Ten years ago, the path to digital customer acquisition was fairly straightforward: build a website, invest in Baidu PPC, maybe add some feed ads, and wait for inquiries. But over the past two years, this playbook has become increasingly less effective. When we talk to SME clients across China, the most common complaints we hear are: Baidu clicks are getting more expensive, feed ads burn budgets with little return, and websites attract visitors but fail to capture leads.
Behind these struggles lie structural shifts in traffic sources, user behavior, and technology. As a digital marketing and tech development service provider with two decades of experience, Huasu Tech wants to break down what is changing in the industry, how it impacts customer acquisition, and what new approaches businesses should adopt.
1. Fragmented Traffic: Baidu PPC Remains Essential but Is No Longer the Only Answer
For SMEs across China, Baidu PPC is still one of the most stable channels for search-driven leads. When users have clear intent, search behavior remains frequent. But competition has intensified. Cost-per-click in popular industries keeps rising, and for budget-constrained SMEs, relying solely on keyword bidding makes it increasingly hard to achieve a favorable ROI.
More importantly, traffic is no longer concentrated in search engines. Platforms like Douyin, Xiaohongshu, and Video Account are capturing massive user attention, while AI chatbots such as Doubao, DeepSeek, and Qwen are emerging as new information retrieval gateways. Users now find answers through web search, short videos, and AI conversations.
This means that sticking only with Baidu PPC is like fishing in a shrinking pond. Our recommendation to national clients: treat Baidu PPC as the stable baseline for precise search demand, but simultaneously expand into new frontiers — especially AI search and content platforms.
2. The Truth About Feed Ads: They Work, but Only with Strategy
Feed ads have been the fastest-growing advertising format over the past five years. They offer massive reach and precise targeting, yet many businesses have a love-hate relationship with them. We have seen clients spend tens of thousands of yuan on feed ads only to receive low-quality clicks and dismal lead conversion rates.
Where does the problem lie? In most cases, it is not the platform but the strategy. Feed ads operate on the principle of interest stimulation — users do not have an explicit need, so the ad must spark one. This demands compelling creatives, persuasive landing pages, and a frictionless conversion path. Many businesses simply copy their Baidu search ad creatives into feed campaigns. Users scroll past without a second thought.
When Huasu Tech runs feed ad campaigns, we first help clients define target audience personas, then tailor creative directions for each platform (e.g., Ocean Engine, Tencent Ads). Crucially, we optimize landing pages together — not just linking to a homepage, but building dedicated campaign pages that match the ad's promise. With this coordination, lead costs typically drop by over 30%.
But let us be realistic: feed ads work best for standardized products or services — franchise recruitment, education courses, software tools. If your business is highly customized, such as engineering projects, feed ads can support brand exposure but are unlikely to become a primary lead source.
3. The Rise of AI Search: GEO Optimization Is Rewriting the Rules
If the first two changes are gradual, the rise of AI search is a structural shift. More users are turning to AI tools like Doubao, DeepSeek, and Qwen for answers. Instead of typing keywords into a browser, they ask: "Which supplier in this industry is reliable?" or "Who makes quality equipment?"
AI does not return a traditional list of blue links. It generates synthesized, curated recommendations. Whoever gets mentioned in those answers earns precise exposure and a trust endorsement. This is where GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) comes in — by optimizing content, businesses increase the likelihood that AI tools will prioritize and cite their information.
GEO shares some DNA with traditional SEO but operates differently. SEO targets search engine crawlers and algorithms — keyword density, backlinks, page authority. GEO targets the training data and knowledge bases of AI models — content structure, authority, information completeness, and alignment with user query intent.
Huasu Tech began focusing on GEO services last year, helping clients across China build brand recognition on platforms like Doubao, DeepSeek, and Qwen. Our approach includes: mapping core industry questions and producing high-quality Q&A content; optimizing the information architecture of client websites so AI can accurately crawl and index them; and building brand mentions across authoritative platforms to increase citation probability.
One machinery export client saw results after three months of GEO work. They called us excitedly: "When we asked AI for equipment supplier recommendations, our company started appearing in the answer." The quality of these inquiries is exceptionally high, because users arrive with trust already established through AI's recommendation.
4. Smart Customer Service: Stop Losing After-Hours Traffic
Traffic arrives, but if no one is there to receive it, it quietly slips away. This is an invisible loss many businesses overlook. Our analysis of client website data shows that roughly 30-40% of traffic occurs outside business hours — evenings, weekends, holidays. These visitors browse with intent, but without a live agent, they leave without leaving a trace.
Previously, the only solution was human staffing around the clock — costly and inefficient. Today, AI agents have matured, making 7×24 automatic reception feasible. The AI agents Huasu Tech builds are not simple keyword auto-reply bots. They are customized assistants trained on each client's product catalog, FAQs, and business logic. They understand natural language questions, accurately answer product specs, pricing ranges, and service processes, and proactively guide visitors to leave contact information.
A retail store client deployed an AI agent and saw after-hours lead capture rates rise by over 40%. Sales teams followed up the next morning on high-quality leads, significantly improving conversion efficiency. Smart customer service is not just about saving labor costs — it is about not letting a single potential customer slip through the cracks.
5. National Reach, Local Depth: The Huasu Tech Service Model
Some may ask: Huasu Tech is registered in Zhanjiang, so does it only serve local clients? That is a misconception. Our office is in Xuwen County, Zhanjiang, but our service coverage spans the entire country. Manufacturing plants in Jiangsu, engineering firms in Shandong, retail businesses in Sichuan — these are all clients we serve. Service radius is not limited by geography, because digital marketing is inherently a cross-regional business.
That said, we do offer deeper localized services for brick-and-mortar stores, engineering companies, and commercial clients in Zhanjiang and western Guangdong, given our team is on the ground and can meet face-to-face. But this is about service depth, not service boundaries. For national clients, we ensure consistent quality through remote collaboration, regular reviews, and shared data dashboards.
6. From Point Solutions to Full-Cycle Management: Businesses Need a Closed Loop
Many businesses piecemeal their marketing: build a website today, run an ad campaign tomorrow, buy an AI tool the next day. The result is fragmented modules — disconnected data, inconsistent strategies, wasted budgets, and poor outcomes.
Huasu Tech's full-cycle digital marketing management service was created to solve exactly this. We integrate website development, SEO, GEO, feed ads, Baidu PPC, AI agent deployment, and brand content distribution into one continuous service chain. We start with diagnosis, define strategy, execute in phases, and continuously optimize. Clients work with a single team to handle everything from traffic acquisition to lead conversion.
The benefits are clear: unified strategy, connected data, and coherent execution. For instance, when building a client's website, we consider AI-retrieval-friendly architecture from day one. When doing GEO optimization, we synchronize website content with external content placement. When running feed ads, we use AI agents to handle landing page traffic. Every component reinforces the others, delivering results far stronger than isolated efforts.
7. Three Recommendations for SMEs Across China
Drawing on our experience serving clients nationwide, here are three practical recommendations to help businesses navigate this changing landscape.
First, reassess your channel mix. Run Baidu PPC with refined precision, invest in feed ads with clear strategy, and start building a presence in AI search. A multi-channel approach reduces the risk of over-reliance on any single platform.
Second, embrace smart customer service and AI tools. Labor costs are rising, and response-speed competition is intensifying. AI enables you to improve reception capacity and response time without adding headcount.
Third, when choosing a service provider, prioritize teams with full-stack capability. Point-solution vendors cannot deliver the holistic planning that is essential for winning in today's competitive acquisition environment.
The rules of the industry are changing, but the underlying logic remains: whoever gets seen, trusted, and chosen at the moment a user expresses a need will win growth. Huasu Tech is ready to be a long-term partner for businesses across China on their digital marketing journey — using technology, content, and strategy to help every serious business get discovered by more customers.