[photopress:IT_Baidu_Robin_Lee.jpeg,full,alignright]Chinese search engine Baidu.com is selling video advertisements on its partner Websites. Xu Jiye, a spokesman for Beijing-based Baidu, said the country’s No. 1 search engine is collecting orders from its customers interested in the new ad service and selecting sites for the placement.
He said, ‘It’s like installing a TV screen on the wall, which in our case is the Web page, and our responsibility is to find the right page for advertisers to maximize the value on their spending.’
The program is named Baidu TV. There are around 150,000 sites which have already formed a partnership with Baidu through cooperation on search-related ads. But this is a step further.
These sites, called Baidu Union members, are mostly small ones with stable traffic and rich content ranging from vertical industry portals to entertainment sites, but it is difficult for them to attract advertisers on their own due to their size.
Under the partnership with Baidu, which has a 57% share in the Chinese search market, these sites have gained more than 5,000 Baidu customers and share revenue with the search engine portal. This is, indeed, very similar to the system employed by Google in other countries.
Xu refused to say how many of these sites have been chosen to run the video-based ads or the average agreed proportion of revenue sharing.
The sales contribution of Baidu Union members to the company’s total revenue has been rising this year as the search engine tries to consolidate its position through partnership with other sites, while rivals like Google are also aggressively growing their own search tie-ups.
China’s online ad market grew 43% in the first half from a year ago to nearly RMB3 billion yuan ($385 million). According to industry researcher Analysys Intentional, Baidu now leads in advertising revenue for the first time, passing Sina.com, the nation’s most popular portal. Our illustration shows Baidu founder, Robin Lee, looking fairly relaxed. With good reason.
Source: Shanghai Daily