After twenty years in internet services, the sentence we dread most from clients is: "The promotion budget was spent, but the phone didn't ring more." Behind this, it's often not insufficient budget, but a silent failure in some part of the customer acquisition chain. In 2025, this failure is more concentrated than ever—Baidu's traffic structure is changing, customers' patience for inquiries is changing, and even search itself is shifting from "browsing web pages" to "asking AI."
Yunxuan Network Technology serves small and medium-sized enterprises and physical businesses across all industries nationwide. From website development, SEO optimization to full-network promotion and AI agent building, what we see is not the rise and fall of a single channel, but the need to recalibrate the entire customer acquisition system. This article doesn't discuss vague trends, but starts with three specific variables: Is Baidu promotion still worth investing in? Why has smart customer service become a watershed? What exactly can AI agents help enterprises capture?
1. Baidu Promotion Isn't "Dead," but the Investment Logic Has Completely Changed
Every so often, someone asks: Is Baidu promotion still useful? Our answer has always been clear: Yes, but the era of "open an account, set a few keywords, and wait for calls" is over.
In the past, Baidu promotion was about bidding and keyword coverage. Now it's about three things: whether the landing page can capture intent, whether the response to inquiries is fast enough, and whether data feedback is accurate enough. We served an engineering company in Zhanjiang that initially ran Baidu promotion on its own, chose broad keywords, and used a company profile as the landing page. As a result, there were many clicks but few inquiries. Later, we helped them restructure: grouping high-intent keywords like "engineering contracting" and "factory construction" separately, replacing the landing page with case pages broken down by project type, and integrating smart customer service for initial reception. With the same budget, the number of valid inquiries more than doubled.
The key change here is: Baidu promotion is no longer an isolated ad slot, but the entry point of the entire customer acquisition chain. When a user searches for a keyword, what they see after clicking, how quickly someone responds, and how professionally they respond directly determine whether this click is a cost or an inquiry. When Yunxuan Network Technology manages bid accounts, we don't just focus on keywords and bids in the account, but connect landing pages, customer service response, form submissions, and follow-ups. Wherever a link breaks, money leaks from there.
Another easily overlooked point: Baidu promotion and website SEO are never either-or. On search result pages, ads and organic results coexist. If an enterprise only invests in ads without SEO, every click costs money; if it only does SEO without ads, it's hard to scale quickly in the short term. We usually advise clients to walk on two legs—use Baidu promotion for precise keywords and immediate inquiries, and use website SEO for content and long-tail traffic. The data from both can feed each other: high-converting keywords from ads are directions for SEO content topics.
2. Smart Customer Service: From "Cost Item" to "Watershed of Conversion Rate"
Many business owners still understand customer service as "just having someone answer the phone." But in the past two years, when reviewing client data, we've found a pattern: there is almost a strong correlation between inquiry response speed and lead conversion rate.
When a customer finds your website on Baidu or sees your video on Douyin and clicks into the chat window, if no one responds within thirty seconds, they will likely leave and look at the next one. Especially during non-working hours like evenings and weekends, traditional customer service can't cover them. Yet it's precisely during these times that many B2B customers and local physical businesses have time to compare slowly.
This is where the value of smart customer service lies. It's not simply a script library with automatic replies, but must achieve several things:
- Instant response: No matter the time, when a customer sends a message, someone "catches" it immediately, retaining the person first before talking conversion;
- Intent recognition: Distinguish whether the other party is asking about price, service scope, or cases, and route different intents to different scripts or human agents;
- Automatic lead capture: Naturally guide customers to leave their phone, WeChat, or requirement description during the conversation, rather than popping up a form abruptly;
- Nighttime coverage: Capture inquiries from non-working hours first, so that when human follow-up occurs the next day, there is complete context.
We had a client running a trading store. Before launching smart customer service, nighttime inquiries were basically lost. After launch, smart customer service answered common questions first, captured leads from customers with clear needs, and the next day staff followed up. The increase in lead conversion rate wasn't due to fancy scripts, but because "when the customer is there, we are definitely there."
It should be clear that smart customer service is not meant to replace humans. Our approach is usually: smart customer service handles initial reception and intent screening, complex issues and high-value customers are transferred to humans, and when humans take over, they can already see the previous conversation records, so customers don't have to repeat themselves. This saves manpower without sacrificing experience.
3. AI Agents: Capturing New Traffic in the AI Search Era
If smart customer service solves "how to receive when they come," then AI agents solve "how to let customers find you and trust you."
A clear change in 2025 is that more and more users are asking questions on AI platforms like Doubao, Qianwen, and DeepSeek, rather than opening search engines and browsing web pages. For example, someone might directly ask: "Which engineering company in Zhanjiang is reliable for factory construction?" or "How do SMEs generally choose service providers for full-network promotion?" The AI's answer will reference the content it has crawled. If your enterprise information is blank, scattered, or outdated in the content AI can reach, then you are not in its recommendation range.
This is why we do GEO (Generative Engine Optimization). GEO is not mysticism; it has similarities with website SEO, but with different focus: SEO competes for search result rankings, while GEO competes for the probability of being cited and recommended by AI. In execution, we mainly help clients do three things:
- Structure enterprise information: Present service scope, core business, cases, and contact information in a way that AI can easily understand, rather than piling them in images and Flash;
- Continuously produce citable content: Write answer-style content around questions customers actually ask, giving AI material to crawl;
- Multi-platform information consistency: Keep enterprise descriptions consistent on official websites, industry platforms, and content channels to reduce confusion during AI crawling.
AI agents are the tool for enterprises to capture this wave of traffic on their own turf. It can be understood as a digital assistant that understands your business: when customers ask questions on your website, official account, or mini-program, it can answer based on your enterprise's knowledge base, rather than giving generic nonsense. For SMEs without a dedicated customer service team, this is equivalent to building a 7×24 professional reception entry at a lower cost.
For a manufacturing factory, we built an AI agent. In the early stage, we organized product parameters, FAQs, and quotation logic into a knowledge base. After launch, it could automatically answer most standard questions and transfer complex inquiries to salespeople. The salesperson feedback was that they used to spend a lot of time answering basic questions repeatedly, but now they can directly talk to customers with real needs.
4. How to Twist the Three Lines into One Rope: Yunxuan Network Technology's Customer Acquisition Closed Loop
Looking at Baidu promotion, smart customer service, and AI agents separately, each can have its own methodology. But what enterprises really need is whether they can form a closed loop when connected. Our service logic basically revolves around this closed loop:
Step 1: Website Building—Turn the "Facade" into a "Container That Can Receive Traffic"
Website building is not just about making a good-looking page. When doing custom website development, we consider three things simultaneously: whether the brand image can build trust, whether the PC and mobile experiences are smooth, and whether the underlying structure is conducive to search engine and AI indexing. Many clients later find Baidu promotion ineffective, and the root cause is the official website—slow page loading, mobile misalignment, content all in images, search engines and AI can't read it, and traffic can't be captured even when it comes.
Step 2: Traffic Generation—Multi-channel Coverage of Search Engines, Short Videos, and Local Platforms
National promotion doesn't mean casting a net everywhere. Based on the client's industry and customer distribution, we decide whether to focus on Baidu promotion, feed ads, Douyin promotion, or local life platforms. For engineering and manufacturing clients, search intent is clearer, so Baidu promotion and website SEO carry more weight; for physical store clients, short videos and local platforms bring more direct foot traffic. If the channel choice is wrong, even hard work yields half the result.
Step 3: Reception—Smart Customer Service and AI Agents Guard Every Inquiry
After traffic comes in, the biggest fear is "no one to receive." We embed smart customer service and AI agents as standard configurations in the customer acquisition chain: inquiry entries on ad landing pages, AI Q&A on official websites, private message guidance on short video homepages—all inquiries from all entries can be instantly responded to and recorded. Only when this step is solid does the money spent on traffic generation not go to waste.
Step 4: Optimization—Use Data to Deduce Where to Improve
Whether it's bid management or SEO optimization, it's not a set-and-forget thing. We regularly look at key indicators: inquiry volume, lead conversion rate, cost per valid inquiry, and conversion differences across channels. Which keyword brings the most valid inquiries, which landing page has the highest lead rate, and where smart customer service loses the most customers—these data will in turn guide the next round of advertising and content direction.
5. Common Issues Encountered by Enterprise Clients Nationwide
In serving clients across industries nationwide, we find several issues recurring, regardless of region or industry:
1. Treating promotion as a one-time investment. Baidu promotion and website SEO both require continuous optimization; account structure, keywords, landing pages, and content all need adjustment based on data. Expecting stable customer acquisition after one month of investment is basically unrealistic.
2. Disconnection between official website and promotion. Traffic from promotion lands on an official website that hasn't been updated for years and has poor mobile experience, so conversion rate is naturally low. Website building and promotion should be planned together, not build first and then think about promotion.
3. No timely response to inquiries. Especially during non-working hours, customer inquiries are severely lost. Smart customer service and AI agents solve this problem at a cost far lower than adding night shift manpower.
4. Ignoring the new entry point of AI search. Many enterprises haven't realized that customers are already using AI platforms for decision-making reference. Doing GEO now is occupying the position; doing it when competition intensifies will cost much more.
6. Where Should Enterprises Focus Their Efforts in 2025
Based on our own service experience and client feedback, here are a few practical suggestions:
- Maintain the search foundation: Baidu promotion and website SEO are still the main sources of high-intent customers and worth continuous investment, but optimize by effect, don't just spend.
- Treat response speed as a hard indicator: Smart customer service is not optional; it's infrastructure for receiving traffic. A second slower in response may mean one less inquiry.
- Layout AI search early: GEO is still in its early stages. Start with content structuring and multi-platform information consistency—cost is controllable and benefits are long-term.
- Use AI agents to reduce reception costs: SMEs don't need to maintain a large customer service team. Use AI agents for initial reception and intent screening, and let humans focus on high-value customers.
- Plan website building, promotion, reception, and optimization together: Customer acquisition is a systemic issue; single-point optimization has limited effect. When choosing a service provider, see if they can offer a full-chain solution, not just sell you an ad account.
Yunxuan Network Technology has been deeply engaged in the internet industry for 20 years. From website development, SEO optimization to Baidu promotion, feed ads, GEO, and AI agent building, we have always done one thing: help enterprises open up, stabilize, and continuously optimize their customer acquisition chain. SMEs, physical stores, engineering and manufacturing enterprises nationwide are welcome to talk to us if they encounter bottlenecks in customer acquisition. You don't have to cooperate immediately; diagnosing the problem clearly first is more important than blindly investing money.