Google AdWords: Learning Center

Objective: Learn to write ad text targeted to local markets, using the appropriate local languages, and understand payment options available to advertisers around the world.

Before you target multiple countries, get organized. Clearly defined campaigns are easy to identify and manage. Jumbled campaigns will be an endless source of confusion.

Start by naming your campaigns or ad groups to reflect their particular targeted countries and content. A little effort creating unique campaigns and ad group names will save you time and energy later.

Advertisers sometimes make the mistake of mixing languages between the ads and keywords. This is not an effective way to advertise with AdWords.

For example, if your ad group has an ad in French and a keyword list with keywords in different languages, all of the keywords will trigger the same ad written in French. It's a fair bet that users who enter search queries in Japanese will be less interested in an ad written in French - if they can read them at all. The result is often a low clickthrough rate and a low return on investment.

The better solution is to create separate ad groups so you can group your French ad with your French keywords and your Japanese ad with Japanese keywords.

With AdWords you can create ad text using double-byte characters, such as those used in many East Asian languages. However, be aware that double-byte characters have special requirements.

Double-byte characters need nearly twice the display space as single-byte characters. For example, the title line of an English ad has a 25 character limit. However, the limit for that same title line is 12 characters for a double-byte language. The second and third lines of English ad text are limited to 35 characters, while the limit for double-byte characters is 17.

Two other rules to follow when creating ads with double-byte characters:

- Use single-byte characters for symbols, such as punctuation marks and currency symbols.

- Use single-byte characters for alphanumeric characters.

When creating a double-byte character ad in the English interface, the character limit on the screen is wrong. To avoid receiving an error message, enter only the correct character length.

Figure: Japanese ad in U.S. AdWords interface

Figure: Single-byte characters and numbers inside of a double-byte ad

You can specify your account's payment currency only when you first create your AdWords account. This becomes the currency you'll use to manage your account and in which you'll be billed for your ads.

If you set your currency as U.S. dollars, you'll continue to work in U.S. dollars even if you decide to run ads in Indonesia or Brazil or if your billing address changes to France. Once your account is created, you can't change your payment currency.

You'll be asked to set your currency near the end of the account set-up process. Just choose the currency you want from the drop-down menu showing all the currencies available. Payment types and methods vary depending on your currency. For instance, not every country and every currency allows bank transfer transactions. For more detail, please review our payment options page.