Targeting an advertising campaign at expatriates can be difficult. What marketing mix should you use? Do you target expats before or after they have moved abroad? Where do you place your ads?
These are the questions on many advertisers minds when faced with an expat campaign.
“Narrow down your advertising channels and choose media that is already targeting expats for the best results, advises Carlos Duez, business development manager at Just Landed. “Your marketing mix needs to use different channels. The Internet is the cheapest option and you can measure results. This is particularly important if you are on a limited budget.”
Optimizing campaign results
Results are measured by looking at the click through rate (CTR), and of course conversions afterwards – if you can measure these. Using these results, ads can be weighted. Meaning different priorities are assigned to different ads, thus affecting where they appear on a page.
If you are using different creatives, we recommend you manually weight your campaign after a sufficient number of impressions have been delivered. That way you can give more importance to the banners that are performing better. This will help you to optimize your campaign.
Advertising to the right demographic
Analysing your campaign results can also help you find out more about your target audience – and how inclined they are to buy your products. For example, you can find out whether your banner gets clicked rather by those expats that have already moved country or by those that are still at home.
To do this you can use a geo-analysis of your banner performance. By tracking the origin of clicks using IP addresses, ad servers can show you where people are currently located. If you are an expat tax company in France, for example, you might find out that you get a higher clickthrough rate from people seeing your banner from outside of France. In this case, your service might be more attractive to expats not yet in France (pre-move). In other cases, you might find out that you would rather target foreigners who are already in France (post-move).
Designing banners for expatriate campaigns
The design of your banners is also vital. Banners should be fairly simple, almost editorial in style but without huge amounts of text. It’s difficult to know how exactly a banner will perform which is why testing is essential. Overall banners with a complicated message and that are overly “flashy” don’t tend to perform as well as simpler designs.
Each banner needs a call to action, as people scan banners in a couple of seconds. Those with a clear “click here” message will generate a higher CTR than those with nothing. It is also important to “adapt” your advertising to the specific situation of expatriates. If you are targeting people living abroad, think which topics will be on their mind. An expatriate advertising campaign that builds on expat emotions will have more traction than a generic message. For example, as Telco provider you might want to stress your cheap rates abroad – as opposed to the other product features you communicate in national campaigns.
A campaign example
Designing a good banner is everything but easy. Take the example of an international school in the Benelux region. The client had started with relatively complicated banners, lots of small text and no call to action. The banners generated a CTR of 0.18% – not too bad but definitely worth improving.
Once we had redesigned the banners, using a simple picture and a call to action, the CTR improved to more than 0.36%. For the school, this translated into twice as many responses for every marketing Euro spent. An investment that pays off – especially if you run your banner on multiple sites and for a longer time period.
Building the mix, where to show up
Prefer environments that already attract expats: specialist publishers, international school and relocation content, home-country news with destination geo targeting, and high-intent search. Broad domestic portals waste budget on locals unless you have strong separators (language + geo + context). HSBC Expat Explorer and similar research remind advertisers that housing, healthcare, education, and finance dominate expat mindshare: place ads adjacent to those themes. UN and OECD migration scale justifies dedicated creative, not a reused national campaign with “expat” in the headline.
Digital wins on measurability and cost control; supplement with events or HR media when selling to mobility managers.
Illustrative pre-move vs post-move messaging
| Stage (illustrative) | Audience location | Message angle | Offer |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pre-move | Home-country IPs | “Prepare before you fly” | Checklist + quote |
| Post-move | Destination IPs | “Settle in this month” | Local partners + trial |
| Employer path | LinkedIn / HR sites | Duty of care / cost | Demo for mobility team |
| Family path | Education content | Schools + neighbourhoods | Tour booking |
Illustrative matrix for creative and geo splits.
Measurement beyond CTR
CTR is a starting point. Optimise toward qualified leads, booked calls, applications, or bound policies. Weight creatives only after enough impressions to avoid noise. Segment reports by geo, device, language, and site. If outbound France tax ads click more from abroad, shift budget and rewrite landing pages for pre-move questions (entry rules, first-year filing) rather than in-country nuances.
Attribute phone calls. Expat campaigns often generate high call rates; ignoring them undervalues placements with strong offline response.
Creative principles that keep winning
- Simple, editorial visuals; avoid cluttered multi-offer banners.
- One clear CTA.
- Expat-specific benefit (rates abroad, portable cover, English-speaking advisors).
- Localised language and spelling.
- Test static vs light motion; flashy does not equal effective.
- Match landing page headline to ad promise.
The Benelux school case (CTR roughly doubling after simplification) is typical: clarity beats clever density.
Illustrative test plan
| Test | Variable | Sample guardrail | Decision rule |
|---|---|---|---|
| A/B creative | Complex vs simple | ≥5–10k imps/variant | Keep higher CTR and lead quality |
| CTA copy | “Learn more” vs “Book a call” | Equal budget | Prefer SQLs not raw clicks |
| Geo split | Home vs destination | Parallel campaigns | Fund winning stage |
| Placement | Expat sites vs broad | Brand-safety list | Cut low-quality even if cheap |
Illustrative test design for media teams.
Demographics and tone
Younger assignees respond to authentic, mobile-first creative and dislike stiff corporate art. Families need practical proof. Affluent retirees may tolerate longer copy on lifestyle placements. Changing assignment demographics mean more youth-oriented testing even in traditionally “senior” categories like insurance, while still serving older buyers on appropriate channels.
Budget and flighting
Run always-on search for high intent; flight awareness/native around relocation seasons, school calendars, and corporate transfer peaks. Reinvest savings from cut underperforming display into content that improves conversion rates for the ads you keep.
Checklist for launch
- Define ICP and pre- vs post-move hypothesis.
- Select expat-relevant placements + search.
- Produce simple CTA-led creatives in needed languages.
- Build matching landing experiences.
- Instrument forms, chats, and calls.
- Weight and iterate after statistically useful volume.
- Document learnings for the next destination launch.
A successful expat advertising campaign is less about finding a magic network and more about disciplined mix selection, geo-aware messaging, simple creative, and conversion measurement. Narrow channels, test ruthlessly, and speak to the move stage your buyer is actually in.
Planning a multi-market expat media push? Get started or contact us with your product and target nationalities.
