This article will outline the support offered by the Marin platform for Baidu.
Supported Functions
Marin currently supports the following features for Baidu publisher accounts:
Accounts
- Sponsored Search Only
Campaigns
- Create campaign
- Edit Campaign Name
- Mobile Bid Adjustment
- Daily Budget
- Ad Rotation
- Ad Scheduling
- Geo-Targeting
- Negative Keywords
- Device Level Reporting
Groups
- Edit Group Name
- Group Search Bid / CPC
- Negative Keywords
Creatives
- Create ads
- Edit ads
- Headline
- Description 1
- Description 2
- Display URL
- Mobile Display URL
- Destination URL
- Mobile Destination URL
- Mobile Preferred Ad
Keywords
- Create keywords
- Edit keywords
- Match Type (Broad, Exact & Phrase only)
- Search Bid / CPC
- Destination URL*
- Mobile Destination URL*
*If you are using redirects, the supported features and column headers for bulk uploads will be Click Through URL and Mobile Click Through URL.
Unsupported Functions
The platform does not currently offer support for the following features:
Accounts
- Brand Zone
- Brand Landmark
- Content Network
- Display Advertising / Image Ads
- Premium Display Network
- Daily Budget
- Geo-Targeting
Campaigns
- Budget Scheduling
- IP Address Exclusion
Groups
- Device Level Reporting
Keywords
- Quality Score
- Advanced (Extended) Phrase Match Type
- Phrase-synonym
- Phrase-core
- Phrase-exact
Extensions
- Sitelinks
- Call Extensions (click to call)
- Image Extensions
- App Extensions
Conversion Tracking
- Publisher Tracking
- Baidu Analytics
Marin Feature Support For Baidu
The following core features of our platform are supported for the Baidu publisher:
- Campaign linking / unlinking
- Daily cost and revenue reporting
- Bi-directional sync
- General campaign management (single, multi and bulk edit)
- Bidding (no mobile bid adjustment recommendations)
- URL builder
- Dimension
- Marin Tracker
Baidu Account Linking
To link a Baidu account to the Marin platform, you will need the following Baidu credentials:
- Username
- Password
- API token (apply with your Baidu account manager)
You can then follow the standard process for linking accounts as explained in our help center article.
Duplicated Keywords In Ad Groups
Baidu takes the following approach for duplicated keywords in Ad Groups:
- Same keywords with same of different match types are not allowed in the same Ad Groups.
- Same keywords with same or different match type are allowed in the same Campaign, as long as they are in different Ad Groups.
- Same keywords with same or different match type are allowed in different Campaigns, since they will be in different Ad Groups as well.
How Bytes And Characters Counted In Baidu And Marin
We have a full help center article about this topic which you can read by clicking here.
Baidu Publisher Limits
Following are some of the limits of the Baidu publisher.
Publisher Settings
| Distribution Types | Search, Content |
| Budget |
Account (daily) min: CNY 50 max: CNY 100,000 Campaign (daily) Search min: CNY 50 Content min: CNY 10 max: CNY 100,000 |
| Negative Keywords | Campaign, Group |
| Search Bid |
Group min: CNY 0.01 max: CNY: 999.99 or budget Keyword min: CNY 0.01 max: CNY 999.00 |
| Content Bid (not supported) |
Group min: CNY 0.05 |
| Creative Restrictions |
Note: Baidu makes distinction between characters and bytes for Creative Limits. But since Chinese characters and other Double-Byte symbols count as 2 chars, effectively it is counting bytes. Baidu length restrictions are in bytes, not characters. Note each Chinese character counts as 2 bytes. Search Content |
| Keyword Restrictions | Keyword: max 40 bytes (20 Chinese chars) Destination URL: 1017 bytes |
| Max End Date | Baidu has no max end date. |
Publisher Limits
| Campaigns per Account | 100 |
| Groups per Account | 1,000 |
| Negative Keywords per Campaign | 100 |
| Negative Keywords per Account | 100 |
| Keywords per Group | 5,000 |
| Creatives per Group | 50 |
Using 3rd Party Redirects With Baidu
By default, Baidu does not allow 3rd party redirects. They only allow URLs with the same domain as the registered website when opening the Baidu account. To use 3rd party redirects, for example Marin Tracker, you must 'whitelist' the Marin Tracking domain name with Baidu (please reach out to your Baidu account manager for more information about this).
Note that generally, they will need a working Destination URL with 3rd party redirect. The whitelisting process takes about 3 – 5 working days.
Tracking Keyword-Level Conversion With Baidu
Because Baidu does not use the {keyword} ValueTrack parameter, the platform is not able to attribute conversions to the keyword-level if creative-level URLs are used. i.e. you can’t use Creative ID + Keyword + Match Type for attribution as Keyword is not available.
To attribute conversions to the keyword-level, you must use a keyword-level URL .i.e. Keyword ID + Creative ID attribution.
Tracking Baidu Sitelink Conversions
Due to a change in the Baidu API, Marin is no longer able to support Baidu sitelinks.
To track Baidu sitelink conversions, you can only use the officially unsupported 'dummy keywords' method. As with any dummy keywords, you will need to remove the {creative} ValueTrack parameter.
Marin Tracker Inferred Device Support (IDS) With Baidu
If URLs do not include device parameter and are not using a combined tracking value approach, Marin Tracker will use IDS to populate the Device column of the Tracker revenue file.
IDS will populate device column with Computer, Tablet, Mobile or Others. This is different to Baidu’s interpretation - Computer or Mobile (includes tablet and mobile). For example, when using IDS, Baidu device-level cost and revenue data will not line up. Our recommendation is to tag Baidu URLs with the device parameter. This will then mean that the device-level cost data aligns.
How Baidu Quality Score Works
The Baidu quality score is based on a scale of 0 – 10, with 10 being the highest score. The higher the quality score, the more competent the keyword becomes. When a Baidu keyword is created, it doesn’t start with lowest quality score of 0, it actually starts with 1.
Baidu Valuetrack Parameters
| ValueTrack | Description |
| {keywordid} | Baidu’s dynamic keyword ID (globally unique). Return 0 if keyword ID is not available |
| {creative} | Baidu’s dynamic Baidu creative ID (globally unique) |
| {mediatype} | Baidu’s dynamic distribution ID. Search = 1, Content = 2 |
| {placement} | Returns placement’s domain name when ad served on content network |
| {matchtype} | Baidu’s dynamic match type parameter. Exact = 1, Phrase = 2, Broad = 3 |
| {adposition} |
Search ads’s location and ranking. Format: Location + Ranking There are 5 ad locations:
For example: cl3 means PC left hand side, no background colour, rank 3 |
| {pagenum} |
Page number of the ad. To determine the overall ad position, use it in conjunction with {adposition}. For example: {adposition} = cr1 and {pagenum} = 2 means the ad is on PC right hand side no background colour, position 1 on page 2 |
| {abtest} |
Shows whether the ad has enrolled in Baidu AB testing and status.
|
| {dongtai} | Returns 1 for dynamic ads. Returns 0 for not dynamic. |
Marin Macro Support For Baidu
The following Marin platform macros are supported for the Baidu publisher:
| Marin Macro | Value |
| [distribution] | {mediatype} |
| [keyword_text] | “Blank” |
| [matchtype] | “Blank” |
| [creative_id] | {creative} |
| [device] |
Baidu do not have device valuetrack parameter. Marin will hard code the value in the URL.
|
General API Questions
Q: Does Baidu Have The Concept Of Google’s MCC?
A: Baidu doesn’t have MCC at this time.
Q: The platform Is Granted An Agency Token. What Does That Get Us?
With this agency token, the platform can access multiple accounts by end-customer’s username/password. End-customers under agency token do not need to apply for their own API tokens.
Q: How Does The Agency API Token Differ From Regular API Token?
A: Due to Baidu’s system capacity, creative + keyword level data is only provided to those with agency API token.
Q: Does Baidu Show The Keyword Min CPC?
A: While Keyword min CPC is now available in Baidu's UI, unfortunately, this information is not available via the API.
Q: What platform Support Is Available For Baidu Integrated Campaigns?
A: Please read our Help article on platform Support for Baidu Integrated Campaigns.
Baidu Integrated Search Campaigns (整合型搜索推广)
Q: What happen if my API quota exceeded
A: You can either reach out to Baidu to request increase your API quota. If this is not possible, please reach out to your Marin account team. We might be able to use Marin’s API token instead.
