Google Adds Spanish-language Inventory with Univision

Google has struck a multi-year deal with Univision Online that will provide AdWords advertisers with more Spanish-language ad inventory on both search and content pages of the Univision.com Web site.

“The Hispanic population is growing online, especially in the U.S. With that, the impact of having Web sites that are created in Spanish has gone up as well. Any time they can add inventory, it’s also adding a channel for advertisers,” said Matt Naeger, VP and general counsel at search engine marketing firm Impaqt.

Impaqt’s client have had mixed success with Spanish-language search ads, said Naeger. Some keywords correlate with their English-language counterparts, others don’t. “New York lawyer” is competitive with “New York abogado.” Naeger has seen less useful Spanish-language results with keywords like “Microsoft Exchange data recovery.”

“It can depend on the industry. If it’s not a developed market in the Spanish language, you won’t get good results sets, so it won’t make sense to target those keywords,” Naeger said. “We’ve seen success with it in education and insurance, but outside of those two, we’ve been limited on what we’ve used it for.”

In some cases, targeting a Spanish counterpart to an English keyword can be a bargain. Naeger has found clients English keywords with bids in the $3 to $5 range on both Google or Yahoo that run only $0.10 to $0.15 in Spanish.

Entering the market can be more challenging than just translating English keywords into Spanish. Cultural issues must be addresses, while lumping diverse Spanish-speaking ethnic groups into one category is to be avoided.

The growing Spanish-speaking online audience has also been targeted by MSN Video, AOL.

Univision Online is the interactive division of Los Angeles- and Miami-based Spanish-language media company Univision Communications. Its operations include Spanish-language broadcast and cable television networks, as well as a radio network and record labels.