When marketing to U.S. Hispanics, companies typically find it most effective to reach their audience via Spanish-language campaigns. But through a recent match-back study, we discovered that even in those situations, the majority of Internet sales for these products were via the product’s English-language site rather than its Spanish-language site.
The impact of this is greater than you might think. Many retailers and marketers who create Hispanic campaigns judge the return on investment based only on sales via the Spanish-language site, without taking sales from the English-language site into account. As a result, they might be in the dark as to just how successful their U.S. Hispanic campaign really was and might abandon their Hispanic campaigns too soon.
Determined to find the most effective means of reaching Spanish-speaking audiences, we decided to use two of our branded products, the Ellezza beauty cream and the Xtreme Bra, as test products. For 18 months, we ran only Spanish-language television ads for these products but maintained English- and Spanish-language search marketing ads and Websites for them.
During the 18 months of the study, the percentage of online orders relative to total orders (we also sold the products via telemarketing) rose from approximately 10% to 25%. And in looking at Web data over a period of two months, we found that 80% of Xtreme Bra orders and 60% of Ellezza orders came through their English-language sites, even though no English-language television campaigns had been running.
To test the waters further, we had one client suspend its English-language campaigns to determine how many orders from its Spanish-language campaign were actually coming through the English site. Within that period of time, the client concluded that 95% of Internet orders generated by the Hispanic media campaign were placed through the English site.
The truth is, there are multiple factors driving Hispanics to non-Spanish-language sites. Much of it simply has to do with Internet intricacies such as Google algorithms. Search engine analytics usually place those Websites with the greatest volume of traffic first, meaning that if someone views an ad in Spanish and then types the product name into a search engine, the first result will more than likely be the product’s English-language site. Hispanic consumers are also beginning to shift from first-generation Hispanic Americans, for whom Spanish is the dominant language spoken, to second-generation, bilingual, bicultural consumers who are viewing and connecting with English-language media on a greater scale.
Still, the fact is that many Spanish-language campaigns today are poorly written, with grammatical and spelling errors, and do not resonate with Hispanic consumers. Kick-starting a U.S. Hispanic campaign involves more than a quick translation of the English commercial, but many marketers and retailers fail to take this into consideration. And so, for Hispanic viewers, often it is just as simple to visit the product’s English Website, type in their name and credit-card information, and be done with the transaction.
As the Hispanic market continues to thrive and its population becomes increasingly bilingual, marketers will want to dive in and get a piece of the action. But it is data-driven insights like these that they will need to take into consideration before implementing, much less calculating the ROI of, a Hispanic campaign of their own.
Denira Borrero is vice president, operations at Omni Direct, a marketing services company specializing in targeting the Hispanic market.
When marketing to U.S. Hispanics, companies typically find it most effective to reach their audience via Spanish-language campaigns. But through a recent match-back study, we discovered that even in those situations, the majority of Internet sales for these products were sold via the product’s English-language site
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