Mirela
Which markets should you localize for? The only way you can answer this question is through market research.
When you conduct market research for a localization strategy, you gain an understanding on where your product has the strongest potential, what people in those markets expect, and which languages and locales you need to support.
Read on as we discuss what market research can do for you and the aspects you should be aware of as you create your localization strategy for new markets.
Market research for localization
Market research, when we think of localization, is the process of gathering and analyzing information about potential markets before you adapt for them. Market research tells you that a particular country has a large customer base or a demand for products like yours, but localization research goes further, because you also want to understand how people in that market communicate, search and interact with products, and how they decide on purchases.
Markets that look promising on paper might require more localization work than you initially thought. You need to ask yourself what you need to do to make our product relevant and useful in a market. That simple question will shape your entire localization strategy.
Market research is always needed
Things need to be done in order. Localization entails a lot of adaptation work: the website, product interface, help documentation, marketing campaigns, payment information, customer support, legal content, and other parts of the customer experience.
You can’t start translating before you’ve established which markets are worth pursuing. You don’t want to end up spending resources on languages that you’ll later find out not to contribute much to your business.
If market research is the first step, you can make better decisions before you commit to the work. Market research will show you:
✔️Markets where people are already showing interest in your product.
✔️Countries where your competitors do well.
✔️Languages your potential customers actually use.
✔️Search demand for your product or category.
✔️Local competitors and their positioning.
✔️Cultural differences that could affect your messaging.
✔️Local purchasing habits and expectations.
✔️Potential barriers to entering a market.
✔️The amount of localization each market is likely to require.
✔️Markets where your existing traffic or customers suggest an opportunity.
When to do market research in the localization lifecycle
It’s best to run market research at three moments in the localization lifecycle: before you choose markets, before you localize and launch, and continuously after launch.
Before you choose your target markets
In this first stage, research will tell you where to localize. You’ll use market data to decide which countries and languages are worth the investment. The focus is on validating demand, sizing the opportunity, and understanding the competitive landscape. In the end, you should come up with a short list of priority markets so you don’t spread your localization efforts too thin.
Before you localize
Once you know which markets you’re entering, it’s time to start thinking how to localize for each one. You do this before you finalize copy, UX, and campaigns in the local language. In this step, you’re testing value propositions, messaging angles, and channel preferences with local buyers, and mapping the cultural and linguistic norms. We call this minimum viable localization.
After launch
Post‑launch research is meant to continuously improve localization. In the first months, you analyze how your localized content and experiences are performing against your core metrics (traffic, conversion, activation, revenue, and so on), collect qualitative feedback from local users, and revisit the competitive and keyword landscape. These insights feed a prioritized backlog of localization improvements and help you decide where to double down, where to pivot, and which new markets might now be ready for expansion.
How to conduct market research for a localization strategy
Below is a general framework that should give you an idea of the steps you need to take when conducting a market research:
Look at the data you already have
Before you look for new opportunities, take a close look at the markets you’re already reaching. Your analytics data can reveal some interesting patterns. You may already be getting traffic from countries where your website isn’t localized, users from markets you don’t serve yet may already be signing up, or customers are contacting your support team in languages you don’t support yet.
Check for:
💡Website traffic by country
💡Sign-ups by country
💡Paying customers by country
💡Conversion rates by region
💡Revenue by country
💡Product usage by location
💡Search traffic from different markets
💡Support requests in different languages
💡Existing demand for localized content
If there’s organic interest from a particular market, you already have a good starting point. Your next step is to investigate whether localization could turn that existing interest into more customers.
Research demand in potential markets
But is there genuine demand for what you’re offering? You need to realise that people don’t always search for the same product using the same terminology in different languages. You should also look for the terms people actually use in each market.
Compare:
🤔 Search volume for relevant topics
🤔 Local variations of important keywords
🤔 Search intent
🤔 Competitor visibility
🤔 Content that performs well locally
🤔 Questions people ask about your product category
🤔 Local terminology and industry vocabulary
This type of research shows something important about your localization strategy: you might have to adapt your content strategy along with your language. If the topics people search for in one market differ significantly from those in another, you can’t just translate your existing content library. It’s not enough. You might need to create entirely new content based on local search behavior.
Look at the competition
Time to have a snoop at what your competitors are doing. You’ll learn a lot about the localization expectations in a market. See how the companies that are offering similar products or services in the countries you’re thinking of targeting too present themselves to local customers.
You should also pay attention to how they communicate, not just how they’ve translated their content. Look for differences in product positioning, pricing presentation, messaging, terminology, content formats, CTAs, payment options, customer support, social media activity, and reviews.
Competitor analysis can even uncover opportunities. Think about it—if your competitors are targeting a market but the localized experience is not that great, that may be useful information when you plan your own approach.
Research language and locale requirements
Take some time to understand the specific language and locale requirements of the markets you’re pursuing. You want to know which locale you’re targeting and what customers in that market expect from a localized experience. Depending on your product, you may have to adapt currencies, number and date formats, units of measurement, addresses, payment methods, legal terminology, or other details.
Now ask yourself whether you need a separate localization for every market you’re targeting. Sometimes a single language variant works, other times it’s best to create separate versions. It depends on your audience, your product, and how much those differences matter to the customer experience.
Understand cultural differences
If your product or marketing relies on humor, idioms, cultural references, or imagery, you have to be careful not to offend. What may feel perfectly natural in your home market might be inappropriate somewhere else. Colors, images, product names, slogans, and calls to action can mean different things depending on the audience.
It’s important you identify the aspects of your product and messaging that could be affected by local culture. Cultural consultants, local marketers, translators, and customers—they know the target market best, and can help you spot problems that won’t show up in your analytics.
Estimate the localization effort
Now, how much work will it actually take to localize your product for that audience? Some markets require extensive changes to the product, website, payment options, customer support, and marketing materials before you’re ready to launch.
You should look at your website, interface, mobile app, documentation, help center, emails, landing pages, product descriptions, and legal content, as all these may need attention. As we mentioned above, you may also need to adapt pricing and currencies, payment methods, customer support, or other parts of the experience that aren’t only linguistic.
You don’t necessarily have to localize everything from day one; you could begin by localizing the pages and functionality that are most relevant to those customers and just go from there.
How to prioritize markets for localization
Once you’ve gathered your research, you’ll probably have more potential markets than you can realistically localize at once. That’s normal. You might not want (or have the budget) to launch everywhere simultaneously. That’s why you need a prioritization framework.
A few aspects you should consider:
- Existing traction: Are you already getting visitors, users, or customers from the market?
- Market demand: Is there evidence that people are looking for products like yours?
- Revenue potential: Could the market generate meaningful revenue for your business?
- Competition: How crowded is the market, and how well are competitors serving local customers?
- Localization effort: How much work will it take to create an experience that feels genuinely local?
- Strategic fit: Does the market align with your broader business goals?
- Operational requirements: Will you need local payment methods, customer support, regulatory adaptations, or other infrastructure?
Don’t do this
We talked about the dos, so let’s address the don’ts too:
❌ Choose languages based only on population. Contrary to what may seem logical, a large population doesn’t automatically mean a large opportunity for your business. Actual demand is the important thing.
❌ Assume one language equals one market. You have to look for the regional differences that matter to your product.
❌ Translate everything before validating demand. There’s no need to translate your entire product before you know whether a market is worth pursuing. Maybe start with the content and product areas that are most relevant to the audience you’re targeting.
❌ Ignore local search behavior. Your potential customers may use different words to find products like yours, so make sure to search the local search terminology.
❌ Localize and dash. Your product will go through changes, and so will your localization. You don’t localize once and that’s it.
❌ Forget other parts of the experience. Currency, payment methods, images, support, formatting, or other parts of the experience should be adapted to the market too.
Wrapping up
A good localization strategy starts with a better understanding of the markets you’re trying to conquer. Market research gives you the context you need to decide where localization can have the most meaningful impact, what you need to adapt, and how much effort goes into each market.
After you perform market research for a localization strategy, you can finally build a workflow that makes it easier to manage the translations, contributors, and ongoing updates that come with supporting those markets.