21 %
ROI

Background

Merkle is Baidu’s only US-headquartered, 5-star SEM reseller with a local team based in China. With its global heritage in analytics and results-driven performance media, Merkle takes a data-centric approach to help global brands across different verticals succeed in the burgeoning yet complicated China market with Baidu SEM campaigns.

Challenge

Baidu, whose advertising platform is solely in the Chinese language, has a sophisticated array of search advertising products beyond regular PPC. This can be very challenging when it comes to systematic tracking and efficient campaign management. In addition, the Baidu advertising platform is also very limited in its analytics and reporting features. Clients need data intelligence and insights for decision making and optimal budget allocation, so Merkle was in search of a reliable technology partner that could integrate Baidu SEM with flexible tracking and management solutions as well as provide robust reporting capabilities with granular level data for advanced analytics.  Essentially, Merkle needed a middleware provider between their clients and Baidu that could help provide ongoing analytics and reporting in the English language.

Solution

Skai Universal Channel and TAL Tracking Solution

With Skai Universal Channel and TAL Tracking Solution, we are able to fetch data and manage non-regular search campaigns and Baidu Dynamic Product Ads in Skai, ensuring data consistency and facilitating multi-channel analysis.

Automated Actions

Skai’s time-saving, rule-based automations fulfill daily data pulling and bid optimization tasks, which allows the Merkle team to spend more time on strategic analysis as well as to react quickly in the rapidly-changing China market.

Schedule Reports: Click Tracking Raw Data & P2C Report

Using click tracking raw data and path-to-conversion reports provided by Skai, Merkle can identify a single user’s clickstream and every touchpoint leading to conversion actions. With such a granular level of detail, they were able to parse the data and construct custom algorithmic modeling to performance multi-channel attribution model analysis. This data-driven method compared to last-click/first-click analysis provides an integral view of channel and campaign performance, uncovering strategic insights for optimization and budget allocation.

Results

Merkle saw great performance enhancement using Skai for Baidu SEM. On average, clients saw ROI increase by 21% YOY in 2017. Once the great potential of Merkle’s Baidu SEM program had been demonstrated with exceptional ROI, clients increased ad investment by 20% in 2018 Q1-Q2, which yielded 2.5X higher ad revenue.

Find out how you too can leverage the power of Skai Search.

Challenge

  • Baidu has various sophisticated search products, causing tracking and campaign management issues.
  • Baidu’s advertising platform itself is very limited in analytics and reporting support.
  • Merkle needs to perform advanced analytics and generate data-driven insights to feed strategic campaign optimization and optimal budget allocation for clients.

Solution

  • Skai Universal Channel and TAL Tracking Solution
  • Automated Actions
  • Scheduled Reports: Click Tracking Raw Data and P2C Report

Results

  • On average, ROI increased by 21% YOY in 2017.
  • Ad investment grew by 20% in 2018 Q1-Q2, resulting in 2.5X higher ad revenue.

“Merkle and Skai didn’t just enable our China advertising program with a “spray and pray” approach. Instead they fueled the business with data and advanced analytics, then translated the performance and insights into the language we understand, which was particularly helpful for our executive management team, who don’t read Chinese.”

Digital Marketing Manager of one of Merkle’s Baidu Clients based in Hong Kong