NordVPN scales new heights

NordVPN was started in 2012 by four childhood friends, and now serves more than one million people worldwide. It is one of the most trusted internet security and VPN solution providers in the world. Its main markets include Australia, USA, UK, Canada, Germany, France, Italy, Portugal, and Scandinavia. Its target market is mostly B2C internet security users – users of e-commerce, wifi, streaming services, and travellers.

NordVPN found its biggest challenge to doing business in new markets was the creation of speedily and accurately localised translation. They typically worked with freelancers, mostly native speakers of the countries they were targeting. But this solution was slow, and limited the amount of landing pages they could manage.

So, in November 2017, NordVPN turned to Google localisation services.

Once NordVPN began working with Google localisation services, they were able to quickly scale up from eight to seventeen languages on their websites – three times faster than formerly – without having to dedicate any internal staff to the task. They were also able to localise their apps from English-only to three additional languages: Chinese, German, and Spanish.

Google also helped develop a new strategy to prioritise content better. Using metrics provided by Google Analytics, NordVPN reviewed market performance of English content by market, and prioritised content localisation for the best performing landing pages in local markets. Google localisation specialists highlighted that NordVPN users prefer a more informal content style, and enabled NordVPN to make their content feel local and relevant to whoever read it, whatever their language or culture.

Using Google localisation services, NordVPN measured an average increase of 20% in conversion rate across all markets. For particular regions and languages, such as Arabic and Turkish, they saw conversion rates jump by as much as 50%.

The project had a positive impact on the business as a whole, with strong results for landing pages supported by Google AdWords campaigns. Comparing pre- and post-project, NordVPN saw an increase in AdWords results on both Search and Display campaigns. They also noted an increase in AdWords conversion rate, and an average 35% decrease in cost per acquisition, meaning an impressive overall return on advertising spend.