Broadening Your Global Reach with International PPC

Pay-Per-Click advertising has widespread use as a component of online marketing to help maintain website visibility for targeted keywords. Although the costs can be high, insightful keyword research helps marketers to maximize ROI by selecting words that attract and convert high quality visitors into sales. As paid listings get highlighted on search engine results pages, they also serve to increase brand visibility to the target audience. Companies, which have an international presence, can use PPC to build brand recognition online for foreign dialect web users. Here’s are some tips to consider before rolling out a foreign language campaign:

How to conduct keyword research for international Pay Per Click?

• Keyword research is the first and foremost activity for international PPC and is paramount to the effectiveness of a campaign.
• Direct translations of English keywords wouldn’t suffice as there are vast differences in the terms used to find content by foreign language web users.
• Specialists must be employed to locate a suitable set of words that resonate with the search queries that web users from a specific market use.
• Languages add a dimension of complexity to this research due to the way they differ from one another. SEO specialists based in a country, that is to be targeted, should be consulted to finalize a set of words for use in the campaign.

How to localize ads effectively?

• The text in PPC ads should be concise and direct compelling users to click-through to the linked website. The text used in the ads for foreign markets has to be relevant for the audience while being persuasive in a creative manner.
• If the English copy is very linear, than direct translation to another language would be sufficient. However, it is recommended to use an in-country linguist who can provide a few variations of persuasive text that can be used in an ad.

• Consistency is also important and brand tone must be kept similar across multilingual marketing campaigns. If a website is already localized, then the ad must follow a similar textual pattern to the content on the website for brand consistency. This will help keep user engagement high while retaining brand tone that should become synonymous with a brand.

There are other things to ponder too before the campaign is launched for different dialect web users for e.g. what the primary search engine of the market? Even though Google is the dominant search engine in the majority of markets, some markets have their own primary search engine for e.g. Naver in South Korea. There is also a requirement for localized websites because a recent study found that 52.5% of foreign language web users would only buy from a website if it provided content in their own language. If a website is not localized then the ads will be ineffective.

The internet is undergoing a rapid change and for brands that operation internationally; using this kind of strategy would allow them to increase online visibility swiftly. The use of PPC for a multilingual web audience is the beginning of a localized online marketing campaign and is very beneficial in developing an effective plan.