English language site targeting overseas customers

Worth putting English ads on regional Googles?

[millie]

I have an English language site. The site targets customers in Eastern Europe aswell as English speaking countries. Translation is being considered by the client, but their staff only speak English at the moment.

In the meantime, is it worth displaying English ads on relevant European Googles?

[Syzygy]

Yup, it certainly is.

Native languages would be ideal - obviously - but in the interim just do it.

Syzygy

[AdWordsAdvisor]

In the meantime, is it worth displaying English ads on relevant European Googles?

Native languages would be ideal - obviously - but in the interim just do it.

I tend to agree with Syzygy.

Because language and country targeting is a decision made on the campaign level, maybe you could consider creating a special campaign with the express purpose of running a limited test.

In addition to language and country targeting, at the campaign level of your accout you can also set a daily budget and end date in line with what you and your client are willing to invest in the experiment.

This would give you some hard data regarding how well the idea worked in your particular case, without a lot of risk.

AWA

[Shak]

something which a lot of people do NOT realise...

NO good having a local language site, if you can not respond to calls/emails in that language (imo)

I have done a lot of stuff in Europe, but always in English, however have made the ad copy targeted.

eg:

Cheap Widgets to "Poland"
from a UK company

or

Cheap Widgets to Ukraine
from a UK company

the reason being that, a lot of people get campaign targeting wrong, ad user does not want to go to a site which does not service their country...

Shak

[millie]

Thanks guys - fab advice that I can understand! M

[marek]

When you target English ads to the foreign language market, there are three possibilities:

1. Your keywords are the same in English and in a target language. E.g. words webhosting, New York and hotel mean the same in English and Czech. You can achieve good results, provided the market is not too competitive. If it is, you will pay more than others or you will be on a low position, because of low CTR.
   
2. Your kewords soud different in English and in the target language. You will achieve the best ROI, but only few clicks, because only the users that search in English will find your ads.
   
3. If the 2nd option brings too few clicks, you can try keywords in the target language, while your ads are still in English. The results should be similar as in the 1st option. However, in some markets -- e.g. travel services -- this is clearly the best option.
   

[AdjumperGuy]

I am sorry to disagree with Marek. I think the ad in English should target people who understand English!

1. Always target the interface language(s) of that country + the English interface (that's because some people do tend to change the interface language)

2. If your site is in English, use only English keywords.

3. Don't use English keywords that are understood everywhere (hotel is a good example of a bad keyword if you target a non-english interface)

4. If people from a country different than your own types in English keywords, the add will display providing the search query matched the keyword (1), the targeted interface language (2) and the targeted country (3) (auto detected by IP)

This way, you're sure that the searcher is looking for info in English. You can obtain very good results by using this simple checklist!