Running International Google Ads – A Complete Guide

Google paid search allows businesses to seamlessly operate in multiple countries and drive more customers. If you want to extend beyond your local presence, it’s time to adopt some effective international online advertising strategies. This blog is directed to just that. From targeting proper location & language to researching keywords, writing compelling ad copies to scheduling ads in different time zone – we will explore it all.

Before starting, let us quickly mention that paid marketing demands immense experience and effort. If you want to maximize your Return on Investment (ROI), we recommend you engage professional digital marketing services. Nevertheless, a detailed understanding of it will help you to track the progress and determine if the service providers are diligently working. Let’s get started.

How to Run International PPC Ads – A Detailed Guide

Location

Targeting an entire country for every campaign may not always sprout results. Depending on your business and campaign, it may cater to a specific location. Displaying it to a wider region will only drive clicks that don’t convert and only drain your PPC resource.

For instance, if you own a restaurant, aim for localized traffic so that your restaurant may appear in the “near me” search results. Similarly, if you sell furniture (where the shipping cost is involved), you may not target the whole country. If you are a UK-based business and looking to expand to the USA, targeting large cities, in the beginning, is ideal. Once you acquire popularity and substantial ROI, consider expanding to more cities.

However, if you provide digital solutions (e.g. – website development, graphic designing, digital marketing, or other SAAS solutions), this rule may not apply to you. You can target the entire country.

Language

While running an international campaign, taking language into consideration is crucial. With the advancement in time, English is not the only language for search. People can search in different languages. This is further propelled by voice search. As people prefer to speak in their native languages, an international campaign should be optimized for the language of the target location.

Maintaining consistency is the key when it comes to language. Ensure that the ad copy and landing page are written in the same language. For the landing page, find out keywords that have a high search volume in a specific language. We will discuss it in more detail in the following pointer.

Check out this blog to get a clear understanding of how to design a multilingual website.

Keyword

If you ask the experts of PPC services “what is THE most important element in a campaign?”, most of them will say “keywords”!

We have already maintained that it’s important to find keywords with a high search volume in a specific language. Merely translating a high-volume English keyword into German will not maximize the outcome. That’s because German and English people use different expressions while searching for the same thing.

You can use a keyword research tool to find some effective keywords for your campaign. Also, analyze your competitors’ ad campaigns to explore new ideas for keywords and copy.

Time Zone

PPC is all about reaching the right people at the right time. It’s important to take different time zones into consideration while running an international ad campaign. When you first create a campaign, it will be automatically set to run 24/7, unless you specify otherwise.

Go to the Ad Schedule section in Google Ads and customize the schedule so as to show your ad at the most opportune time of the day in each location. For instance, an ideal time for running a campaign in India will be very different from running the campaign in New Jersey.

Insight into Your Audience

Pay-per-click campaign is not a static thing. If you want to make the most of your investment, it’s important to regularly monitor the performance of your campaigns. Google Ads offers an Observation mode to help you in this. It will allow you to get an insight into the demographic makeup of all the people who click your ad. You can get adequate data of the following by observing these people for a certain time:

• Remarketing data – website visitors
• Affinity – things people do or look for habitually
• Detailed demographics – education level, parental status
• In-market – what people are actively looking for

These insights will help you to segment the demography that has the highest potential to convert. You can also create custom strategies to attract these segments.

Responsive Search Ad and Expanded Text Ad

A/B testing is crucial in realizing which ad copy is driving the most traffic. For that, we recommend using a responsive search ad and two regular expanded text ads. It will allow you to test different headlines and descriptions and monitor their CTR (Click-Through-Rate).

Take account of spelling differences while creating your copy. For instance, colour is the standard spelling in the UK but in the USA, it will be spelled as color.

Display Ad

It’s overwhelming to establish a brand in a new market. Visuals can assist you herein. Text ads are not ideal especially if your business vertical has lots of local competition or expensive keywords.

Display or video campaigns will help to make the most of your investment. Display ads usually have a lower cost-per-click than search ads. On the other hand, these have a higher potential to attract people.

Way Forward

Adopting these best practices will help you to run international Google ads without any hassle. However, transforming these into practice demands adequate experience and expertise. if you dont’t want to waste your time and focus more on your core business, it’s better to hire professional digital marketers. These days, India is the choicest place for global business owners for outsourcing marketing services due to its cost-effectiveness. Make a smart decision and engage digital marketing in India.

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