How to Measure Localization Efficiency

To localize a website is half of the work. You should also understand its efficiency.

ROI, or return on investment is an indicator that is used for estimation of investment efficiency. In our case, it concerns the costs of localization.

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Applicable to localization: ROI = (Current added localization value – Localization cost) / Localization cost.

Consider the example.

The Ukrainian company was selling a software on the local market. After localization into English, it managed to win over foreign clients and increase its income. ROI indicator here will show how profitable was the localization, and will commensurate expenses with the additional income received.

It is necessary to include to localization cost not only translation costs of a product itself, but also accompanying marketing and advertising content, customer support and different technical expenses.

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ROI indicator values may differ greatly depending on the chosen market, industry a company operates in and a product type — app, software, game or some other content.

What does the localization cost depend on?

As mentioned above, localization means way more than just paying for the translation contractor services. There are several cost items to be taken into account while planning the budget.

1. Time and human resources. Localization can be done by a team of your in-house employees or third-party experts for each stage of process — from design to marketing.
2. Using professional translation soft and translation memory (TM) would simplify the localization process and increase localization efficiency. Therewith, it would cut translation cost by automating processes and shorten the time on the product release.
3. Market expenses. Localization expenses depend on the target market. For example, translation into popular languages would be cheaper than those made into less demanded or rare language.

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In order to measure localization projects success, you should create key efficiency indicators. Every company on every market would have their own metrics, which can be and should be controlled. Some examples of localization efficiency key indicators are provided below.

The main measurable localization efficiency indicators

• Conversion ratio on the localized target pages before and after;
• Additional sales in the regions to have been covered by localization;
• Number of customer support cases in a specific target language;
• SEO ranking in the target regions;
• Market share changes;
• Involvement in social media and number of the brand mentioning.

Perfect way to track localization efficiency is customer experience. Questionnaires enable to see whether your clients are satisfied and where localization can be improved.

Why a company should know localization efficiency

ROI and other localization efficiency indicators calculation helps to analyze managerial decisions and evaluate the relevancy of the chosen promotion strategy on a specific market. It would help avoid critical mistakes and useless expenses. In addition, this would show the direction for your company.

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