How & Why to Target US Hispanics in Online Marketing Campaigns
As Hispanic Heritage month just came to an end, the members of the blog team and I want to share some of the ways we tailor online marketing campaigns towards US Hispanics.
Tailoring Online Marketing For The Hispanic Population
We have a profound respect for the generations of US Hispanics who have helped enrich our nation’s culture and society; we also know that the US Hispanic markets provides a huge opportunity to reach market on the web and that a lot of brands and advertisers are not taking full advantage of it. Our goal with this article is to explain those opportunities better and give a background on why Elite SEM is a pioneer of US Hispanic Marketing.
I have been personally involved in implementing successful US Hispanic marketing for the last 6 years mostly as a factor of working with a long time client of Elite SEM whose core service targets US Hispanics. As a result of working closely with this client and our Google client services team, I had the pleasure of attending Google’s first ever US Hispanic marketing forum in January of 2011. Check out the 0:08 mark of this Google “Sizzle” video from the event http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MXt7WdrWVw to see me walking into the event. Still not sure that’s me? Pause two seconds later at 0:10 and you can actually see Marc Weisinger Elite SEM on my badge! Jokes aside, I have worked closely with the Google US Hispanic marketing team for quite some time and hope the information below is helpful to persuade readers to launch a US Hispanic campaign for themselves.
What you might not generally known about Hispanic population in the US.
So why should you put time and effort toward US Hispanic specific campaigns?
- US Hispanics are the largest ethnic or race minority in the US making up 16.7% of the total population.
- The latest census projects that by 2050 the overall US Hispanic population in the United States will be 132.8 million constituting 30% of the nation’s population at that time!
Why should I launch US Hispanic campaigns and what are the key differences between US Hispanics and the general population that are relevant for online advertisers to know?
Now the good stuff for our audience!
1) Search traffic targeting US Hispanics is cheaper!
- Keywords on Google.com in Spanish cost a fraction of the cost that English keywords cost!
- In Q1 of 2011 Google data showed that “brand” terms in Spanish are up to 40% cheaper and “generic” search term CPCs are 60-70% less expensive than the general market.
Okay so great, the traffic is cheaper… is there any volume?
2) There’s a Huge amount of search volume in the US Hispanic Market!
- 8% of the daily queries searched on Google.com in the United States are in Spanish
Not every client and vertical will have the ability to spend a lot of money on US Hispanic and Spanish language keywords on Google, but overall there is a lot of search volume to warrant setting up a US Hispanic marketing campaign and measuring the volume for your specific products or service.
3) US Hispanics “over index” on everything technology related
- US Hispanics are significantly more likely than the general population to own smartphones and tablet devices.
- Almost 80% of US Hispanics use the internet as their primary source of information
- Over 90% of US Hispanics use Google as their primary search engine
- 90% of US Hispanics who watch video online visit YouTube
So Marc, now that I know there is a large audience and opportunity for cheaper traffic to drive more efficient ROI for our campaigns, is there any more information I need to know to help me be successful with US Hispanic marketing campaigns?
Actually there is, I’m so glad you asked!
Key Differences Between US Hispanic Searches and General Market Searches Along With Other Final Takeaways/Answers
1) Hispanics search more on generic, high level terms and queries versus English searches that are more specific and “longtail?
- So normally, while you might avoid the more high level general terms for your campaign with your US Hispanic campaigns you definitely want to include and bid on these keywords
2) 80% of the Spanish queries on Google.com are for users whose language and interface is in English
- So keep your Spanish language keyword campaigns targeting English and Spanish or separate campaigns to target both (and not just Spanish)
3) Say I have a Spanish keyword campaign with Spanish ads but my landing page is in English. Are my conversion rates going to be really bad, is it worth launching a US Hispanic campaign at all (this comes up a lot and is a very valid question)?
- While the latest census documented that 70% of Hispanics living in the US speak Spanish at home more than half of those same individuals noted that they spoke English very well.
- So, to answer the question it’s completely okay to have an English language landing page experience! It’s not that US Hispanics can only search in Spanish, but rather they prefer to search in Spanish.
- We have not seen lower conversion rates on our US Hispanic campaigns where our clients only have English landing page experiences.
So how do I get started?
1) The first thing you want to do is focus on translating your keyword assets and ad units into Spanish
- Since we have such a good relationship with the US Hispanic team at Google they often times will help us with these translations
- It’s very important to ensure your ads translate well to native Spanish speakers so using a company like translations.com or any of the other major competitors in the space is a smart alternative if you don’t have any native speakers at your company.
2) Unless a product or service is very geographically specific Google recommends starting your campaigns at a national level.
3) Target “Spanglish” keywords where you have top English keywords or brand terms with Spanish modifiers.
4) Jump in!
- While Spanish keywords are currently cheaper in the market place today as the US Hispanic population continues to grow and advertisers and brands continue to pay more attention to this rapidly developing segment this may not always be the case.
- The earlier your brand focuses specifically on US Hispanics with specific campaigns and relevant messaging the quicker your brand will build good will and reputation in the US Hispanic community showing you relate to their rich culture and lifestyle.
Have any additional questions about the above or want to include me in your next YouTube video? As always please feel free to email me at [email protected] .
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