgets in China?

The proper competitive research may reveal unique opportunities in China - this is often the case with foreign brands. The focus of your website and pay per click campaign can then be tailored towards the products that will be most profitable in China. What if the competition for certain keywords is different in China? A good pay per click manager may be able to find less competitive keywords and niches to increase your ROI. What if Chinese users have different concerns? A good partner should be able to anticipate those concerns and include relevant information tailored to Chinese users. These are just a few examples of areas where a unique pay per click marketing campaign tailored to Chinese Internet users is preferable over a campaign that is simply a copy of the English campaign.

The focus of your Chinese marketing partner should be on creating an entirely new Chinese presence for your company. The successful parts of your English marketing should be viewed as a reference point. It provides valuable information that can be used as a starting point for your Chinese marketing efforts. It is key for you to gain an understanding of your Chinese partner's marketing philosophy as well as the strategy they have planned for your business.

As a final note, remember to use the same common sense in choosing a partner that you would anywhere. Talk to more than one potential partner, choose somebody you trust, make sure you are able to communicate with them very clearly. Communication can be tricky of course, especially with the typical Chinese cultural habit of saying "yes, I understand" even when they do not, but that's a topic for a whole other article.<!-- From http://www.buzzle.com/articles/chinese-pay-per-click-how-to-choose-the-i... --> By Tim Law
Published: 3/8/2010