Tips for an international Facebook advertising strategy

Asia has the most Facebook users. Nevertheless, advertisers in Western Europe and North America invest many times more in Facebook advertising.For companies that want to expand internationally, marketing in new markets is a major challenge. However, there is one medium that has a global presence and is suitable for reaching a wide range of target groups in an efficient way, promoting products, raising awareness of a brand and forging relationships with consumers: Facebook.The provider of online marketing management solutions Marin Software published in the Guide "International Facebook Advertising - A Greenfield Opportunity to Engage a Massive Global Audience" statistical data on regional differences in the use of Facebook as an advertising medium. These show that Facebook is underestimated as a global advertising medium.The Asia-Pacific region is growing rapidlyRegions such as Asia Pacific, Latin America, and Middle East/Africa, which are strong in terms of user numbers or level of market penetration, fall well behind North America and Western Europe in terms of Facebook ad spend.For example, Asia Pacific is not only the region with the most users, but is also growing the fastest. Nevertheless, advertisers in Western Europe invest three times more and in North America even five times more in Facebook advertising than in the Far East.Tips for an international Facebook marketing strategy

- Develop your own Facebook strategy for each individual market

The advertising strategy depends heavily on the starting position in the respective country. If your company is new to the market, you should focus your campaigns on quickly gaining awareness. So it's a matter of building a local fan community and encouraging social interactions like likes and shares before you get down to the actual acquisition of sales. Name recognition and market presence also have a big impact on targeting strategy. Advertisers with an established customer base can use Custom Audiences to target their customers through Facebook using retargeting. However, Custom Audiences also offers something for companies that are still at the very beginning: With the so-called twin target groups, targeting strategies proven elsewhere can be transferred to a new market.

- Take cultural characteristics into account in your advertising messages

When creating copy and images, be aware of cultural idiosyncrasies. "Buy Now!" may work in the United States, but it would be far too aggressive in Asian markets. While messages oriented toward improving personal social status are well received in the West, they go unheard in Eastern cultures that believe in fate.

- Customize your ad content for the local market

Text and images that perform excellently in your home market may prove ineffective in other countries. This starts with the color scheme - in China, the color red means "good luck," while in other Asian countries it means "danger." The different roles of the sexes are also important. If you want to sell medical goods in Russia, you need to know that the majority of the medical profession is made up of women. And if you rely on testimonials as part of your Facebook campaigns, you need to check the awareness and popularity ratings of your celebrity in the target market.

- Rely on local experts for translations and campaign management

We've all seen poorly translated ad copy on Facebook. To ensure that the performance of your campaigns doesn't suffer from something so trivial, ideally you should rely on local copywriters or native speakers as translators. It's not without reason that many Facebook advertisers use local agencies or their own campaign manager for the region. The local specialists can also react quickly to changes in the competitive situation in their time zone and adjust bids or change budgets - with special solutions, this can be largely automated.

- Separate international Facebook campaigns by country

Even if you want to target several countries with one and the same advertising campaign, and Facebook basically offers the option of international campaigns, it is advisable to run a separate campaign for each region. As with other forms of online marketing, the performance of Facebook advertising varies greatly from country to country, even from region to region and from city to city. Local campaigns make analysis and bid optimization easier and produce better results. It is easier with special solutions that allow differentiated analysis and optimization within cross-country campaigns according to self-defined sales territories.