At Bubbles HQ, we regularly talk about the benefits and limitations of automatic translation tools. The field of automated translations is very much still in its infancy, as the technology continues to reshape the industry, as it is doing in the worlds of manufacturing, retail, logistics and many more.
A world where your website or marketing text can be translated by a reader into a number of languages at a click of a button is certainly worth admiring. But the quality of auto translation tools can’t be guaranteed to the same extent as the expertise of a trained translator. Google Translate is a powerful tool which keeps leaping forward with great strides. But even today, it can only translate a little over 100 languages.
Facebook, Google’s Silicon Valley contemporary and fierce competitor, has its very own translation tools which can help businesses auto-translate their ad copy when expanding into new markets. Is this approach right for your business, or will the time-tested manual translation approach win the day? Read on to find out.
Automatic Translations within Facebook Ads Manager
Facebook Ads Manager allows users to create and manage advertising campaigns, which feature on Facebook’s popular social media platforms, Facebook itself and Instagram. Users can manage their campaigns on mobiles or desktops.
Like any ad management tool, the usual features such as setting and adjusting budgets, managing audience segments and tweaking messaging are at the user’s disposal. The tool stands out with its automatic language translation for ads feature.
With automatic translations, businesses can market their messages to more people in their preferred language, without needing to upload manual translations. Some of the benefits of automated translations are immediately obvious. More than anything, businesses that use automated translation tools will save time, as translations are provided immediately. Businesses that operate in multiple overseas markets may also save money by choosing automated translation tools, rather than engaging a translations partner to create many translations.
Facebook Ads Manager also allows users to provide their own translations, perhaps your organisation has a native speaker who can provide a translation. There is also the ability to edit automatic translations, to refine them further.
This built-in flexibility could be attractive to eCommerce businesses, for instance, which are looking to expand their global presence. But by virtue of being online already, it has an international footprint.
Why choose a translation partner?
Whether you are simply launching an advertising campaign or need to produce the full spectrum of marketing content (social media, emails and website content), a translations partner working with experienced and professional human translators can get to the crux of your messaging requirements.
At Bubbles, our translation services ally deep industry-specific experience and dedicated account managers who can guarantee fast and accurate turnaround times, thanks to our native-speaking translators.
Contrast this with an automatic translation tool that has trouble understanding the context of a sentence when attempting to translate between languages. For instance, an automatic translation tool will struggle when it comes up against an untranslatable word – a word that doesn’t have a direct translation into the desired language.
Our translators can comfortably switch between the source language and the desired language. Thanks to this more organic flexibility, they will be aware that the word doesn’t translate, and will be able to find an elegant solution, whether by picking the closest alternative word or capturing the essence of the original meaning in as few words as possible.
We can assist you with much more than advert campaign translations. It’s likely that any advert campaign you are rolling out is part of a wider international marketing strategy. We recently revealed that, for international marketing campaigns, translation is only the start.
The power of transcreation
What do we mean by this? Well, translations are a great start to marketing a brand overseas. However, when translating a marketing asset like a website into a new language, the material is centred around your primary market. As it was written for a different market, it’s shaped by that particular target audience, tailored to their desires and needs and it follows the cultural cues for the country it was created in.
At Bubbles, we’re big advocates of the concept of transcreation. Although we don’t create new content for overseas markets, we feel that we use the transcreation methodology and adapt the text to suit the purpose. It’s a more flexible, successful and creative approach than a word-for-word translation. It means retaining the original intention, style, format and tone of a document or piece of marketing material and adapting it for the new language. Transcreation is a form of localisation, but crucially it gives the translator a slightly more creative role in adapting the text and messaging to the new target audience.
This could be extrapolated in the use of idioms, metaphors, dialects and humour, and cultural factors have a huge part to play. Heritage, cultural traditions, belief systems and values are all considered when our translators get inside your brief and brand identity.
Context is everything in translation
Translation should always be about understanding the purpose of the text and the audience context… and this is where our translators stand out. Working with an experienced professional who possesses years of contextual experience and language mastery will win out against an algorithm on most occasions, especially when considering the ability to understand and account for context and nuance.
Get in touch with us today to discuss your translation challenges. We’d love to help and look forward to ensuring your business reaches its international expansion goals.
