How does B2B marketing in China work for a foreign company?

Most guides on this topic give you the same list: WeChat, Baidu, Zhihu, trade shows. Few say which of those a foreign company can open from abroad, or what you’re allowed to send to a stranger.

This guide covers both, and says where the evidence stops. It’s part of our guide on how to find Chinese customers.

What makes B2B marketing in China different?

The goal is familiar: get found, get believed, start a conversation. The channels, the outreach rules and the way people make contact are what change.

• The channels are local. LinkedIn announced in 2021 that it would close its localized service in China, and TechNode reported in 2023 that InCareer, its jobs replacement, would close too.¹⁵
• A group decides. Marketing to China separates what engineers ask about (specs) from what purchasing managers ask about (price).² IT Consultis calls cycles “long and committee-driven.”³
• Conversations move to a person. Marketing to China says the relationship forms on a salesperson’s personal WeChat, and IT Consultis presents WeCom as the tool for one-to-one follow-up.²³
• Outreach has rules. Chinese law addresses unsolicited electronic ads directly, and a lead list can raise privacy questions. We cover both below.

How big is the market, really?

Nobody offers a figure you can plan on. The numbers quoted across the guides we read describe B2B e-commerce, and they don’t agree.

Source	Figure	Period	Underlying data
Daxue 4	About RMB 33 trillion	2022	Estimate, source not named. Gonyn is credited for 2021
HI-COM 5	$1.26 trillion	2023	Grand View Research
Marketing to China 2	About RMB 36.5 trillion	2025 report	Shushangyun

At an assumed 7 yuan to the dollar, the HI-COM figure is about RMB 9 trillion, a quarter of the others. HI-COM also quotes $2.7 trillion for 2025 from a different source, or about RMB 19 trillion.⁵

Each source seems to define the market differently, and none of them sizes yours.

The same caution applies to cost and conversion figures, which we’ve left for the FAQ.

Which channels can you open without a Chinese entity?

Several, but the proof varies a lot by channel. No competing guide we read sets this out, so here’s what we could and couldn’t confirm on November 1, 2026.

Channel	Role in B2B	Without a Chinese entity	How solid is that?
Chinese website	Where buyers verify you	Yes, if it’s hosted outside the mainland	Solid. Mainland hosting needs an ICP 1
Organic search	Buyers find you by need	Yes. Chinafy, a vendor, says an ICP isn’t required to rank on Baidu 31	Medium, vendor source. Nothing guarantees indexing, and account setup has friction
Baidu Ads	Paid intent	Through an authorized agent, not self-service 78	Access is agreed. Landing page rules aren’t
WeChat Official Account	Content, contact	2026 guides say a Service Account is possible for some foreign entities 9	Disputed. SSW asks for a Chinese license or WFOE 10
WeCom	One-to-one follow-up	Unclear	One agency says overseas documents are accepted 34, while its WeCom guide lists sign-up routes, not eligibility 11
Trade shows	Meetings	Check with each organizer	No general rule found
Distributor	Local reach	By contract with a local company	Agency view. May limit your sight of end customers 3
1688	Domestic wholesale	Check with 1688 first	One buyer guide says company accounts are for Chinese suppliers 16
Maimai	Professional network	Not checked	HI-COM’s user figures have no date or source 5
LinkedIn	HQ contacts	Possible, but it isn’t a Chinese channel	Marketing to China reports very limited reach, without data 2

Before you budget for WeChat, ask WeChat itself which documents apply to your country. Our WeChat guide tracks the disagreement on eligibility and on posting limits. A 2024 guide reports a cap of 4 broadcasts a month on Service Accounts,¹² but 2026 sources disagree, so check your own account.

For paid search, our page on Baidu SEO or Baidu Ads compares the routes.

Xiaohongshu stays unproven for B2B, as our Xiaohongshu guide explains.

Which buyer are you selling to?

Your first move depends on the buyer. This split is our reasoning, not survey data, and most companies will recognize one or two rows.

Buyer	How contact usually starts	Your first move
Foreign subsidiary in China	Your head office relationship	Ask existing global accounts for an introduction
Private Chinese company	Search, referral, trade show	A Chinese site with proof and a contact route
Distributor or reseller	Trade show, direct approach	A partner pack in Chinese, with clear territory terms
State-funded buyer	Published notice	Monitor notices and take local advice

Trade shows are the clearest offline route. CCPIT counted 4,095 trade exhibitions in 2025 across 159 million square meters, both records.¹³

CIIE, the import expo, is scheduled in Shanghai for November 5 to 10, 2026.¹⁴

Marketing to China says a fair is now where buyers meet the supplier they already found online.² Daxue says some buyers still prefer fairs and conferences.⁴

Neither offers data, so go with a specific meeting list, not a hope of passing traffic.

How does selling to state-funded buyers work?

You respond to a published notice. Marketing helps you be known, but the process runs on formal rules, and no B2B guide we read covers them.

• Two laws apply. The Government Procurement Law covers purchasing by government bodies, and the Tendering and Bidding Law covers certain construction and public works.²²
• Equipment can be in scope. Article 3 of the tendering law extends to important equipment and materials tied to covered projects, including state-funded ones.¹⁹
• Notices are public. Mandatory tender notices go on the China Tendering and Bidding Public Service Platform or a provincial platform, and anyone can read them for free.²⁰
• Government purchases have their own site. The China Government Procurement Network is the Ministry of Finance’s designated publisher.²¹

The US Commercial Service’s 2025 guide says China hasn’t joined the WTO Government Procurement Agreement, and that government buyers are generally told to buy domestic products, with exceptions.²²

Since January 1, 2026, a State Council notice also gives domestic goods a 20% price deduction in bid evaluation when they compete with non-domestic goods.³² The notice says foreign-owned companies get the same preference for qualifying products, so where the goods are made matters here.³²

Comments on the procurement draft closed on July 25, and NPC Observer listed no second reading when we checked on November 1.²⁴ Read the current text, and ask a local adviser whether you can bid.

Free check

Is your website visible on Baidu?

Enter your website. We check Baidu, access from China and how your site is set up, then email you the report.

Your websiteCheck my site

Can you send cold emails to Chinese companies?

Be careful. Article 43 of the Advertising Law says nobody may send ads by electronic means without the recipient’s consent or request.¹⁷ None of the B2B guides we read mentions it.

Four rules bear on a typical outreach campaign.

Rule	What the text says	What it means for a campaign
Advertising Law, Art. 43 17	No electronic ads without consent. Name the sender, give contacts and a way to refuse	If it counts as an ad, it needs your real identity and an opt-out
Advertising Law, Art. 62 17	Stop order, and RMB 5,000 to 30,000 for the advertiser	The fine is modest. The reputation cost may not be
E-mail Measures of 2006 33	Explicit consent, and “广告” or “AD” at the start of the subject line	We couldn’t confirm that the 2006 text is still in force
PIPL, Art. 13 and 27 18	Public data may be used within reason, unless the person refuses. Uses with a major effect on the person need consent	A scraped list isn’t automatically safe

Article 2 frames the law around advertising activity within China.¹⁷ The text doesn’t say how that applies to a foreign sender, or whether a first sales email to a work address counts as an ad. We found no ruling on either, so take local advice before running a campaign.

PIPL can reach you from abroad too. Article 3 covers processing outside China that aims to provide products or services to people there.¹⁸ Our PIPL guide has the detail.

As for whether email works at all, the evidence is old. Daxue’s 2019 figure sets 1.77 billion Chinese corporate emails a day against 246.5 billion worldwide.⁴

That’s about 0.7% by our math, not the “less than 0.01%” the article states.

Brandigo says email plays a role, without the weight it has in the West.¹ Its lead generation article also advises against buying or scraping contact lists.³⁰

What should a B2B buyer find on your site?

Proof a buyer can check. The best research we found is old and small: a 2017 Nielsen Norman Group usability study on B2B purchases in China. It’s qualitative, but it’s real observation rather than agency opinion.⁶

• A clear official site. Participants added 官网 (“official website”) to searches. NN/g suggests using it in your homepage title.
• A local contact. They looked for stores or distributors they could reach. Nearness felt accountable.
• Real work. Photos of actual projects and products made claims believable.
• Checkable customers. Some said they’d call listed past customers. Logos also signaled experience.
• Written chat. 5 of the 8 participants used online chat, which leaves a record to refer to.

If you have no Chinese references yet, say what you can prove: certifications, foreign clients, test reports. Never stretch it. Article 4 of the Advertising Law makes the advertiser answerable for truthfulness.¹⁷

Article 2 doesn’t carve out business buyers, and Article 9 bars terms such as “最佳” (“best”).¹⁷ How this reaches a site run from abroad is a question for a local adviser.

Check our list of banned advertising words, and our guide to earning trust for the rest.

For landing pages, Marketing to China’s rule is short: a phone number, a form and a downloadable spec sheet.²⁸ Make sure the form works from China, then plan who answers in Chinese.

Where do search and AI fit in?

Search still matters, but it’s no longer the whole picture. Agencies state this boldly, while the measured data is more modest.

Measure	Figure	Source
Search engine users, end of 2025	782.06 million, down from 877.82 million a year earlier	CNNIC 25
Generative AI users, end of 2025	602 million	CNNIC 25
Baidu and Bing, all devices, October 2026	49.00% and 21.69%	StatCounter 26
Bing and Baidu, desktop, October 2026	46.01% and 29.65%	StatCounter 27

CNNIC writes that smart search products are affecting classic search use, without putting a number on the cause.²⁵ None of this data isolates business buyers.

The desktop gap may matter to you. If your buyer researches at a work computer, Bing deserves a place next to Baidu. That’s our inference, not a measured fact, and Bing in China gives the caveats.

Marketing to China says industrial buyers almost always start on Baidu, using terms such as product plus 厂家 (manufacturer), 供应商 (supplier) or 报价 (quote).²⁸ Its checklist says the first shortlist often comes from an AI assistant, so the agency isn’t a settled guide on this.²

Test those patterns against your own category. Our guide on how Chinese buyers search goes further.

In what order should you build it?

Build what you own first, then what you rent. This order is our judgment, and your sector may change it.

1. Pick one buyer and one offer. Use the buyer table above.
2. Publish a small Chinese site. Cover your offer, your proof and your contact route. Make sure it loads from China.
3. Get indexed. Work on Baidu and Bing, using buyers’ real terms.
4. Set up a reply path. Decide who answers in Chinese, and on which channel.
5. Add one paid or offline test. A Baidu Ads test through an agent, or one trade show with booked meetings.
6. Add WeChat once you’ve confirmed your eligibility. Use it to follow up people who already know you.
7. Log every enquiry. Note how each contact found you, since Google Analytics isn’t reliable from China.

1. 1One buyer and one offer
2. 2Chinese site
3. Indexing on Baidu and Bing
4. 4Reply path in Chinese
5. 5One paid or offline test
6. 6WeChat follow-up
7. 7Enquiry log

Our guide on which channel to choose first weighs Baidu, WeChat and Xiaohongshu.

If you’re still choosing a route, start with selling without being in China. For local structures, see how to enter the Chinese market, and for the wider picture, digital marketing in China.

The bottom line

If you remember one thing, make it this: check what you can actually open before you plan around it. Then give every channel a verifiable Chinese site to point to.

Treat outreach as a legal question as well as a marketing one, and treat confident buyer claims as opinions until someone publishes data.

How Index in China can help

We translate your site into Simplified Chinese with a human reviewer, work on getting it indexed on Chinese search engines and send a monthly report on Chinese traffic.

We work on organic visibility, and we don’t give legal advice. See what we do or book a 30-minute call.

Book a 30-minute call

Monthly report BaiduIndexed Bing ChinaIndexed SogouIndexed