When developing an efficient, multilingual website, reaching the right target audience is paramount. To achieve this, advertising online with Google AdWords is always a sure way to add strength to your organic visibility. You probably already have an AdWords campaign and think that all you need to do is translate it when you go international. However, this is easier said than done. More often than not, a great deal of money is spent on irrelevant keywords and incorrect targeting, leaving you with no positive results whatsoever. In this blog I’ll explain the pitfalls when translating AdWords campaigns.
Global Market Finder
A good first step is finding out the potential of the product or service you want to advertise. A very interesting tool is the Global Market Finder, which enables you to enter very specific keywords to see which other search terms people fill in, for example in one of the other 56 languages. When you combine Global Market Finder with your own AdWords account, it displays estimates and recommended bid together with the competitive results for every keyword in your specific target market. This allows you to find out which search terms will find your products or services in the specific country.
The right keywords
In every language and in every country, different ways are used to search for products. That’s why it’s always a good idea to first perform a local keyword analysis. You can do this with the AdWords Keyword Planner. Here you can look for ideas for keywords and ad groups, gain access to historical statistics, view the potential performance of a list of keywords and even create a new keyword list by collating several keyword lists. Based on the search behavior, you can optimize your content and set up campaigns.
The right targeting
However brilliant your advertisement may be, you’ll never get the desired results if the ad isn’t displayed in the right spot. Reach your customers wherever they are and wherever your company can be of service by using AdWords Location Targeting. The AdWords function for location targeting lets you show your online ads in whichever geographic areas you choose: countries, regions within a country, a radius around a location or groups of locations. To make sure your advertisements reach to maximum number of customers, you can set up Location Bid Adjustments. Let’s say you want to reach customers with a high income in the state of New York, the best thing to do is target both New York state and the high-income areas of New York, as well as set up a location bid adjustment of +50% for those areas with a high average income. The video below gives a good idea how to target on location:
Quality Score
The quality score is becoming increasingly defining factor in the success of an AdWords campaign. To find out more about how it works, there’s a very interesting blog by Jorn Vriend that’s worth reading. What’s particularly important is the landing page. If you don’t have one, it’s best to stop your campaign as it will result to nothing.
Translate your AdWords campaigns well
The quality of AdWords translations has a huge influence on the success of the campaign. You may know your English or German quite well, but please do yourself a favor and leave the translating to professionals. Your customers abroad like to be spoken to in their native language and can be fickle if the details aren’t spot on. Unfortunately, many businesses still rely on Google Translate to transform their keywords to another language, without any expertise of a native speaker who understands the market. We’ve all seen the mistakes that this can lead to, which can put a heavy dent in a company’s reputation. This not only applies to the content on your website, but also to all content relating to the discipline of online marketing. So don’t make any compromises in this area and rely on a specialized translation agency. We have a database of over 200 native speaking translators who specialize in AdWords.