Search Marketing Targeting Latinos: A Question

James Gross asks an important question on his blog. What are your answers?

Mine is, as I told James:

I think it's as simple as the way non-Latinos are targeted via search marketing, by context. Find out what Latinos are searching for on the web and make suggestions. For instance, if I type in "Direct TV" on Google, I get an ad for "direct tv para todos". I'm not being targeted because I was looking for something Latino in particular, but I am being served up something that may be of interest to me. Gathering data on what Latinos look for on the web (which people tend to be saying lately is home improvement, shopping, etc.) and using that data to market Latino-specific products, like the DirectTV example, or point them in the direction of your Latino-focused advertising.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this.

Comments

[Jorge Rocha]

I don't think there's any other way to go about it beyond data and info on keywords that might appeal to Hispanics on the web. Gold star to whomever comes up with something effective.

[Nacho Hernandez]

Hello Jennifer,

I was part of the pannel with Barbara and Lucas. This is a questions we ask ourselves often as it gets more challanging with search marketing.

I believe that what you are talking about with the DirectTV example has to do more with the buying funnel process that the user goes through when searching for information on the search engines. Another example, a search for "dvd players" might be a user who needs education about which is the best player for him/her as opposed to the same user searching for "Sony DVD Player DVP-NS975V" or even just "Sony DVP-NS975V" without the words "dvd player". If that was the case for a Latino searching, then the brand and model number has nothing to do with language barriers.

I also believe that you bring up the topic of personalization in search on your post. That is a topic we have also discussed many times and we believe it will most likely solve many of our search marketing challanges to overcome targeting latinos in English.

A newer way we have been experiencing through our clients at my consulting firm (iHispanic Marketing Group) is through using LOCAL search marketing tactics. This was mentioned in my presentation. For example, cities that have 80-100% Hispanic population can be pin pointed and targeted in both Spanish and English keywords but making the search ads more Latino oriented by playing agains higher odds that a Latino(a) will be user most likely to receive it.

Like in most marketing tactics, it's a game of probabilities. The marketer with the highest match usually wins the best results. The greatest thing about search marketing is, if you don't like your ad or the landing page, then you are welcome to make changes on the fly 24/7 (something TV, print or radio can not do).

[Joel Bary]

Targeting the Hispanics via search ... this is truly an up-the-hill battle. Hispanics, as every online Hispanic marketer knows, are a very complex group of users, much more than the their US general market counterpart. Hispanics browse and search in both languages and when they do it in English it is extremely hard to target them, but we did find an interesting way to do so and one of the techniques we came up with was basically, to study the misspells that Latinos often do when typing certain words in English but must certainly say that when targeting Hispanics, we must do it in Spanish, we must buy the right ketywords and also, we must adapt to the different cultures and origins. We must always consider buying Spanish keywords that are related to a specific country, words that you will only use if you were from a specific country. For example, if you are looking for an airline ticket fare and you are originally from Venezuela, or from Colombia, you will look for a "boleto" but if you are from other LATAM country, you might look for a "tickete" or something else, so basically, if you are targeting the Hispanics through a search campaign, you might score some points by buying English words which you can always target by city, zip code or others (trying to pin-point the most relevant Hispanic cities by population which does help, but it is a game of probabilities) but you will be better off concentrating your efforts on Spanish keywords, after all, English preferred Hispanos will search in English and will be more attracted to English only ads than to Spanish ads, even when looking for something pertaining a Hispanic oriented product (no wonder they are considered as English preferred...) so, unless you are promoting a product that's exclusively oriented to Hispanics but seeking those that prefer to search in English, your ads will get lost within the tons of English ads out there. We have done a lot of tests for many of our clients and have concluded that when trying to reach the hispanos through search, you must definitely work in their native tongue and as an agency providing services to many traditional agencies and advertisers as well, I must also add that seeking advice through a specialized firm would be the best way to go. By the way, excellent Blog, keep it up !!!
Joel Bary
C.E.O.
LatinMedios.com, Inc.
Online Media, Marketing and Advertising Strategies for the US Hispanic and Latam Markets.

[michael jones]

Well...people are interested in lots of things sometimes even strange ones. I am really surprised by this information because I didn't imagine that latinos are interested in home improvement and marketing. Anyway, a wonderful post.