There is no doubt that diving into international waters is a great idea to expand your business. But the problem is, it doesn’t come with challenges. If you are running a digital marketing agency, your client will ask to expand your PPC activity. Therefore, you have to think about creating international PPC campaigns.
Yes, it is true that the global PPC campaigns can help you get into the new markets with lesser upfront costs. However, don’t make the mistake of only translating the ad text without thinking about all the additional complications. Remember that the international PPC campaign is not just an extension of the present PPC campaign.
The international plan has its own language, currency, culture, and demographics. The campaign must customize the parameters of a local market and look out for common data that can be used for further analysis. Do not rush into setting up a global PPC campaign unless you have thought of budgets, channel allocation, localization, account structure, and the regional factors.
In this blog, we are going to share the five tips that will help you in managing international PPC campaigns.
Creating a budget for different costs according to countries
The cost per click (CPC) and cost per thousand impressions (CPM) vary differently. You will get an estimated value of the expenditure in Google search by adding the keywords to the Google Keyword Planner. Then you have to set up the region of the country you are targeting.
However, these will be just the estimated value. You will get to know the real value of average CPCs/CPMs when you start the PPC services. In addition to it, the cost of customer acquisition will vary in different countries.
For instance, if you are advertising in a region that doesn’t know about your brand, then the CPAs will be higher than expected. On the other hand, if the CPCs are lower, then the opposite can be true as well.
Also, keep an eye on the CPM data. It will help you to measure the lead quality. It might come cheap and a certain percentage of prospects could be the right potential customers.
Consider the metrics like cost per qualified lead and cost per completed sale to determine the cost per acquisition for your campaigns.
Research on the top channels according to regions
The next thing is to consider what the search and social channels people use in your targeted regions. If you only target Google in every region, you will miss out on a lot of chances. Because a lot of countries use other search engines than Google.
For instance, 44% of the people in Russia use Yandex as their primary search engine. Also, 66% of the people in China use Baidu. This is why it is important to research what are the prominent search and social channels.
Along with the online searches, it is a good idea to talk to your contacts on the ground, especially the regions you are targeting. The representatives at different PPC ad services will be able to help you in getting regional stats.
Create an account structure plan
Creating separate campaigns according to different regions will let you get better control of the bids. Also, you can categorize the reporting. This segregation will prevent you from spending more on countries with lesser CPC and high volume. Thus, you can shift your focus to spending on regions with higher CPCs and quality leads.
Different geographic campaigns will also let you create more accurate and time-based bid modifiers. If you put Europe and the US in the same category it will not work. Because when you are reducing the bids at nights in the US, you are also lowering the bids for Europe in the day.
Thus, if you keep two different regions in two different campaigns, you can apply hourly bid modifiers. The performance of both campaigns will not be affected even though they are at two different time zones.
You need to consider the billing requirements when segregating the accounts. For the enterprise-level companies, the payment comes from different segments according to regions. Using different ad accounts will be necessary to create different billing sources for every division.
Asset Localization
It is important to localize a copy for the people that you are targeting. This will include translating keywords, ad copy, landing page copy in another language.
If you are targeting people that speak English but in different words, then the landing page needs to be in that dialect. For instance, if you are selling diapers in the UK, then instead of diapers, use “nappies”. Here is how Amazon differentiates the landing page for the UK and US customers.
Make sure you adapt to the regional dialects, especially in case of spellings. For instance, a call to action of “view our catalog” should be “view our catalogue” for the UK. This is how you use content writing services to create a landing page that makes sense for their region.
Consider the unique regional concerns
Just like the regional dialects and spellings, it is also important to understand the varying behaviors of individuals as they engage with the sales funnel.
For instance, a cybersecurity company might see an increase in DDoS related services when a country experiences a sudden attack. Or a ski supply company might see an increase in sales during the colder seasons.
It will be easier for you to find out the “sweet spots” of a region to work on if you talk to your contacts who have experience in creating PPC campaigns in that region. Research trends by month in Google Trends. It will help you in knowing the overarching seasonal trends.
Think about user behavior in different regions. Some people are more interested to talk to a salesperson while others are interested to read the content. Refine your sales funnel and the content you are offering to people to see what works and what doesn’t.
This step will take a lot of trial and errors. Thus, it is better not to assume that the sales funnel for one region will be useful in another region.
In conclusion, if you are ready to take your digital marketing plans to the next level, then international PPC campaigns are the best way. Think about the different aspects of different regions and the strategies you need to adapt. Lastly, keep monitoring the analytics data on a regional basis to track the performance.
