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Does my PPC specialist need to speak the same language & be in the same region as me?
We, german brand, need to show our content to specific, targated users in germany with paid ads (IG, FB, TikTok).
Only downside I, as a complete beginner (no ppc specialist, founder), see is the keyword research. Could be tricky for the ppc specialsit if he always need to translate stuff and maybe missing out on some words?
Or isnt it a big problem? Research for 3 hrs but not sure about that once its my first hire for ppc.
Thanks a lot!
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Edit 1: Maybe the whole copywriting (description for ad) is a dealbreaker. This might be something that needs to be optimized by the PPC specialist itself?
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1 Reply
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I’ve worked with clients who do ads in foreign languages and I personally have my own process to ensure the ads that go up are actually “fluent.” DM me if you need some help with that. Considering how high skill good PPC management is, finding a high skill PPC manager who specifically speaks a language is not really realistic.
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When I work on multilingual projects, the ad copy and keywords from the language I am not familiar with come from the client. If you can’t do that or expect the PPC guy to draft the copy for you and do the keywords research, then you’ll have to hire someone who speaks the language.
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Same region? Not necessary
Same language = Not necessary if the person is professional, knows how to use the tools well, does competitor research, strategize and plans before running anything.If you need PPC expert for huge website like thousands of products and pages that require hundreds of ads then yes better to opt for one who knows the language without running through grammar etc tools all the time.
If you only have one product and less than dozen pages then just approve the ad copies once a week or month and PPC person can manage the rest.
So in a nutshell:
One product, few pages(content) but very talented PPC person = non native sounds okay.Thousands of products and pages = PPC person who better knows the language
Talented native PPC for same price = hire native
Hope it clarifies.
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It depends.
I’m in Germany and as you know, there’s some “specialities” when it comes to grammar etc.
IF you provide creatives etc and the media buyer doesn’t have to deal with this side of the job, you might be able to hire someone outside of Germany.Mind you, FB & IG don’t really require tons of KW research as it’s audience based.
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I guess it will be ok to be in a close time-zone at least for the beginning of the PPC campaign. If he or she is experienced, can see in real time some stats and do some operations that will help you to save money. After the PPC campaigns are getting some “experience”, it doesn’t matter anymore where your ppc marketer is.
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I can’t imagine doing PPC in a language I didn’t know. Like others have said, you would have to go over the ad copy, landing pages, etc. How would they read the search terms report? Yeah you could download it and use a tool to translate, but it just seems inefficient to not have someone who is fluent do your PPC for you
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The person does not need to be in Germany. They should be able to speak German or at least you provide them with all the ad copy and keyword. The PPC person tells you what they need and you provide that to them.
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They should be able to speak your target language because they’re managing this for you, unless you have a language supporter in which case it’s perfectly fine, I also do this with multinational businesses. It’s easier to find someone good at writing ad copies to support than a good PPC specialist, I think.
Location isn’t an issue at all – I work with clients from around the world (US/CA/FR/JP), the only potential issue is time zone, but it’s no problem at all.
At the end of the day it’s up to your own comfort.
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Yes. If you advertise in a certain language and your site is in a certain language, your account manager has to speak and understand that language. Doesn’t have to be in the same region but it can help. I speak French but Canadian French, there are some differences and not being in France for example, there are some cultural things I don’t think or know about that make me a bit less effective. German may be similar but it’s less of a big deal than not speaking the language at all.
Not to mention that when translating, you may end up with ads which are longer than the character limits. The translator may remove the intent of my ad to make it fit. So I declined the job.
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I am German media buyer as well and most of my clients are either English or German.
However, I worked with a Norwegian and a French client before. It was *possible*, but really difficult.
Basically, I had to outline the strategy and structure and then run everything through Google Translate or DeepL. It worked, but made everything a lot more tedious and time consuming (without me having charged more for that).
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Sowas wie ne keyword Recherche sollte definitiv von einem Muttersprachler gemacht werden
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I’m an American with an Austrian wife and family, I speak and understand German at about an 8th grade level, I’ve tried, its hard 🙂 As a 20+ year digital marketer I would say that if you are targeting German customers then its more about understanding the exact intent and behaviors of your target audience. Therefore if I were you I would want some level of language proficiency but an even higher level of cultural understanding.
I mean you’d want them to get simple nuances like Grüss Gott and Pfiat di as opposed to Guten Tag and Tschüss. Do they understand how Bavaria sits culturally within Germany?
This level of understanding would be critical. -
You should provide him with the text for the ads. He can create a file with a line for each headline/description and character limits, and you can help fill it out.
He can do some initial KW research and then you can adjust/improve.
From experience it’s possible to run and optimize campaigns in a language you don’t know but you’ll only do it at 70-80%. Translation is hard and will be full of mistakes, you need to know how those people speak and so on.
Negative keywords is also more difficult because you have to translate everything and there’s a big chance some things won’t make sense or can’t be translated.
I ran ads in Lisbon, and did the creative myself, and the client had a native speaker check it. It really looked good to me, but he had to modify them quite a bit, as I apparently translated them into Brazilian Portuguese instead of the European one and certain words/phrases are different.
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Cultural differences are important. As long as they understand the cultural differences into the ads your fine
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