I immediately noticed that all the accounts had the same structure, mainly because they replicated the USA account into the German, Dutch, French, and Spanish market. It was obvious once I began managing the Spanish account that this led to wasteful spending.

Considering language and cultural factors is crucial before developing strategies for a new country. Every country or nation has its distinctive socio-cultural background; trust me, replicating the same strategy in new markets you’re trying to enter will not work.

For any Google Ads account, the “KEYWORDS” are one of the vital sections. The Spanish, French, Dutch, and German accounts had picked the keywords from the USA account and translated them literally. This is very bad practice – to assume that simply by translating keywords into another language, you can expect people to type those same new keywords and even find your website. The translation should be done by a professional translator who understands the language (obviously) and, most importantly, the intent behind the keywords.

For instance, let’s consider the Spanish account. One of their good keywords was “digital signature.” It would make sense for someone who hasn’t done any prior market/keyword research to assume that people in Spain would be looking for something similar, e.g., ‘firma digital.’ However, after some extensive market research, it was obvious that people searching for this keyword expected to find the “digital signature” solution provided by the government. This meant that the previous agency or freelancer was bidding on a keyword that would lead users to the wrong page, i.e., not the government solution page. 

In other words, people searching this keyword were finding themselves on the wrong site, costing the client a fortune. I opted for a similar approach on all the remaining Ad accounts. I concentrated on researching the different use cases and realized I had to scrap out the entire account and develop a new one from scratch.