Multilingual Analytics Setup: A Strategic Guide to Measuring Localization ROI

From cost center to value driver: Why your analytics setup matters

Investing in localization is a critical step towards global growth, but simply translating your content is not enough. Without a robust analytics framework to measure the impact of your efforts, you’re flying blind. You might see an increase in traffic from new regions, but you won’t know which markets are truly engaged, which content is resonating, and whether your investment is actually paying off.

This is where a multilingual analytics setup comes in. It’s not just a technical chore; it’s a strategic imperative that transforms localization from a cost center into a value driver. By tracking user behavior across different languages and regions, you can gain actionable insights that allow you to:

• Prove the ROI of your localization efforts: Go beyond vanity metrics like traffic and impressions and measure what really matters: conversions, engagement, and customer lifetime value.
• Optimize your localization strategy: Identify underperforming markets, pinpoint content that needs improvement, and make data-driven decisions about where to invest your resources.
• Deliver a better user experience: Understand how users in different regions interact with your site and tailor your content and design to meet their specific needs and preferences.

In this guide, we’ll walk you through the process of setting up a multilingual analytics framework that will allow you to do all of this and more. We’ll cover everything from high-level strategy to the nitty-gritty technical details, and we’ll show you how a platform like TranslationOS can help you to streamline your workflows and maximize your ROI.

Planning your multilingual analytics strategy

Before you dive into the technical implementation, it’s crucial to have a clear strategy in place. This will ensure that your analytics setup is aligned with your business goals and that you’re tracking the metrics that truly matter.

Defining your localization KPIs

The first step is to define your key performance indicators (KPIs) for localization. These should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART). Here are a few examples of meaningful KPIs for localization:

• Conversion rate by language: This is the percentage of users who complete a desired action (e.g., make a purchase, sign up for a newsletter) for each language version of your site.
• User engagement by region: This can be measured by metrics such as bounce rate, time on page, and pages per session for each region you’re targeting.
• Customer satisfaction scores: If you collect customer feedback, you can segment it by language to identify any issues or areas for improvement.
• Cost per acquisition by language: This will help you to understand the ROI of your marketing campaigns in different languages.

Choosing the right url structure

The way you structure your URLs has a big impact on both SEO and analytics. The two most common approaches for multilingual websites are:

• Subdirectories (e.g., example.com/fr/ ): This is the recommended approach for most businesses. It’s easy to set up, and it consolidates all of your language versions under a single domain, which can be beneficial for SEO.
• Subdomains (e.g., fr.example.com ): This approach can be useful for businesses that want to create a more distinct brand presence in different regions. However, it can be more complex to set up and maintain, and it may dilute your SEO authority across multiple domains.

Why a single GA4 property is the best practice

In the past, it was common practice to create a separate Google Analytics property for each language version of a site. However, with the introduction of Google Analytics 4 (GA4), the best practice is to use a single property for all of your language versions. Here’s why:

• Simplified data management: A single property makes it much easier to manage your data and to get a holistic view of your global performance.
• Easier cross-language comparisons: With all of your data in one place, it’s much easier to compare user behavior across different languages and regions.
• A more holistic view of your global performance: A single property allows you to see the big picture and to understand how your localization efforts are contributing to your overall business goals.

Implementing your tracking configuration

Now that you have a clear strategy in place, it’s time to implement the technical aspects of your multilingual analytics setup. This section will provide a step-by-step guide to configuring your tracking to capture the data you need to measure the ROI of your localization efforts.

Setting up your GA4 property for multilingual tracking

If you’re starting from scratch, you’ll need to create a new Google Analytics 4 (GA4) property.

Once your property is set up, you’ll need to install the GA4 tracking code on your website. The easiest way to do this is with Google Tag Manager (GTM).

Creating a custom dimension for language

The next step is to create a custom dimension in GA4 to track the language of each pageview. This will allow you to segment your data by language and to compare user behavior across different language versions of your site.

1. In your GA4 property, go to Admin > Custom definitions > Custom dimensions.
2. Click Create custom dimension.
3. Enter a name for your dimension (e.g., “Language”).
4. Select “Event” as the scope.
5. Enter “language” as the event parameter.
6. Click Save.

Using Google Tag Manager to capture language data

Now, you need to configure Google Tag Manager (GTM) to capture the language from the URL and pass it to GA4 as a custom dimension. The exact implementation will depend on your URL structure, but here’s a general overview of the process.

1. Create a new variable in GTM to capture the language from the URL. If you’re using a subdirectory structure (e.g., example.com/fr/), you can use a regular expression to extract the language code from the URL.

function() {

var path = {{Page Path}};

var lang = path.split(‘/’)[1];

return lang;

}

1. Add the new variable to your GA4 configuration tag. In your GA4 configuration tag, add a new field under “Fields to Set”. Set the “Field Name” to “language” and the “Value” to the variable you created in the previous step.
2. Publish your changes in GTM.

Once you’ve completed these steps, GA4 will start collecting language data for each pageview. You’ll be able to use this data to segment your reports by language and to gain a deeper understanding of your multilingual users.

Collecting and configuring your data

Once you’ve implemented your tracking configuration, you’ll start collecting a wealth of data about your multilingual users. But data is only valuable if you can turn it into insights. This section will show you how to configure GA4 to make the most of your multilingual data.

Setting up custom reports for multilingual data

GA4’s standard reports are a good starting point, but to get the most out of your multilingual data, you’ll want to create custom reports that are tailored to your specific KPIs. For example, you could create a custom report that shows your conversion rate by language, or a report that compares user engagement metrics across different regions.

Segmenting your data by language and region

GA4’s segmentation features allow you to slice and dice your data in powerful ways. You can create segments based on language, region, or any other dimension you’re tracking. This will allow you to:

• Compare user behavior across different markets: Are users in France more engaged than users in Germany? Do users in Japan convert at a higher rate than users in Korea?
• Identify regional trends: Are there certain products or content that are particularly popular in specific regions?
• Personalize your marketing campaigns: You can use segments to create targeted marketing campaigns that are tailored to the specific needs and preferences of users in different regions.

Using GA4’s features for deeper insights

GA4’s Exploration reports and Funnel analysis tools allow you to go even deeper into your data.

• Exploration reports: These reports allow you to drag and drop different dimensions and metrics to create custom visualizations of your data. This is a great way to explore your data and to uncover unexpected insights.
• Funnel analysis: This tool allows you to visualize the steps that users take to complete a conversion. You can use this to identify any drop-off points in your funnel and to make improvements to your user experience.

By using these features, you can gain a deep understanding of your multilingual users and to make data-driven decisions that will improve your localization strategy and your bottom line.

From data to insights: Analyzing your performance

Collecting data is just the first step. The real value of multilingual analytics comes from turning that data into actionable insights that can help you to improve your localization strategy and to prove the ROI of your efforts. As we’ve discussed in our article on translation analytics, a data-driven approach is essential for transforming localization from a cost center into a value driver. For example, by taking a data-driven approach to localization, NordVPN was able to increase sales by 43%, improving the impact of their marketing content in 24 locales.

Identifying areas for improvement

Your analytics data is a goldmine of information about how users in different regions interact with your site. By looking at the right metrics, you can identify areas where your localization strategy is falling short.

• High bounce rates on a specific language version of a page might indicate a poor translation or a cultural mismatch.
• Low time on page or pages per session for a particular language could mean that your content is not engaging enough for that audience.
• A low conversion rate for a specific region might point to a problem with your user experience or your marketing message.

By paying close attention to these metrics, you can identify areas for improvement and to make data-driven decisions about how to optimize your localization strategy.

Optimizing your localization strategy

Your analytics data can also help you to make more strategic decisions about your localization efforts.

• Which languages should you invest in? By looking at the traffic and conversion rates for different languages, you can identify the markets with the most potential.
• Which content should you localize? Your data can help you to identify the content that is most popular with your international users.
• How should you tailor your marketing campaigns? By understanding the needs and preferences of users in different regions, you can create more targeted and effective marketing campaigns.

Proving the ROI of your efforts

One of the biggest challenges for localization teams is proving the ROI of their work. With a robust multilingual analytics setup, you can finally connect your efforts to the bottom line.

Here’s a simple example of how you can calculate the ROI of localizing a landing page:

1. Track the conversion rate of the original (unlocalized) landing page for a specific region. Let’s say you have a landing page in English that’s getting a lot of traffic from Germany, but the conversion rate is only 1%.
2. Localize the landing page into German and track the conversion rate of the new page. After you localize the page, you see that the conversion rate for users in Germany jumps to 3%.
3. Calculate the increase in revenue. If you know the average value of a conversion, you can easily calculate the increase in revenue that resulted from localizing the page. For example, if a conversion is worth $100, the localized page is generating an additional $200 in revenue for every 10,000 visitors from Germany.
4. Compare the increase in revenue to the cost of localization. If it costs you $500 to localize the page, you’ve already made a profit of $1500.

This is just a simple example, but it illustrates how you can use multilingual analytics to prove the ROI of your localization efforts. By tracking the right metrics and connecting them to your business goals, you can demonstrate the value of your work and secure the resources you need to continue to grow your global presence.

TranslationOS: Your platform for global content performance

Setting up a multilingual analytics framework is a critical first step, but it’s only half the battle. To truly unlock the ROI of your localization efforts, you need a platform that can help you to manage your global content performance, streamline your workflows, and turn your data into actionable insights.

This is where TranslationOS comes in. It’s an AI-first localization platform that provides a comprehensive ecosystem for managing your translation workflows. It provides the tools you need to:

• Streamline your workflows: TranslationOS automates many of the manual tasks involved in localization, freeing up your team to focus on more strategic initiatives.
• Improve your translation quality: Our platform uses a combination of AI and human expertise to ensure that your translations are accurate, consistent, and culturally appropriate.
• Measure your ROI: TranslationOS provides the data and insights you need to track your localization KPIs, to prove the ROI of your efforts, and to make data-driven decisions about your global content strategy.

By combining a robust multilingual analytics setup with a powerful localization platform like TranslationOS, you can transform your localization efforts from a cost center into a value driver and to achieve your global growth goals.

Conclusion: Don’t just translate, measure and optimize

Localization is no longer a “nice to have”—it’s a must-have. But simply translating your content is not enough. To succeed in the long term, you need to adopt a data-driven approach to localization that allows you to measure your performance, to optimize your strategy, and to prove the ROI of your efforts.

By following the steps outlined in this guide, you can set up a multilingual analytics framework that will provide you with the insights you need to make smarter decisions about your global content strategy. You’ll be able to identify new opportunities for growth, to deliver a better user experience for your international users, and to transform your localization efforts from a cost center into a value driver.

Ready to take your localization analytics to the next level? Discover how Translated’s Language AI Solutionscan help you manage, measure, and optimize your global content performance.