Canadian marketers face unique challenges when looking engage in nationwide search engine marketing. Not only must they differentiate themselves from American results that might appear, but with English accounting for 67.1% of the population and French accounting 21.5%, it follows that ads should appear in both official languages.
While it might make sense to simply take English ads and translate them, simple translations don’t work. What might make sense in English might not work in French – and you might end up saying something you never intended on saying. Many years ago I was working up in the Gaspesie region of Quebec and while shopping with a local friend, I mentioned (in French) that I was excited to find a certain item at a low price. She laughed, and when I asked why, she explained that they used the adjective “exciter” (excited) to describe a certain kind of excitement you might feel in the dark with someone you are attracted to. Skip to a few years later in Montreal, and I asked someone to use their lighter but asked for their “briquet” which is the correct translation. I got a puzzled look, then realization dawned: “Ah! Tu veux mon lighter”.
So you see that you cannot just send you ad copy to a translator – getting your paid search ad copy right in both languages in Canada will be about optimizing your English campaigns and optimizing your French campaigns, not simply in translating one campaign into another language. If you want to sell tons of lighters, your ads for “briquets” might not pan out.
Anybody out there with tips for bilingual paid search marketing in Canada?
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