Effective Strategies for Managing an International PPC Campaign	Visited: 1704 4.9/5.0 (18 votes total) Rate: Select 1 - Terrible 2 - Poor 3 - Average 4 - Good 5 - Outstanding
by Brian Easter March 23, 2009

Managing a large scale international PPC campaign is never easy, but when you need to advertise across countries, cultures, and languages, implementing the right strategy is crucial.  In this article, we’ll seek to clarify the best ways to create an effective international PPC strategy and show some common mistakes to avoid. 

Campaign Strategy
First things first: defining a detailed campaign strategy is the best way to dive into an international PPC plan. Dividing campaigns by language, country, or product/service is a good way to start, but the breakdown should be chosen carefully.

For example, many countries in Europe have multilingual consumers and professionals.  Many European and Asian countries speak their respective native languages, but English is commonly used by business professionals. Choosing to segregate by language in this case potentially leaves out a whole market segment that could be utilized.  The differentiation between language and country can make the campaign categorization difficult, so you need to research the target segment extensively.

In addition, you’ll need to consider the fact that Google might not be the top search engine in a particular country. Even the best PPC campaign won’t go very far without the right medium. Although Google dominates most of Eastern Europe, Baidu is China’s most popular search engine. Solely using Google AdWords in the Chinese market would mean losing out on a vast number of potential customers. Doing extensive research on your target countries and cultures will help you to make key decisions and reduce the chance of losing your prospective target audience.

Keyword Strategy
The right keyword strategy is an incredibly important aspect of any international campaign. Factors such as various spellings for words or phrases, semantics, and phonetics are integral to the success of a great multi-lingual campaign. First and foremost, if you are planning to run a campaign in a language that is foreign to you, a reliable source of translation will need to be implemented.

Needless to say, using a translation dictionary to write ad copy or keywords, is going to result in some errors and decrease your campaign’s potential for success.  Also, a vast knowledge of the spellings and misspellings of words will increase the probability of an ad showing in that language.

Another thing to think about is the phonetics of the target segment’s language. Some foreign consumers will search in English but in the syntax of their native language. Say a consumer from Barcelona wants to search for baseball cards in English. Instead of searching for the term “baseball cards” the consumer may type “cards of baseball” or possibly “card baseball”. Savvy PPC professionals should be able to take advantage of the potential variations of the language because it allows the client to reach a larger segment that their competitors might not be able to grasp.

Ad Copy Strategy
Ad copy can make or break an entire campaign, so an extensive knowledge of the culture, language, semantics, and local lingo or slang is crucial to a successful PPC effort. One of the best ways to turn a consumer off to an ad is to make it seem untrustworthy or cheap. Using improper grammar or spellings in an ad sets off a warning signal in consumers and makes your ad seem spammy.

If Cardpricer, the world’s leading online baseball price guide ran an ad that read, “Basebal Value Gide: Browse over Online 1 Million Card  - 100% Accurite & Use Easy!” they would not only have a poor CTR, but their brand would be significantly diminished by anyone who sees the ad.  It is absolutely vital that ad copy is correctly written in each country’s native language to attract website visitors.

Using local slang or lingo can also help to convey the message to the target segment. For example, an American ad for baseball cards can say “Check out our extensive baseball card appraisal library today!” instead of “Look at our …”.

The phrase “check out” connects with young Americans, but that same lingo might not translate properly to another language like French. On the other hand, a word in English may be acceptable to us but has a totally different or even derogatory meaning when translated in another language.

The famous Chevy Nova legend explains that when Chevy tried to market the Nova in Spain, it translated as “no go”. Consumers were allegedly confused and sales dropped. Although a cautionary tale, it warns that you should research thoroughly and knowing cultural taboos will save you from writing a destructive ad.

Landing Page Strategy
Now that your well-written ads have garnered impressive click-through rates, it is the landing page’s job to entice conversions. An effective and customized landing page strategy is the key to achieving this goal. Proper grammar and syntax aside, the ad language versus the landing page language should be considered.

For example, in the high tech industry, English is commonly used by businesses around the world, even if English is not the native language. B2B companies could test out whether writing an ad in the native language and leading the consumer to an English landing page could seem more sophisticated and stimulate greater confidence in the product/service. On the other hand, B2C companies may benefit more from writing an ad as well as the landing page in the native language. Of course, your ad groups must be assigned properly so that consumers are not confused when they are lead to a landing page with a foreign language.

Taking advantage of the tools that a search engine provides will help tremendously with finding the right landing page fit for the target market. For example, Google Website Optimizer allows PPC advertisers to test multiple landing pages at the same time and measures which is more successful with the target consumers.

Using the A/B optimizer will allow you to compare two landing pages side-by-side. This is an invaluable tool because different cultures respond to different things, so testing the landing page layouts and copy is critical. For example, many advertisers believe Japanese consumers tend to respond better to visual illustrative pages than to descriptive wordy pages.  Testing different landing pages can help to find a healthy balance that appeals the target market and either prove, or disprove, commonly held assumptions.

Creating an effective international PPC campaign takes a lot of research and preparation, but the hard work pays off. Being well prepared and having the right tools to battle the obstacles that a large international campaign can throw at you will give you an edge in the highly competitive PPC arena.