Pay per click (PPC) advertising is a great way to reach customers with ads that are specifically targeted to search and content queries.  The Google content network alone reaches over 75% of internet users in the US.  In some countries, like Germany and Japan, this number is nearly 90%.  That’s a massive audience exposed to AdWords every day.  If you’re using Google’s PPC to manage your search advertising, here are some tips to maximize the effectiveness of location and language targeted campaigns:

•    Translate your ads. If you’re targeting a language other than your own, you’ll need to have well written ads in that other language.  Google can’t translate them for you, so you want to avoid having an ad written in English on a French site.
•    Translate your keywords too. This may seem obvious, but it’s worth pointing out again.  You need to know what terms and phrases to target.  You should also be aware of negative keywords in that language.  If necessary, refine and reevaluate your list of keywords to make sure you have the best potential for good quality and ad exposure, without a high minimum bid.
•    Beware character limits! Google has a maximum allowed number of single-byte characters per line, 25 for titles, 35 for ad text.  Unfortunately, for languages that require double-byte characters, like Japanese and Chinese, the character limit is half that.  Titles can only have 12 characters and ad text 17 per line.
•    Keep campaigns separate. To help you keep track of your various regional and language specific campaigns, create separate campaigns for each region, country, or territory you target.  Do this even if you’re targeting the same language across multiple regions.  Separate campaigns will allow you to keep your ads and keywords organized, as well as helping you to better refine ad text and keywords as the campaign progresses.  You may find that one approach works for one region, while another is best for a second region.  You also don’t want the good or bad performance of ads targeted to Spain to affect your ads targeted towards Mexico or Germany if everything is all mixed in together.

There’s a lot more to be explored with international PPC.  These are just some tips to get started with.  Happy bidding!  If you’ve got any experience with international PPC, what are some handy tips that you’ve learned along the way?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 20th, 2008 at 3:21 pm and is filed under PPC. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.