German language adwords

Do German searchers click ads?

[Syzygy]

Anyone have experience using Adwords in German? Are attitudes to clicking ads different in the German-speaking world? Are clickthru averages higher or lower? Are there any specific issues that should be borne in mind when using adwords in German?

We've had an adgroup - with ad copy and keywords tried and tested in English - translated into German (we use translators frequently, so are confident that the translations are correct). Whilst it's only been running for a week, the results are staggeringly poor. It's not even a case of disappointing clickthru's - it's impressions: the keywords are hardly being searched for. Of course it's possible that the adgroup is under review, however, it's been a week, and kw's are showing.

The kw's are standard engineering terms and phrases. The kw tool asserts that there is little or no click volume for these kw's. Likewise, there is little or no competition. Does this mean that in professional areas, German speakers would typically use English - the lingua franca - to search for technical information? Or is there something more obvious, and specific to the country, that we're missing? Why is it that the keywords - standard industry terms - are not even being used by German-speaking searchers?

Any insights would be appreciated.

Syzygy

[poster_girl]

Without having a deep understanding of the topic, and just speaking from my experience living and working in DE, I would definitely say that English is widely used in tech/scientific fields. Had you previously tried to run English-language ads in Germany as well, or is this your first campaign in Germany at all?

[Syzygy]

We use adwords globally so our English language ads have been appearing in Germany. However, the purpose is to have a larger base of German users of our engineering site and, quite naturally, we're using the Willy Brandt principle:

"If I am selling to you, I speak your language. If I am buying from you, dann müssen Sie in meiner Sprache sprechen."

I'm wondering if, in the age of Adwords, Willy's maxim may no longer hold true!

Syzygy

[Eurydice]

I'm guessing the campaign is a technical topic ("XML widgets").

1) Check the country settings. Set to Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.

2) Language settings: German and English

3) Write ads in both German and English. These days, technical topics are generally discussed in English.

4) Use both English and German keywords. Use both "XML widget" and "XML Dingsbum".

German works. We have campaigns in German (and Chinese and Korean and Arabic and Japanese and Danish and more languages.) You don't get the huge traffic as in English, but these work.