ive got access to a lot of cheap latam traffic and the volume is addictive but converting it to anything that pays is a grind. payment methods are different, card penetration is lower, the offers i run convert way worse than my tier one traffic even accounting for the cheaper buy. is anyone actually making latam pay, and if so is it about localising the payment options, the language, the offer itself, or is it just a volume game where you accept a low rate and make it up on cheap clicks
payment is the biggest lever by far, not language. in a lot of latam markets card is not how people pay, they use local methods and cash vouchers. if your checkout only takes cards you are filtering out most of the people who would have paid. add the local methods and the same traffic converts very differently, i saw this clearly when i localised payment not just text
its a different business not worse traffic. tier one you optimise for high value per user, latam you optimise for volume and low friction. if you run your tier one playbook on it youll always be disappointed. separate funnel, local payments, lower price points, accept the per user value is small and win on the cheap volume
the payment thing keeps coming up and i basically ignore it because integrating local methods is a pain. sounds like thats exactly the lazy mistake costing me the conversions. ok, thats my next project then. which methods mattered most for you or does it vary too much by country
vary a lot by country so dont try to do all at once. pick your top one or two countries by volume, add the main local method for just those, measure. brazil is its own whole thing with its instant payment system, mexico different again. do it country by country not latam as one blob, that is the mistake, treating it like one market
also the language, not just translate, the slang. machine translate make it sound foreign and people dont trust, they feel it is scam. i pay real person from the country to fix the words. small money, big difference in trust. cheap traffic plus trust page convert, cheap traffic plus robot translation do not
i run brazil and mexico traffic long time. lars is right, the payment is everything. in brazil you must take pix or you lose almost everybody, is instant and everyone use it. card there is for small group only. add the local way and the same people who not paid before, now they pay.
this matches what i see. ran the same offer on brazil traffic card only, then added the local instant payment, and the conversion wasnt a little better it was a different universe. the traffic was never the problem, my checkout was just closed to how they actually pay.
also mind the device and connection mix, a lot of latam volume is cheaper android on slower mobile, so a heavy page that converts fine on tier one desktop just times out before it even loads for them. test your real load time on a throttled mobile connection before you blame the traffic quality.
latam convert bad on the usual offers because the price is for us wallet not for them. i change to local price and local payment method and suddenly it work better. the traffic is not bad, the checkout was wrong for them. also the card decline is high there so you need other way to pay or you lose them at the last step.
agree with gita, the payment method is the whole game there. card alone leaves most of the money on the table. the other thing is the language, if the landing page is only english you filter out the people who would convert best. even a rough local translation beat my english page there by a clear margin.