SEO

Scale Your B2B Google Ads Strategy Across Multiple Languages

Published

1 year ago

August 24, 2023

Scale Your B2B Google Ads Strategy Across Multiple Languages

Humans are incredibly diverse – and it’s marketing’s job to respect, engage, and nurture that.

Expanding a B2B business from English-only strategies to regional, multi-language campaigns can absolutely be the turning point of your success. In fact, it’s hard to believe that not everyone’s taking advantage of it.

Mass-market, English-only campaigns cost a ton of money. And, with today’s expectation for a high level of personalization across the customer experience, they don’t really bring much to the table.

Multi-language ad campaigns are more effective as a whole and can even help save you money over time.

Why?

Because diverse markets help diversify income and lead to long-term business sustainability.

As more people throughout the world recognize your brand, you have the opportunity to build brand authority and reduce customer acquisition costs.

This is especially true if you’re in the B2B world. Larger deal sizes and complex buyer committees mean longer sales cycles and more opportunities to either impress or irritate local audiences.

And one of the best ways to turn this opportunity into reality is through the strategic use of localized Google Ad campaigns.

Because Google Ads drive conversions quickly, you can show proof of concept to new markets, which establishes a great starting point for long-term international expansion and increased ROI.

Let’s now dive into how this all works.

Localization > Translation

Before you load up 100 new Google Ad campaigns for your B2B target market, there’s one crucial concept to integrate into your processes: Focus on localization over translation.

Here’s a basic overview of the difference:

Translation involves putting the exact keyword into Google Translate or Deepl and getting literal, word-for-word translations back. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried that when traveling around, but it doesn’t get you much further than asking for directions to the nearest restroom. And when applied to PPC, chances are that directly translated keywords either don’t have search volume or mean something entirely different when used in search (bringing about search intent mismatch).
Localization is the act of identifying keyword intent and finding an equivalent with search volume in the target language of your choice. To do this, you’ll need to deeply understand the local market, its nuances, and the language they use.

Remember, local competitors are already matching local buyer expectations, so if you don’t start off by already doing that better, you won’t have much success. You can’t copy/paste global campaigns and then sit back, wondering why you’re not seeing the conversions roll in.

Mass website translation alone is not international expansion, and it’s often an efficient use of time and resources when there’s no localized strategy to back it up.

Steps For Developing A Multilingual PPC Strategy For B2B

Developing a multi-language Google Ad strategy takes time, but with the right approach, you can see success rather quickly.

Here, I’ll go through eight steps to help you scale your B2B business across multiple languages and regions.

Step 1: Localize Your Operations

Many companies successfully localize their marketing but forget to make changes when it comes to sales and operations (which actually need to be in place before marketing begins in order to guarantee ROI from the marketing efforts).

The reality is that people buy things differently in different countries. For example, in the US, you can purchase almost anything with a credit card, but in Germany, people don’t use them and much prefer payment by invoice.

The buying cycle in Germany is also much longer in B2B because the work culture is highly process-oriented.

If you don’t localize those areas and expect leads to talk to a salesperson in English with a 9-hour time difference, you definitely won’t do well in closing those leads that marketing has worked so hard to get.

To truly be successful when entering new markets, here are the elements you’ll want to localize:

Brand Strategy	Buyer Personas	Content	Operations
Your USPs	Pain points	SEO keywords	Sales and customer service
Your competitors	Buying process & customer journey	Important words and phrases	Product
Messaging & cultural relevance	Buying obstacles and how to overcome them	Website in the local language	Payment process

Step 2: Localize Market Research And Competitors

The next essential step when scaling your multi-language B2B Google ads strategy is to spend time actually learning about your target audience in local markets.

Rather than copy/pasting a generic global strategy, you need to see what brands resonate with locals and which local companies are seeing success.

To help you navigate this process, follow these steps:

Start by exploring the competition within your chosen market and see what they’re doing to market to local audiences. You can gain access to key metrics using tools like Semrush Advertising Research to see if your competitors are running any paid ads and what keywords they’re bidding on.

Screenshot from Semrush, July 2023

To give you a visual idea, the screenshot above shows an example of PPC competitor research solely in the Swedish market.

This is useful because you’ll likely see that not all competitors have localized sites, which is an opportunity that major competitors have missed – good news for you and your niche!

Then use Semrush Advertising Research to dig into the keywords competitors are bidding on and the types of pages they are using to target these keywords. It’s important to note that some companies may offer a similar service or product but may not necessarily be direct competitors, so you’ll need to filter out any who don’t match.

Screenshot from Semrush, July 2023

From this screenshot above for the French market, you can see that one competitor is bidding on a mix of French and English keywords, such as their brand “hyland software.”

Lastly, take a look at what the competitor’s ad copy looks like. This will give you insight into the types of phrasing used and give you ideas for what you can improve on (as it should always be the goal to surpass competitors, not just match them).

Screenshot from Semrush, July 2023

This particular example shows how the competitor has only used English ads for the Norwegian market.

So there’s again an opportunity for you to offer a better customer experience through localization and target local keywords so that your Google Ads have a better quality score.

Overall, the more thorough you are with localized market and competitor research, the better you’ll be prepared to implement tactics that enable you to outpace them.

Step 3: Localize PPC Keyword Research

All local markets have some element of variation between them, which means that you can’t directly translate keywords. Direct translations don’t capture the differences between search intent among various languages, dialects, and regions.

This is where the concept of localization becomes absolutely crucial.

To effectively localize keywords, follow this process:

Adapt keywords for localized PPC strategies by identifying keywords that match search intent and have search volume. If you don’t check local search volume and consider similar phrases, it’s easy to lose valuable conversions due to linguistic nuances.
Interestingly, don’t overlook the power of English keywords as well as localized keywords. Some markets may have English keywords with more search volume than the localized language, and you’ll need to ensure you have ads running for both languages. I’ve found this to be especially true for the B2B tech industry that uses English phrases within the local language.

keyword lists and ad groups

Screenshots from author, July 2023

For example, in the screenshots above, you can see that document management keywords have been compiled in both Swedish and English. All the keywords came back with different search volumes, but there’s enough to warrant campaigns in both languages.

Note that the keyword “EDMS” is not used in Sweden, so consequently isn’t included in the chosen keywords for Sweden – hence the importance of understanding the market nuances through localization!

ad groups and keywords with EN translation

Screenshot from author, July 2023

Another example of the importance of localization is the term “GED,” a common French abbreviation of the word “gestion électronique de documents.”

This is why you can’t just simply translate English keywords, as some of the highest search volume and conversion-focused keywords may end up being excluded from your strategy.

Step 4: Localize PPC Ad Copy

Ad copy localization is where it pays to collaborate with someone who speaks the native language. You’ll need to localize ad copy for the following:

Brand messaging guidelines.
Google Ad character limits.
Local unique selling points (USPs).
Local pain points.
Local cultural nuances, both within the language and keywords targeted.

If you were to write ad copy for some of the French keywords compiled in the previous section, it might look like this:

Screenshot from Semrush, July 2023

Step 5: Localize PPC Landing Pages

The copy across the pages needs to contain local keywords in order to maintain a high-quality score (the higher the quality score, the lower the bid costs are).

You’ll also need to focus on addressing the different issues or pain points audiences have across different regions.

To stand out from your competition, prioritize your USP within that particular market. Creative angles can help engage new markets, especially when in comparison with local competitors.

Furthermore, make sure to add some social proof to your landing page. This can be anything from case studies, testimonials, or use cases that match the target audience market. Social proof, in particular, helps your message resonate more strongly.

Step 6: Organize PPC Ad Groups Based On Purchase Intent Stage

Once you have your landing pages localized, you’ll want to organize ad groups based on which part of the sales funnel they’re in, i.e. their level of purchase intent.

A successful Google Ad strategy creates content for and targets keywords based on both transactional and informational search intent.

To organize your campaigns accordingly, use the following steps:

Define your keywords based on transactional search intent. These will be keywords that precisely describe your products and services and are most oriented toward direct lead generation (or contact with sales).

Screenshot from author, July 2023

For example, the keywords above describe the main services that a compliance management company wants to run ads for. They’re very conversion-focused and capture the user when they’re looking to make a purchase.

Then, define your keywords based on informational search intent. These will be keywords that describe topics that your audience needs information on and are relevant for selling your products and services, but your audience isn’t quite ready to buy yet. These types of ads are particularly useful for nurturing users toward conversion in combination with retargeting campaigns.

Splitting out campaigns like this allows you to manage budgets better, as informational keywords tend to be higher in value due to search volume and broadness. However, you still want to own this space to help nurture users toward conversion, so we do need ads here.

And with the correct bid strategy, you can ensure you get the most clicks within your budget. Targeting keywords with both types of intents is more successful than just going for direct conversions, as that can limit your return on investment (ROI) potential over time.

Step 7: Retarget Users To Choose Your Brand Once They’re Ready To Purchase

Once you’re organized, make a strategy for retargeting campaigns. To give you a visual, retargeting display ads often have a structure that looks like this:

Image created by author, July 2023

Even though there typically is a CTA, remember that retargeting display campaigns aren’t for directly generating clicks.

When combined with the full funnel campaign approach, they’re meant to keep your brand and products/services top of mind.

Essentially, display ad retargeting is basically like going, “Hey, I’m here whenever you need something. Don’t forget me!”

So you’ll often see an increase in direct website traffic and branded keyword search volume from display ads, as opposed to direct click conversions.

Step 8: Track Multilingual PPC Performance Per Individual Markets

Finally, make sure that you set up conversion tracking for each market, not just globally.

This enables you to determine which markets perform best and where you might need to improve. Some ways to do this include ad campaign performance KPI tracking and conversions per region, such as shown in the below example images:

Screenshots from author, July

How To Scale Your B2B Google Ads Strategy Across Multiple Languages And Regions

Use Localization Within Your Multilingual PPC Strategy To Convert

If you want to expand your B2B business into international markets with Google Ads – and truly see your efforts pay off – you need to stop the Google Translation use and focus on holistically localizing your strategy.

In doing so, you have the opportunity to make a real, valuable impression on your target audience by matching local customer expectations while also gaining their trust and building your customer base.

While this process does require more effort, it’s a whole lot more effective for generating leads and ensuring that they actually close.

More resources:

Featured Image: Billion Photos/Shutterstock

Source link

Related Topics:Ads B2B Google Languages Multiple Scale seo strategy

Up Next

What a 504 Gateway Timeout Error is, and How to Fix it

Don't Miss

Disctopia And Semrush Launch Podcast Hosting App To Optimize Podcasts

SEO

How To Stop Filter Results From Eating Crawl Budget

Published

19 hours ago

October 3, 2024

Max

How To Find The Right Long-tail Keywords For Articles

Today’s Ask An SEO question comes from Michal in Bratislava, who asks:

“I have a client who has a website with filters based on a map locations. When the visitor makes a move on the map, a new URL with filters is created. They are not in the sitemap. However, there are over 700,000 URLs in the Search Console (not indexed) and eating crawl budget.

What would be the best way to get rid of these URLs? My idea is keep the base location ‘index, follow’ and newly created URLs of surrounded area with filters switch to ‘noindex, no follow’. Also mark surrounded areas with canonicals to the base location + disavow the unwanted links.”

Great question, Michal, and good news! The answer is an easy one to implement.

First, let’s look at what you’re trying and apply it to other situations like ecommerce and publishers. This way, more people can benefit. Then, go into your strategies above and end with the solution.

What Crawl Budget Is And How Parameters Are Created That Waste It

If you’re not sure what Michal is referring to with crawl budget, this is a term some SEO pros use to explain that Google and other search engines will only crawl so many pages on your website before it stops.

If your crawl budget is used on low-value, thin, or non-indexable pages, your good pages and new pages may not be found in a crawl.

If they’re not found, they may not get indexed or refreshed. If they’re not indexed, they cannot bring you SEO traffic.

This is why optimizing a crawl budget for efficiency is important.

Michal shared an example of how “thin” URLs from an SEO point of view are created as customers use filters.

The experience for the user is value-adding, but from an SEO standpoint, a location-based page would be better. This applies to ecommerce and publishers, too.

Ecommerce stores will have searches for colors like red or green and products like t-shirts and potato chips.

These create URLs with parameters just like a filter search for locations. They could also be created by using filters for size, gender, color, price, variation, compatibility, etc. in the shopping process.

The filtered results help the end user but compete directly with the collection page, and the collection would be the “non-thin” version.

Publishers have the same. Someone might be on SEJ looking for SEO or PPC in the search box and get a filtered result. The filtered result will have articles, but the category of the publication is likely the best result for a search engine.

These filtered results can be indexed because they get shared on social media or someone adds them as a comment on a blog or forum, creating a crawlable backlink. It might also be an employee in customer service responded to a question on the company blog or any other number of ways.

The goal now is to make sure search engines don’t spend time crawling the “thin” versions so you can get the most from your crawl budget.

The Difference Between Indexing And Crawling

There’s one more thing to learn before we go into the proposed ideas and solutions – the difference between indexing and crawling.

Crawling is the discovery of new pages within a website.
Indexing is adding the pages that are worthy of showing to a person using the search engine to the database of pages.

Pages can get crawled but not indexed. Indexed pages have likely been crawled and will likely get crawled again to look for updates and server responses.

But not all indexed pages will bring in traffic or hit the first page because they may not be the best possible answer for queries being searched.

Now, let’s go into making efficient use of crawl budgets for these types of solutions.

Using Meta Robots Or X Robots

The first solution Michal pointed out was an “index,follow” directive. This tells a search engine to index the page and follow the links on it. This is a good idea, but only if the filtered result is the ideal experience.

From what I can see, this would not be the case, so I would recommend making it “noindex,follow.”

Noindex would say, “This is not an official page, but hey, keep crawling my site, you’ll find good pages in here.”

And if you have your main menu and navigational internal links done correctly, the spider will hopefully keep crawling them.

Canonicals To Solve Wasted Crawl Budget

Canonical links are used to help search engines know what the official page to index is.

If a product exists in three categories on three separate URLs, only one should be “the official” version, so the two duplicates should have a canonical pointing to the official version. The official one should have a canonical link that points to itself. This applies to the filtered locations.

If the location search would result in multiple city or neighborhood pages, the result would likely be a duplicate of the official one you have in your sitemap.

Have the filtered results point a canonical back to the main page of filtering instead of being self-referencing if the content on the page stays the same as the original category.

If the content pulls in your localized page with the same locations, point the canonical to that page instead.

In most cases, the filtered version inherits the page you searched or filtered from, so that is where the canonical should point to.

If you do both noindex and have a self-referencing canonical, which is overkill, it becomes a conflicting signal.

The same applies to when someone searches for a product by name on your website. The search result may compete with the actual product or service page.

With this solution, you’re telling the spider not to index this page because it isn’t worth indexing, but it is also the official version. It doesn’t make sense to do this.

Instead, use a canonical link, as I mentioned above, or noindex the result and point the canonical to the official version.

Disavow To Increase Crawl Efficiency

Disavowing doesn’t have anything to do with crawl efficiency unless the search engine spiders are finding your “thin” pages through spammy backlinks.

The disavow tool from Google is a way to say, “Hey, these backlinks are spammy, and we don’t want them to hurt us. Please don’t count them towards our site’s authority.”

In most cases, it doesn’t matter, as Google is good at detecting spammy links and ignoring them.

You do not want to add your own site and your own URLs to the disavow tool. You’re telling Google your own site is spammy and not worth anything.

Plus, submitting backlinks to disavow won’t prevent a spider from seeing what you want and do not want to be crawled, as it is only for saying a link from another site is spammy.

Disavowing won’t help with crawl efficiency or saving crawl budget.

How To Make Crawl Budgets More Efficient

The answer is robots.txt. This is how you tell specific search engines and spiders what to crawl.

You can include the folders you want them to crawl by marketing them as “allow,” and you can say “disallow” on filtered results by disallowing the “?” or “&” symbol or whichever you use.

If some of those parameters should be crawled, add the main word like “?filter=location” or a specific parameter.

Robots.txt is how you define crawl paths and work on crawl efficiency. Once you’ve optimized that, look at your internal links. A link from one page on your site to another.

These help spiders find your most important pages while learning what each is about.

Internal links include:

Breadcrumbs.
Menu navigation.
Links within content to other pages.
Sub-category menus.
Footer links.

You can also use a sitemap if you have a large site, and the spiders are not finding the pages you want with priority.

I hope this helps answer your question. It is one I get a lot – you’re not the only one stuck in that situation.

More resources:

Featured Image: Paulo Bobita/Search Engine Journal

Source link

SEO

Ad Copy Tactics Backed By Study Of Over 1 Million Google Ads

Published

2 days ago

October 2, 2024

Max

Ad Copy Tactics Backed By Study Of Over 1 Million Google Ads

Mastering effective ad copy is crucial for achieving success with Google Ads.

Yet, the PPC landscape can make it challenging to discern which optimization techniques truly yield results.

Although various perspectives exist on optimizing ads, few are substantiated by comprehensive data. A recent study from Optmyzr attempted to address this.

The goal isn’t to promote or dissuade any specific method but to provide a clearer understanding of how different creative decisions impact your campaigns.

Use the data to help you identify higher profit probability opportunities.

Methodology And Data Scope

The Optmyzr study analyzed data from over 22,000 Google Ads accounts that have been active for at least 90 days with a minimum monthly spend of $1,500.

Across more than a million ads, we assessed Responsive Search Ads (RSAs), Expanded Text Ads (ETAs), and Demand Gen campaigns. Due to API limitations, we could not retrieve asset-level data for Performance Max campaigns.

Additionally, all monetary figures were converted to USD to standardize comparisons.

Key Questions Explored

To provide actionable insights, we focused on addressing the following questions:

Is there a correlation between Ad Strength and performance?
How do pinning assets impact ad performance?
Do ads written in title case or sentence case perform better?
How does creative length affect ad performance?
Can ETA strategies effectively translate to RSAs and Demand Gen ads?

As we evaluated the results, it’s important to note that our data set represents advanced marketers.

This means there may be selection bias, and these insights might differ in a broader advertiser pool with varying levels of experience.

The Relationship Between Ad Strength And Performance

Google explicitly states that Ad Strength is a tool designed to guide ad optimization rather than act as a ranking factor.

Despite this, marketers often hold mixed opinions about its usefulness, as its role in ad performance appears inconsistent.

Image from author, September 2024

Our data corroborates this skepticism. Ads labeled with an “average” Ad Strength score outperformed those with “good” or “excellent” scores in key metrics like CPA, conversion rate, and ROAS.

This disparity is particularly evident in RSAs, where the ROAS tends to decrease sharply when moving from “average” to “good,” with only a marginal increase when advancing to “excellent.”

Screenshot from author, September 2024

Interestingly, Demand Gen ads also showed a stronger performance with an “average” Ad Strength, except for ROAS.

The metrics for conversion rates in Demand Gen and RSAs were notably similar, which is surprising since Demand Gen ads are typically designed for awareness, while RSAs focus on driving transactions.

Key Takeaways:

Ad Strength doesn’t reliably correlate with performance, so it shouldn’t be a primary metric for assessing your ads.
Most ads with “poor” or “average” Ad Strength labels perform well by standard advertising KPIs.
“Good” or “excellent” Ad Strength labels do not guarantee better performance.

How Does Pinning Affect Ad Performance?

Pinning refers to locking specific assets like headlines or descriptions in fixed positions within the ad. This technique became common with RSAs, but there’s ongoing debate about its efficacy.

Some advertisers advocate for pinning all assets to replicate the control offered by ETAs, while others prefer to let Google optimize placements automatically.

Image from author, September 2024

Our data suggests that pinning some, but not all, assets offers the most balanced results in terms of CPA, ROAS, and CPC. However, ads where all assets are pinned achieve the highest relevance in terms of CTR.

Still, this marginally higher CTR doesn’t necessarily translate into better conversion metrics. Ads with unpinned or partially pinned assets generally perform better in terms of conversion rates and cost-based metrics.

Key Takeaways:

Selective pinning is optimal, offering a good balance between creative control and automation.
Fully pinned ads may increase CTR but tend to underperform in metrics like CPA and ROAS.
Advertisers should embrace RSAs, as they consistently outperform ETAs – even with fully pinned assets.

Title Case Vs. Sentence Case: Which Performs Better?

The choice between title case (“This Is a Title Case Sentence”) and sentence case (“This is a sentence case sentence”) is often a point of contention among advertisers.

Our analysis revealed a clear trend: Ads using sentence case generally outperformed those in title case, particularly in RSAs and Demand Gen campaigns.

Image from author, September 2024

(RSA Data)

Image from author, September 2024

(ETA Data)

Image from author, September 2024

(Demand Gen)

ROAS, in particular, showed a marked preference for sentence case across these ad types, suggesting that a more natural, conversational tone may resonate better with users.

Interestingly, many advertisers still use a mix of title and sentence case within the same account, which counters the traditional approach of maintaining consistency throughout the ad copy.

Key Takeaways:

Sentence case outperforms title case in RSAs and Demand Gen ads on most KPIs.
Including sentence case ads in your testing can improve performance, as it aligns more closely with organic results, which users perceive as higher quality.
Although ETAs perform slightly better with title case, sentence case is increasingly the preferred choice in modern ad formats.

The Impact Of Ad Length On Performance

Ad copy, particularly for Google Ads, requires brevity without sacrificing impact.

We analyzed the effects of character count on ad performance, grouping ads by the length of headlines and descriptions.

Image from author, September 2024

Image from author, September 2024

(RSA Data)

Image from author, September 2024

1727879162 7 Ad Copy Tactics Backed By Study Of Over 1 Million

Image from author, September 2024

(ETA Data)

Image from author, September 2024

1727879163 98 Ad Copy Tactics Backed By Study Of Over 1 Million

Image from author, September 2024

(Demand Gen Data)

Interestingly, shorter headlines tend to outperform longer ones in CTR and conversion rates, while descriptions benefit from moderate length.

Ads that tried to maximize character counts by using dynamic keyword insertion (DKI) or customizers often saw no significant performance improvement.

Moreover, applying ETA strategies to RSAs proved largely ineffective.

In almost all cases, advertisers who carried over ETA tactics to RSAs saw a decline in performance, likely because of how Google dynamically assembles ad components for display.

Key Takeaways:

Shorter headlines lead to better performance, especially in RSAs.
Focus on concise, impactful messaging instead of trying to fill every available character.
ETA tactics do not translate well to RSAs, and attempting to replicate them can hurt performance.

Final Thoughts On Ad Optimizations

In summary, several key insights emerge from this analysis.

First, Ad Strength should not be your primary focus when assessing performance. Instead, concentrate on creating relevant, engaging ad copy tailored to your target audience.

Additionally, pinning assets should be a strategic, creative decision rather than a hard rule, and advertisers should incorporate sentence case into their testing for RSAs and Demand Gen ads.

Finally, focus on quality over quantity in ad copy length, as longer ads do not always equate to better results.

By refining these elements of your ads, you can drive better ROI and adapt to the evolving landscape of Google Ads.

Read the full Ad Strength & Creative Study from Optmyzr.

More resources:

Featured Image: Sammby/Shutterstock

Source link

SEO

Bing Expands Generative Search Capabilities For Complex Queries

Published

2 days ago

October 1, 2024

Max

Bing Expands Generative Search Capabilities For Complex Queries

Microsoft has announced an expansion of Bing’s generative search capabilities.

The update focuses on handling complex, informational queries.

Bing provides examples such as “how to effectively run a one-on-one” and “how can I remove background noise from my podcast recordings.”

Searchers in the United States can access the new features by typing “Bing generative search” into the search bar. This will present a carousel of sample queries.

Screenshot from: blogs.bing.com, October 2024.

A “Deep search” button on the results page activates the generative search function for other searches.

1727808962 226 Bing Expands Generative Search Capabilities For Complex Queries

Screenshot from: blogs.bing.com, October 2024.

Beta Release and Potential Challenges

It’s important to note that this feature is in beta.

Bing acknowledges that you may experience longer loading times as the system works to ensure accuracy and relevance.

The announcement reads:

“While we’re excited to give you this opportunity to explore generative search firsthand, this experience is still being rolled out in beta. You may notice a bit of loading time as we work to ensure generative search results are shown when we’re confident in their accuracy and relevancy, and when it makes sense for the given query. You will generally see generative search results for informational and complex queries, and it will be indicated under the search box with the sentence “Results enhanced with Bing generative search” …”

This is the waiting screen you get after clicking on “Deep search.”