The Browser Language visitor condition that is included in Advanced Ads Pro is not only great to deliver ads based on the visitor’s language, but also to improve the user experience on websites with multi-lingual audiences. In this tutorial, I am going to show you two examples of how I use it on wpadvancedads.com and how I set them up.
About the Browser Language
The Browser Language visitor condition (manual) makes use of the languages that the browser of your visitor accepts. For example, my browser accepts content in English and German. Multi-lingual websites can use this information to automatically switch to the correct translation.
You can use this condition as a soft geo-location check. “Soft” because you can’t rely on the accepted language a user set in his browser to match the country he is in. E.g., it seems that some version of English is always accepted even if you are not an English native speaker. Also, someone from Germany like me can always move to another country and there is no need to switch my browser language.
Still, since you can also target specific regional versions of a language like American, British or Australian English, you can get a bit closer to a specific location.
Target visitors by Browser Language
Even though Advanced Ads has many users from Germany, English is still the most common language among all users.
Therefore, and since I am constantly updating the manual and writing tutorials, I decided to keep wpadvancedads.com in English only. However, it often happens in the chat or support that people from Germany, Austria, or Switzerland contact me in English, and only at the end do we notice that this could have been easier in our mother tongue.
Therefore, I decided to add a bit of German to the website and the Browser Language visitor condition was the perfect mean to do so. There are two items that I deliver differently to German-speaking visitors than to all others:
- “Made in Germany” Widget
- Chat interface
1. “Made in Germany” Widget
I have a “Made in Germany“ flag in my sidebar visible for every user. However, only those who have German set up as a browser language also see a German text below it.
How did I set it up?
1. I created two ad units, one for “German” visitors which includes the flag and the text, and one for everyone else.
2. In the “German” version I set a “Browser Language” visitor condition like in the manual. As a language, I chose “German” which targets any regional version of German.
3. I put both ads into a new ad group that I simply called “Made in Germany badge”. The type of the group is “ordered” and the German version has the higher weight. This causes it to be tested first. Else, the unlimited general version could also be visible to German visitors.
4. I added the Advanced Ads widget to the sidebar and assigned the group to it.
Voilá.
In order to try it out, simply add or remove German as an accepted browser language. How this can be done relies on your browser, but I am sure you will find it in the settings.
2. Translated Chat
As I mentioned, the chat is often the place where I communicate with German users in English, so I wanted to make it clear that you can also contact me in German there.
Lucky for me, I can adjust the code for the chat too. Here are the two versions of the chat widget in case I am online.
Technically, this is the same setup as with the widget. I created two ads, one is targeting only German and put them into the same ordered group.
The details of how to set up such a chat might be the content of another tutorial maybe at another time.
Another great example of how flexible Advanced Ads is. If you have some other examples that I should list here then just let me know through support or the chat widget.