Before you translate an ad into "the local language", confirm which language that is, and for Arabic, confirm the landing page reads right to left. Both mistakes look the same in the account: clicks come in, conversions don't, and the obvious suspects are the bid, the targeting or the creative.
The language you write in now does more of the targeting, too. Google says that starting in September 2026, Search campaigns lose the campaign language setting and Search ads match on the language of the ad itself.
Spanish ads in Brazil
Before ads.expert, in an in-house role, one of us ran ads across Latin America. The reasoning was that the region speaks Spanish, so Brazil must too, and the Spanish ads went live there. For a week or two the other countries converted and Brazil didn't: some clicks, no conversions. It took the company's founder, who had family in Brazil, glancing at the campaign on a second monitor to point out that Brazilians speak Portuguese. By then a lot of budget was gone.
Knowing that didn't stop the next one. Running ads in Europe, we assumed a Spanish audience meant Spanish ads, and later learned that much of the business audience we wanted there worked in English. The language a country speaks and the language its buyers do business in aren't always the same.
An Arabic page that read backward
The UAE was a priority market in the same role, and every piece of content was to be localized. We translated the English landing page into Arabic and kept the design. Click-through rate was good. Conversion on the page wasn't.
The page was laid out left to right, and Arabic reads right to left. Visitors were reading the sentences in the wrong order. The ad did its job and the page undid it. A good CTR with weak on-page conversion, in one language only, is the pattern to look for.
What Google and Meta do with language
- Google Search. Google uses the search term's language and the user's language settings and preferences to serve an ad in a language the user understands. Starting in September 2026, it says the campaign language setting is removed for Search campaigns, and it checks whether the user understands the language of the ad and the landing page.
- Performance Max. The language setting stops applying on the Search Network but still applies to YouTube, Display, Discover and Gmail.
- Meta. With no language chosen, Meta delivers to people its systems predict can understand the language of your creative. It suggests choosing a language only for one that isn't widely spoken in your location, and matching the creative and landing page to it.
- Location. Google's default also reaches people who have shown interest in your target location from elsewhere. Our piece on the Presence or interest default covers when to switch it.
Meta can also show one ad in several languages. None of these settings translate your landing page or flip its layout. That part is yours.
Before you launch in a new language
- Confirm the language with someone local. For B2B, ask which language buyers use at work, not just at home.
- Write the ad and the page in it. On Google Search, the ad's language now drives who sees it.
- Flip right-to-left pages. Arabic needs the whole layout mirrored, not only the text replaced.
- Read CTR and page conversion by country. A market that clicks and doesn't convert is worth a look at the page before the bid.
The takeaways
- Don't infer a market's language from its region. Brazil speaks Portuguese.
- For B2B, the language buyers work in can differ from the country's language.
- An Arabic page must read right to left. A good CTR with weak page conversion is the warning sign.
- Google Search is moving to matching on the ad's language, so write the ad in the language you want to reach.
- Meta predicts who understands your creative's language. Set a language only when you need one.
Common questions
Does Google Ads still have a language targeting setting?
Google says that starting in September 2026, the campaign-level language setting is removed for Search campaigns and Search ads match automatically on the language of your ads. For Performance Max, the language setting no longer applies on the Search Network but still applies to YouTube, Display, Discover and Gmail. Google checks whether the user understands the language of the ad and the landing page.
Should I set a language in my Meta ad set?
Only if you need to. Meta says that when you choose no language, it delivers ads to people its systems predict can understand the language of your creative. It recommends choosing a language only to reach people who understand a language that isn't widely spoken in your location, such as French speakers in the US, and making sure the creative and landing page match it.
What language should ads in Brazil be in?
Portuguese, not Spanish. Running Spanish ads there is a mistake we made ourselves: the ads got clicks while the Spanish-speaking markets converted and Brazil didn't. Check the language of every country in a regional campaign before you translate.
Why does an Arabic landing page need a right-to-left layout?
Arabic is read from right to left. A page translated into Arabic but kept in a left-to-right layout makes visitors read the page in the wrong order. When we made that mistake, click-through rate stayed good while conversion on the page fell short, because the ad worked and the page didn't.
Can Meta show one ad in several languages?
Yes. Meta lets you create ads that display in multiple languages so people see the ad in the right language, without separate ad sets with their own language targeting. That covers the ad. The landing page, its language and its text direction are still yours to build.