On the eighth day of the Lunar New Year, Zhongguancun, Ideal International Building.

When Gu Mojie stood downstairs, he had a feeling of unreality. Because today's Baidu company only occupies one of the floors of such a building, with a mere 3,000 square meters of office area.

Gu Mojie doesn't know how big Baidu will grow in the future, but it must be big. Compared with the behemoths of later generations, today's Baidu, even if it is not a child, can only be regarded as a teenager at most. It's also a shame that today's Baidu is not strong enough to be that kind of Cheng dù, so he will send someone to negotiate with him for a small order of 100,000 yuan.

Zhou Lixin has no idea how powerful Baidu will become in the future, so the awe in his heart is still there.

The security guard in the lobby on the first floor confirmed the intention of the two men, verified the appointment, and then led the two to the visitors' elevator, pressed the floor, and swiped the card - that is, to ensure that they could only get off the elevator from the 12th floor, and could not stop on other floors.

When the elevator door opened on the 12th floor, it suddenly opened up in front of me that it was a blue and white hue, and the LOGO that I saw countless times on the browser jumped into my eyes every day, and everyone on the earth knew that this was Baidu.

"Mr. Zhou, Mr. Gu, two are good. I am your account manager Liu Feitong, who is responsible for answering and negotiating bidding ranking business for you today, please go here. ”

In the elevator hall, a young woman in professional attire bowed slightly, handed over a business card, and then led the two to a conference room. Zhou Lixin was a little embarrassed, and after taking the business card, he realized that he didn't have a business card, so he had to follow behind.

The three of them sat down, turned on the projector, poured coffee, and exchanged a few polite words. Liu Feitong is very capable of doing things, and his skills in leading the topic are also quite good, which is not at all the kind that Gu Mojie and Zhou Lixin, two science and engineering men, can control the rhythm.

seems to be in order to gain mutual trust and understanding, before talking about business, Liu Feitong inadvertently introduced his qualifications a little.

According to Liu Feitong, she was studying at Stanford in the United States, and she met Boss Li, who had just come to Infoseek in Silicon Valley to work in her junior year. It's a pity that she didn't have a good vision later, maybe it was the girl's mindset of seeking stability, and she was reluctant to have the opportunity to study MBA at Stanford, and she didn't directly defect to Boss Li when he returned to China to start a business in 99, and missed the opportunity to become a core employee in the entrepreneurial period.

When I was in the first semester of my second year of graduate school in 01, I heard that Boss Li had slightly mixed up his personal appearance in China, and it happened that Baidu was expanding its business and there was a shortage of personnel, so he came to recruit her again. This time, she seized the opportunity, decisively gave up studying, and returned to China. Now, I have two years of experience in Baidu, but unfortunately I can only be a middle-level manager in the bidding ranking business department.

After listening to the other party's self-introduction, Gu Mojie felt that it was nothing based on the self-confidence of the reborn. Liu Feitong was also quietly observing while talking, and Gu Mojie's calm aura made her pay a lot of attention. So after the small talk, she picked up the conversation and first turned to the compliment:

"Then let's get down to business. Before introducing the business, please allow me to express my congratulations to you: Mr. Gu is really young and promising, your input method products as of yesterday, has been downloaded by 1.07 million people, for a product that has been on the market for about a month, breaking through one million users is really a great achievement. ”

Five minutes after walking into the conference room, Gu Mojie had a slightly surprised expression on his face for the first time: "So accurate? You all know this kind of number? ”

Liu Feitong smiled slightly: "Before we select any customer with long-term cooperation potential, of course, we will do some work a little." Don't forget that we are Baidu, how can there be something we don't know about the number of Internet search frequency and download traffic in China? Therefore, in cooperation with our Baidu, the promotion fee can be adjusted in real time, and every dollar is spent on the blade, which is definitely not a lie. ”

"That's a very convincing slogan. It seems that if I don't directly invest 100,000 yuan in advertising today, I will be embarrassed to leave this conference room. Gu Mojie shrugged his shoulders helplessly, and then continued,

"Miss Liu, please rest assured, I am very sincere today. I never had doubts about the decision to use Baidu to promote my software. If it was just to make this decision, I wouldn't even need to come to the capital today, just transfer money and open a margin account.

The reason why I have to come is to have a deeper understanding of your company's promotion business, so I hope that today's focus can be on introducing the differentiation analysis of your company's promotion business and its peers in the market. If it makes sense, I wouldn't mind adding to the promotion budget. ”

Gu Mojie's "boldness" was somewhat unexpected by Liu Feitong. In 03 years of China, most of the people who do business are still in the stage of friendship, and there are not many salespeople who study technical differentiation. Liu Feitong asked herself to be a high-achieving student who came back from the United States, but she has not used her real talent for a long time, and the negotiations with many domestic customers in the past two years have gradually worn out her original skills.

At this moment, the ability that had been sealed for a long time was awakened, and Liu Feitong actually had a little pleasure to be stimulated: "If Mr. Gu has any doubts, even if he says it, I will know everything." ”

"That's good, I'll get straight to the point. The first question is that I was inclined to look for a domestic company that can do keyword advertising business similar to Google, but unfortunately there is no such company in China. In the end, I only found your company's PPC business, which is the closest.

What I want to ask is: Boss Li's Baidu is also the pioneer of the most closely followed up search engine giants in China, why didn't your company copy Google's keyword advertising in the first place, but changed it to the bidding ranking of search results? ”

For this question, Liu Feitong did not answer directly, but his eyes became slightly disappointed, as if the good impression accumulated by Gu Mojie before had dissipated: "Does Mr. Gu think that Chinese companies should follow closely behind their counterparts in the United States, and the closer they follow, the more progress they will make?" ”

Gu Mojie hurriedly denied: "I definitely didn't mean that - I mean, Google did that, after all, it is to classify search results as search results and advertisements as advertisements." On the one hand, the number of advertisements that can be placed is larger and more regular, and on the other hand, there is no hidden danger of deceiving users. Baidu is like this, mixing the promoted products that are stuffed with money and ordinary search results, and they are not marked, will it be ......?"

After listening to Gu Mojie's concerns, Liu Feitong's expression, who had just shown a hint of disappointment and disdain, finally recovered, and at that moment, he felt that Gu Mojie's superficial illusion had also dissipated without a trace: "Mr. Gu, it's not that Baidu wants this, it's the national situation." If Baidu doesn't do this, do you think we have a Chinese search engine that we can use now? ”

"What do you mean by that?"

"If our users are professional, more precise, and don't care about spending some fees, and can have good Internet business habits, we can certainly promote Google-style services. The problem is that the structure of domestic netizens is completely different from that of the United States: the country is still in the most primitive stage.

For example, if a user searches for an antivirus software in the United States, he may not mind spending a little money on the genuine version, but he wants to use the most suitable product for him, such as hardware that better fits him, and other applications and systems that fit him.

But in China, people are accustomed to solving the problem first, and then solving the problem of whether it is good or not; And it's free, brutally solved: they don't mind spending a little more time in order not to spend money, nor do they mind downloading software with features that aren't as powerful as the paid ones in order to not spend money.

In order not to spend money, the user does not mind letting people know his user habits, does not care about the leakage of personal **, and ignores a qiē Internet protocol, and when he encounters an agreement, he does not look at it without looking at the 'consent' - to serve such netizens, we must be close to the national conditions, and we cannot copy the way of the Chinese people.

Mr. Gu, you may be an accurate person, you care about the timeliness and comprehensiveness of your search results, maybe you usually use Google to search for what you want, and you are not likely to become our Baidu users in this field. But the vast majority of netizens don't care about the things you care about, they just need Baidu to provide them with a thing that is guaranteed to be usable in the most convenient, fastest and cheapest way, as for whether this is the best or the most suitable for them, they don't care.

In order to ensure that users can complete the search most conveniently, the fastest and cheapest, we at Baidu have sacrificed some aspects that domestic netizens don't care much about today, isn't that right? I don't know if you can accept that when I say that. ”

That is, you think this is a stopgap measure to compromise costs? As for the demands of some domestic high-end netizens who have reached the level of Mi netizens, you have chosen to focus on the big and let go of the small, and would rather give up this part of the high-end customers to Google? ”

"If that's how you understand the question, I'm not going to quibble. Yes, we at Baidu will never hide this from our peers in the industry - and I have a kind suggestion, Mr. Gu, you are also a reader, and you are also well versed in IT technology, maybe you will care a lot about choosing your favorite software to use, and don't care about spending money on it. But the input method you write to serve most of the users is not like that, they only need three points: cheap, convenient, and accurate. The value of a product should be seen from the perspective of your customers, not the developer, right? ”

After listening to Liu Feitong's words, Gu Mojie felt that a nerve in his brain was deeply touched, and many thoughts were almost pouring out like a tide. This feeling has hardly happened since he was reborn, but he can vaguely feel as if something that has been sealed and washed away is being reconstructed in order to tell him some truth.

Liu Feitong thought that he was digesting his own opinions, so he didn't follow closely and continue to indoctricate, but just refilled Gu Mojie's coffee, and quietly waited for Gu Mojie to come back to his senses before continuing to discuss.

Gu Mojie felt that he was really a little bookish before. Even if he is reborn once, after all, he is just a science and engineering man in the next generation, and he still doesn't think enough about the humanity and needs behind the Internet. Immediately afterwards, he asked Liu Feitong many doubts about Baidu's promotion business, and Liu Feitong answered all questions, and a hazy ideological system gradually formed in Gu Mojie's mind.

An hour and a half passed unconsciously, and on the second day after the New Year, Liu Feitong spent half a morning of work, only accompanying Gu Mojie's customers along the way, and carefully answered everything.

According to this in-depth communication introduction, Gu Mojie learned that the setting of Baidu's bidding is very flexible, and after opening the business, you can use the operation background provided by Baidu to add or remove keywords at any time, and you can also adjust the bid for each keyword at any time. At the level of 03 years,Baidu's lower limit of keyword bidding is almost non-existent,If it's an unpopular word that no one bids for,At least 7 cents a click can buy the rise in the ranking of search results,If it's the pursuit of the top,The cheapest is only 1 Mao 9。

After chatting, Gu Mojie himself was a little embarrassed, after all, he only planned to invest 100,000 yuan in advertising fees, which was only equivalent to the business volume of Baidu's bidding ranking business for two or three days. People are willing to accompany him so much, it is completely to save face.

"Miss Liu, I still have two last doubts, if you can tell me, I think I can transfer money today, deposit 150,000 into the PPC account, for my input method promotion."

"You're welcome. Whether you add it or not, I'll do my best to help you out. ”

"What I want to know is, what you just said is your internal training at Baidu, or is it your own summary?"

Liu Feitong smiled when she heard this: "Mr. Gu, if you start your own company in the future, do you think you will teach your employees how to tell the truth to customers?" You can understand the concepts I just said as my observation and speculation about Baidu's corporate culture and Mr. Li. ”

"Thank you, and one last question." Gu Mojie sat up straight, ready to end this protracted negotiation, "You said just now that after I open the backstage, I can add or remove the keywords I want to bid on at any time, right?" So if the keywords I want to add are not superficially related to the products I operate, will this change be reviewed or restricted by your company? Can it be fed back to the search user in real time? ”

Liu Feitong's body involuntarily leaned forward a little, and he smelled a hint of danger from Gu Mojie's last question. After some consideration, she chose a serious answer: "Of course, it cannot violate the provisions of relevant national laws, nor can it violate public order and good customs......

"Of course it won't be violated, so let's give you an example." Gu Mojie adjusted his feelings, lifted his glasses, covered his eyes with the reflection of the lenses, and continued, "Suppose I am not a software seller today, but an insurance seller. Then I want to bid for the keyword 'car accident' and then direct the search results to the link to the car insurance product I sell, which is not very comfortable, but it shouldn't violate the rules of use, right? ”

"That's right...... Do not violate. Liu Feitong tensed her nerves and was vigilant for a long time, but she didn't see any traps in this question, so she could only answer.

"Then thank you, happy cooperation, let's go open a margin account." Gu Mojie got up, shook hands with Liu Feitong, and then the group left the conference room.

Liu Feitong was still thinking crankily in his heart: Why did that kid just now have to use insurance as an example?