In this two-part series, we explore three critical assessments brands can perform to determine where opportunity lies for growth with a Hispanic audience. Part 1, covering Competitive Analysis, can be found here. Read on for Part 2, covering brand-owned Website Audit and Social Channel Evaluations.
As we’ve said many times, reaching online Hispanics goes beyond simply translating your English site to Spanish. If you’ve followed along in this series and read Part 1, you’ve already taken a look at what your competition is doing (or failing to do) to reach online U.S. Hispanics. Now we ask that you point the magnifying glass inward and take a critical look at your brand’s web presence through a website audit and a social media channel evaluation to uncover opportunities to reach this rapidly expanding audience.
WEBSITE AUDIT KEY QUESTIONS
By analyzing website data, brands can not only identify visitor demographics and behavior, they can also assess the performance of existing campaigns against campaign goals. This enables brands to better target the most engaged consumers, and identify the best content and method to engage with Hispanics online.
Important questions to consider when performing a website audit include:
Demographics: Analyze incoming traffic characteristics to identify current Hispanic visitors.
- Use Quantcast to view ethnicity metrics – do you over or under index for Hispanic visitors?
- What is the traffic volume and quality from Hispanic Designated Market Areas (DMAs)?
Site Usage: Evaluate visitor behavior once a user enters your site to find popular pages, points of engagement, and pages that need optimization.
- How do visitors from your campaigns engage with your site? This applies to any type of campaign, including social media, paid search, banner ads, etc.
- How does Hispanic engagement compare with general market?
- Are campaign visitors continuing onwards to consume more content, or leaving immediately from the landing page?
Most Viewed Pages: Look at popular pages on your site to gain insights into what types of content can be expanded for additional traffic and growth among the Hispanic audience.
- What are the top landing pages from organic search traffic?
- Do you need to better optimize key content so it can be found by Hispanics searching online?
- Do landing pages drive your audience deeper into the site to consume more content, or are visitors leaving because they do not find what they need?
Spanish Language Offering: If you currently have a Spanish-language site, a few additional questions during your audit may help you identify opportunities for optimization.
- Is the Spanish site updated regularly? Does it mirror the English site?
- Is it mobile optimized?
- Are consumers more engaged with your Spanish website content vs. your English website content?
SOCIAL CHANNEL EVALUATION KEY QUESTIONS
With robust metrics being offered by many social channels including Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, there are several opportunities to reveal Hispanic audience interest in your brand’s social content. Engagement and reach metrics for social posts can determine what content type and style resonates best with a Hispanic audience vs. a general market audience. Demographics data – for example your Followers’ country and language preferences in Facebook Insights – can also inform opportunities for growth.
Relating social channel data to website data can also grant a full and comprehensive picture of a social campaign, to determine how engaging and meaningful the content was to the brand consumer. For example, did a Promoted Tweet result in not only a number of retweets and replies, but a higher than average time on site as well?
Other important questions to consider when performing a social channel evaluation include:
- What percentage of followers have their language settings set to Spanish?
- Do the City settings show areas with historically high Hispanic DMAs, even if language settings are predominantly English?
- What content, type of post (i.e. photo or question) or theme received the greatest engagement from Hispanics? Was this greater than for general market posts?
- What posts drove most traffic to your website, and had the greatest website engagement?
A dynamic creative strategy, robust media plan, and compelling content suite can only hit their marks if the target is in the right place. Analytics is an essential tool to hone that target and identify where opportunities lie in the Hispanic market. By performing a Competitive Analysis, Website Audit, and Social Channel Evaluation, you’re taking the first step to inform a strategy for reaching U.S. Hispanics, one of the most powerful and sought-after segments in digital today.
