Laura Smith: Localise the Campaign, Don't Just Translate It

Laura Smith, Head of Client Strategy at ICS-digital, has one rule for international work: localize the campaign, don't just translate it. She also walks through her team's white paper, The Human-Machine Memory Gap. Read the full episode recap.

ICS-digital works in over 100 languages across digital and translation, and Laura leads strategy across SEO, digital PR, creative and translation. She has spent 15+ years in marketing, starting in traditional PR with B2B work, press office and restaurant launches. She says she didn't know what a link was until she moved into digital PR in 2017. Her recent article, The New Shelf Space, carries the same thinking into retail visibility and AI retrieval.

In this episode

Translate vs. localize: why a campaign that lands in the UK won't land the same way in the US, Europe or Asia.

The German Twitter lesson: experts in that market told her the words were literally too long for the character limit.

Reporting and red tape: focused reporting frameworks, fractured local teams, and getting ahead of red tape in months one to six.

Expat audiences: going back to basics with GWI audience analysis when you target UK people living in Paris.

AI search across markets: long-term strategy over hacky tricks, even where ChatGPT or AI Overviews aren't available.

The top technical pitfall: hreflang that exists but isn't configured for the best outcome.

Authenticity takes reps: why she started a TikTok this year to get comfortable hearing her own voice.

Digital PR's moment: brand entity, citations and brand mentions in AI search. For more on brand distinctiveness, hear Ross Hudgens on GEO.

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