Paid Search Performance Linguistics®
Why translated ads underperform, and how trained linguists and continuous testing lift click-through, conversion and revenue in international paid search.
Your competitors in Germany, Japan or Brazil are rarely the ones you benchmark at home.
International competitor analysis identifies the brands you actually compete with in a specific market, then analyses their positioning, messaging, creative, search visibility, channel activity and customer conversation in the local language.
Global benchmarking tools tend to surface the same multinational names everywhere. In-market, the real threat is often a local challenger, a marketplace or a retailer’s own brand that your global team has never come across.
How Locaria does it: native researchers and linguists analyse competitor activity in its original language, so tone, claims, wordplay and cultural cues are read the way local consumers read them. We then turn what we find into recommendations on positioning, messaging, channels and investment.
What we analyse in each market
We scope the mix to your brief. Most projects combine several of these lenses.
POSITIONING AND MESSAGING
How local competitors describe themselves, the claims they lead with, their tone of voice and the promises your proposition has to beat, all read in the original language.
SEARCH AND PAID MEDIA
Keyword coverage, organic visibility and paid search activity, showing where competitors bid, which terms they own and where search intent is under-served.
SOCIAL AND CREATIVE
Imagery, formats, content themes, promotions and engagement on the platforms that matter locally.
CUSTOMER CONVERSATION
Multilingual social listening across reviews, forums and social platforms, showing how audiences feel about competitors and your category.
From competitor research to a competitive plan
Documenting what competitors do is the easy part. The value is in deciding what you should do differently.
A typical competitor report
Competitor analysis with Locaria
One global benchmark set used in every market
A local competitor set built for each market
Translated screenshots and summaries
Native analysis of tone, claims and cultural cues
Channels reviewed in isolation
Paid, organic, social and conversation compared side by side
Activity documented
Strengths, weaknesses and white space identified
Ends with observations
Ends with recommendations on positioning, messaging, channels and investment
A typical competitor report
One global benchmark set used in every market
Translated screenshots and summaries
Channels reviewed in isolation
Activity documented
Ends with observations
Competitor analysis with Locaria
A local competitor set built for each market
Native analysis of tone, claims and cultural cues
Paid, organic, social and conversation compared side by side
Strengths, weaknesses and white space identified
Ends with recommendations on positioning, messaging, channels and investment
Multilingual social listening: hear what each market says about you and your competitors
Some of the most useful competitive intelligence sits in the conversation around brands rather than in their advertising. Our analysts monitor in-language conversation across social platforms, forums and review sites in each market, then interpret it with a native understanding of slang, irony and cultural context that keyword searches and automated sentiment scoring can miss.
- Share of voice and sentiment for you and your local competitors
- Category themes and unmet needs competitors are not addressing
- Reputation signals and emerging issues your global team would otherwise miss
- Platform-specific behaviour, including the local platforms that matter in each market
Listening can run as a one-off competitive snapshot or as part of a wider competitor analysis. If you need always-on community monitoring, we will tell you upfront whether we are the right fit.
How our competitor analysis works
Five steps from the competitors you know to the ones you need to know, and what to do about them.
01 / Brief and markets
We agree the markets, the decisions the analysis must inform and the competitors you already track, so the research answers your questions rather than producing a generic overview.
02 / Build the local competitor set
Native researchers identify the brands, retailers and marketplaces that audiences actually compare you with in each market, including local challengers.
03 / Analyse across channels
We review websites, paid and organic search, social, creative and customer conversation, combining in-language research with search and social intelligence tools.
04 / Compare and find the gaps
Findings are compared across competitors and markets in a SWOT and gap analysis, showing where competitors are strong, where they are exposed and where the white space is.
05 / Recommend
You receive a report in English with clear recommendations on how to position, what to say, which channels to prioritise and where to invest, ready to brief your teams and agencies.
Competitor analysis in action
Two examples of research that changed where and how brands competed.
Global MedTech brand: repositioning in Germany
Following a major rebrand, the brand needed to understand its competitive position in the German market. We compared media spend by category, analysed imagery and messaging angles across competitors, and reviewed search rankings and social engagement to show the brand where to invest and how to position for growth.
Major music festival: four outbound markets
The organisers needed to know how to reach international music tourists in four outbound markets. We compared competitor communications in each, identified the content and platforms local audiences engaged with, and gave a clear steer on what to say and where to say it in every market.
What you receive
Outputs are written in English and built to be used by global and local teams.
Local competitor map
The competitors that matter in each market, global and local, and how they compare with you.
Positioning and messaging analysis
Claims, tone and proof points by competitor, with the territory still open to you.
Search and paid media benchmark
Keyword coverage, visibility and paid activity, and the search intent nobody is serving well.
Social and creative review
What competitors post, the creative they run and what local audiences respond to.
Social listening report
Share of voice, sentiment and conversation themes for your brand, competitors and category.
SWOT and recommendations
A prioritised plan for differentiation, messaging, channels and investment in each market.
FAQs
Questions we often hear from teams sizing up a new or underperforming market. If yours is not here, ask us directly.
What is international competitor analysis?
International competitor analysis identifies the brands you actually compete with in a specific country and analyses their positioning, messaging, creative, search visibility, channel activity and customer conversation in the local language. It ends with recommendations on where and how to compete in that market.
Why can’t we use our global competitor research in every market?
Because the competitive set changes by market. A brand that leads at home may be a minor player abroad, while local challengers, marketplaces and retailer brands can dominate categories your global benchmark never covers. Messaging that differentiates you in one language can sound identical to a local rival’s in another.
What is multilingual social listening?
Multilingual social listening, sometimes called multilingual social media monitoring, tracks and analyses conversation about brands and categories across social platforms, forums and review sites in several languages. Our native analysts interpret slang, irony and cultural context, so sentiment and themes are read the way local audiences mean them.
Can you estimate how much competitors spend on media?
We can show where competitors are active and indicate their relative investment by channel and category, using in-market research alongside third-party search and social intelligence tools. These are estimates rather than audited figures, and every report states how confident we are in them.
Which markets and competitors can you cover?
Locaria works in 83 languages through more than 1,400 in-market linguists and specialists. We agree the markets and the competitor set with you, including local players your team may not be tracking yet.
How often should we run competitor analysis?
It is most useful before entering a market, ahead of annual planning, after a rebrand, or when a competitor makes a significant move. Social listening can also run as a repeat snapshot so you can track changes in share of voice and sentiment over time.
How does competitor analysis connect to the rest of a launch?
Competitor findings often feed straight into market entry research, a media landscape audit, multilingual SEO and the messaging our transcreators and copywriters develop for each market.
Go deeper on competing across markets
Research on search, language and performance in international marketing.
Think Locally to Win Globally
Why global campaigns fall flat or cause offence abroad, and how early cultural insight protects creative impact across markets. By Ciara Nugent.
Data Science and its Practical Applications in Multilingual Content
How natural language processing, sentiment analysis and incrementality testing make multilingual content more effective, and why human linguists remain essential.
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