I'm not really a search marketer. It's something I'm familiar enough with to know when the experts should be called it. However, it is something I am fascinated by, particularly when it's not in my native English. So, I was delighted to have the opportunity to interview Alicia Morga about the work she does in Search Engine Marketing, particularly for clients with Hispanic markets. And while we may not have a large Hispanic population specifically in Canada, we are a bi-lingual country and most of our metropolitan areas have several non-English communities.
Just to set the context for our interview, I asked Alicia for some background information on the Hispanic market ...
Hispanics are now 15% of the U.S. population and the U.S. Hispanic online market is rapidly growing, especially Hispanic online search – 80% of the online Hispanic population searches online. As you can imagine, a large percentage of that group views the web in Spanish and gets information about products in Spanish (65% of U.S. Hispanics say they get more info about a product when it’s advertised in Spanish), so Spanish language search is definitively an area of interest for marketers. As you can imagine, it’s even larger in Latin America and Spain where the numbers online are greater than the entire U.S. Hispanic market. (Further stats on the US Hispanic and Latin American Markets)
Spanish keywords, however, are only one component of an effective overall SEM strategy. English keywords, culturally relevant copy, country specific terminology, delivery, placement, and more all contribute to click-through rates and conversion. The key lesson in marketing in a different language or to a different culture, is to not take for granted what a native knows and testing, measuring and optimizing matter.
Are there language specific search engines that marketers should be aware of? How does a marketer find them and vet their quality?
The major search engines like Google and Yahoo! have Spanish language options but the real story here is how many people search in Spanish or their native language on the U.S. main sites for each. That’s where we are seeing growth.
What’s one of the most interesting insights you have had working with clients who work in two or more languages? Can you share an example or two?
We’ve found out that Spanish speakers use the web differently than English speakers, which presents unique opportunities to advertisers looking to reach the Hispanic market because the Hispanic market encompasses English dominant, Spanish dominant and bilingual individuals. This requires that we take into account both language, culture AND country in all of our campaigns, and all three have to be factored into the delivery of the message. For example, with one of our advertisers, Best Buy, we found out that U.S. based Spanish text ads were better at prompting customers to purchase lower-cost items, such as MP3 players and videogames, whereas Spanish banner ads on U.S. Hispanic publishers were more successful in getting people to buy larger-ticket items, such as flat-panel TVs.
In addition, the Hispanic market as a whole interacts differently with the internet than the general market. For example, Hispanics on average use two search engines, 71% of Hispanics online use social networking sites and 39% watch videos online. The general online population is much less likely to use social networking (65%) or watch videos (23%).
We’ve also seen many direct marketers do very literal translations into Spanish without respect for colloquial usage. For example, if you translate “debt” into Spanish using Babelfish or a dictionary, you’ll get the term “deuda.” But when Spanish-speakers are talking about debt in the terms of what to do about it, they actually use the word “prestamos.” We’ve seen people bid up the keyword “deuda” to crazy numbers, spend a lot of money on a keyword that doesn’t convert in the context in which they placed it and then conclude that Hispanics aren’t online.
How much of reaching out to international and non-English markets is about understanding a language and how much is about understanding a culture?
For marketers that want to reach non-English speaking demographics, understanding the language and culture of the target audience is helpful – but not the most important element in building successful campaigns.
The real “secret sauce” to being successful in multi-cultural and multi-lingual marketing is technology. While Consorte (Alicia's company) does understand the nuances of many facets of the Hispanic culture and the Spanish language we’re able to take understanding this market a step further with robust targeting technology. We use sophisticated testing, analysis and measurement technologies to test each and every campaign to see if it resonates with a particular target segment of the market – such as young Chicano men in Los Angeles who like music or Spanish-speaking homeowners in Texas, for example. And often, testing and analysis proves the opposite of what we originally thought would work. For example, by rigorously testing campaigns for our advertisers, we’ve found that English-language ads that make a cultural reference in some cases, on particular publishers, resonate more deeply with U.S. Hispanics than the same ad in Spanish. And the same ad from the same advertiser will have to be wildly different in Argentina as opposed to the U.S. or even Mexico.
To bring multi-lingual marketing into the mainstream, the marketing community needs to bring measurability and accountability to the discipline, so that advertisers no longer create messages based on assumptions, but instead base their campaigns on real, measurable evidence of which messages work and which don’t.
Alicia Morga is CEO of Consorte Media, a provider of online marketing solutions for clients who want to reach the Hispanic market Alicia will be speaking at Search Engines Strategies Toronto on June 17th as part of the "Search Around the World" panel. Prior to founding Consorte Media, Alicia was an investment professional focused on venture opportunities in the technology sector for The Carlyle Group's U.S. venture fund and also worked at Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, where she focused on early-stage software investments.
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