When starting a typical US, or locally targeted campaign for your US-based English language website, the natural thing to do will likely be to simply select ‘English’ in the language targeting settings. After all, your website is English and so are your keywords and ad copy, so it might seem silly, or downright counterproductive to target a campaign to a totally different language.

I made that assumption when I first started working with Google Adwords. All of my campaigns were written in English, and all of them set to English in the language settings. At some point a new idea popped into my head, and I went into Adwords Editor to create a duplicate campaign that was identical in every way, except instead of targeting English, I targeted every language other than English.

The results were overwhelmingly positive. The new “off language” campaign had a click-through rate that was three times higher, the cost per click dropped by 50%, and most importantly, the traffic converted just as well if not better. What gave me the idea to try this was a realization that a given keyword search demonstrates the searcher’s ability and willingness to use the language in which it was written. For example, if someone searches for “blue green widget”, they are using the English language even if their browser settings, or their Google search preferences are set to a different language. There are several probable scenarios for this - a shared computer in a bilingual household, or a product or a brand name that isn’t easily translated in another language, any of which suggest a positive campaign outcome. Moreover, because other advertisers are less likely to be targeting this group of users, you get the added benefit of decreased competition, which explains the higher ad position, CTR, CPC that I have experienced.

There are a few potential caveats in this tactic. It goes without saying that something that worked for me in a limited scope may not work for you in a different kind of campaign. Things like the nuances of different languages, demographics, and the degree to which you can track your conversions can come into play.