For a global business, international marketing mistakes can make or break your ability to grow and expand into new markets. Both small startups and huge international corporations have failed in major markets due to some common mistakes.
From ignoring market research to avoiding compliance, these mistakes can be costly. You could alienate potential customers, pay millions in fines, or even close your business in a new market entirely.
So, what are the biggest international marketing mistakes to avoid? Read on to find out.
Also, discover why adapting to local preferences is so critical, and get practical tips to ensure your strategies resonate with your audiences.
Global marketing mistake #1: Ignoring cultural differences

Marketing entails much more than selling products and services. When you market to your audiences, you need to create value and satisfy customers’ needs and desires. However, different audiences’ varying needs, wants and values are greatly influenced by their separate cultural backgrounds, beliefs and customs.
You might think that a marketing campaign that worked in one market should perform similarly well in others, but that isn’t always (or usually) the case. Maybe one culture values new and exciting things, while another prefers tradition and stability. Some cultures may find something funny, while others find that same joke offensive. A certain color, symbol or even emoji can have completely different meanings in different markets.
See also : Emoji localization: How to adapt to global markets
For example, cultures like the US and the Netherlands value independence and personal achievement. Audiences in this area may interpret assertive language as strong and confident. On the other hand, more collectivist cultures like India and Guatemala may find an assertive communication style aggressive or rude and prefer brands that promote values like community and harmony.
All these differences cause different consumers to react to the same marketing messaging in drastically different ways. Ignoring cultural differences in different markets can result in a poor market share, low campaign ROI, missed opportunities, a damaged brand reputation, and other negative consequences that can even lead to your failure in that country.
How can you avoid making this common mistake?
It all comes down to proper research—not just figures like GDP or purchasing power, but cultural markers that can give you a better base with which to craft your brand messaging in that market.
One of the best ways to start researching each of your markets’ cultural differences is to look at Hofstede’s cultural dimensions theory.
According to this theory, there are six basic issues that each society organizes itself around:
- Individualism/collectivism
- Power distance
- Motivation towards achievement and success
- Uncertainty avoidance
- Long-term orientation
- Indulgence
In the model, each country gets a score of 1-100 for each dimension. Various tools on the Internet let you look up any country and see how it scores on all six dimensions. The results can be surprising—for example, despite their geographic proximity, Belgium scores very high in uncertainty avoidance (95), and Denmark scores pretty low (23).
Knowing a country’s cultural values is a great first step in paying attention to cultural differences. For example, if a country has high uncertainty avoidance, you could emphasize the safety features of a car, or guided tours and fixed itineraries of a travel company. Maybe an ad in a more individualist country shows only one person using the product, but a more collectivist society features ads showing a community’s experience with it.
Beyond research, we highly recommend working with local teams when time and budget allow. Having eyes on your content who truly know the ins and outs of your target audience’s culture can often make the difference between success and failure in your marketing strategy.
See also: Marketing translation: Engaging audiences in their own language
Key example: Amazon in China
As the world’s second-largest economy, it makes sense that Amazon wanted to become a dominant player in China’s e-commerce scene. In 2004, it acquired a popular online bookseller called joyo.com and by 2011 had rebranded that platform to Amazon China.
However, despite its desire to succeed in the market, Amazon didn’t commit to cultural integration in its marketing strategy. It lacked trust in local management. The general managers of the Chinese units weren’t Chinese and had never lived in China before, so they didn’t truly understand what their customers were asking for.
Among many other missteps, Amazon stuck with its simple and minimalist webpage and marketing design. This largely ignored the taste differences between people in Amazon’s other markets and Chinese people. Most Chinese e-commerce websites, like Alibaba or JD, are extremely colorful, with many ads and pop-ups. In addition, they didn’t capitalize on huge local promotional days like Singles Day.
Finally, in April 2019, after years of attempting to evolve their online retail business, Amazon announced it was closing its domestic e-commerce business in China. While Amazon still has some modest success in the country thanks to cloud services, the Kindle, and cross-border online commerce, it’s far from what the company wanted at the outset.
Global marketing mistake #2: Failing to localize content properly

When you’re expanding into new markets and have a limited budget, you may just end up putting all your marketing content into a translation tool. As multilingual ad campaigns fall under the marketing umbrella, localization is often assigned to the in-house marketing team who often doesn’t speak the target language or have experience with localization in general.
Even in non-native markets that have high levels of English, you should localize your content as much as possible. Four in five consumers say they won’t buy from a brand that doesn’t offer local language support. However, improper localization is one of the biggest causes of ineffective multilingual campaigns.
While many companies invest lots of time and effort into translating their website, the same can’t always be said for marketing content. However, doing this is like sending your audience mixed signals. If a customer interacts with a translated website but gets poorly translated marketing emails, for example, they could get confused and trust your brand less. This can also lead to higher bounce rates in campaigns.
While 65% of consumers agree that some translation is better than nothing, poorly localized marketing materials can lead to misunderstandings and communication breakdowns. When localizing, you can’t just translate the text from one language to another. Instead, you need to consider the context of the culture you’re translating for.
For example, while a CTA in the USA could be something short and direct like “Try Canva,” a German CTA would give more information, like “Start my 30-day free trial,” as Germans are highly risk-averse. On the other hand, Spanish customers have high brand loyalty, so CTAs for those brands don’t need to be very specific. And the Dutch are also brand loyal, but more financially conscious, so the CTA in Dutch should emphasize that the trial is free.
Beyond marketing copy, you should also properly localize SEO keywords and graphic design for each market. Translating keywords is usually ineffective—keyword research should be performed directly in the target language because search volumes and trends can differ greatly from one language to another. Some features of your product may be more relevant in one market than another, and your keywords should account for those differences.
Your graphic design provides a lot of context and support for your marketing messaging, so it needs to be properly localized, too. Sometimes symbols you use for one culture aren’t understood in another.
For example, when Pampers first entered the Japanese market, its packaging featured a stork. However, in Japan, storks aren’t associated with babies (their metaphor is peaches floating down the river) so they were confused and the company didn’t reach its target numbers.
In addition, make sure that your fonts, numbers and even colors are properly localized for your different markets. Not all fonts support diacritic marks and while your message can still be understood, your customers may be distracted from your messaging when one letter is in a different font.
While the most important information in English is on the top left side, when localizing for languages that read right to left, key information should be put on the right. And if you can, avoid just translating the content and putting it on the other side. Redesign the graphics accordingly.
See also: How to design a global social media strategy that gets results
Key example: Starbucks in Japan
Starbucks’s digital presence in Japan is an example of successful localization. Beyond translating its website and creating products more suited to local tastes, it has localized the whole user experience to Japanese customers’ preferences.
Starbucks has a reputation in markets like the USA with a sleek, minimalist design. In Japan, however, customers are used to advertisements that emphasize joy and connection. It’s also common to see pastel colors, intricate designs, references to tradition, and cute illustrations in Japanese advertising.
On Starbucks’ Japanese website and social media, they use tons of bright icons and colors. They employ some English, mainly to distinguish themselves as a novel foreign coffee shop, but everything else has been translated and localized into Japanese. They also highlight Japanese traditions, like cherry blossom festivals.

Thanks in part to Starbucks’ commitment to proper localization in the Japanese market, it performs very well in Japan. It has 1,892 shops in operation as of January 2024, more than any other coffee shop chain, and has been reporting double-digit sales growth this year.

Global marketing mistake #3: Overlooking market-specific research

As any international business knows, before entering a new market or launching a new campaign, you should do research into and analyze that market. As mentioned before, Hofstede’s cultural dimensions are a good place to start, but you should also conduct your own interviews, surveys and focus groups.
While market research can be expensive and time-consuming, it’s critical for successful international marketing campaigns. Researching things online is helpful, but conducting your own market research lets you know your specific customers and what they expect from you. This can help inform and guide your strategy in that country for a long time.
When conducting your international market research, your aim should be to understand the unique dynamics of your industry in that country. You should identify target demographics, effectively segment those demographics, and identify which marketing strategies will resonate with each group.
Entering a new market puts you at an immediate disadvantage, as you’re competing with brands that are established in that region, are well-known to local consumers, and have deep knowledge of local customs and preferences. It’s important to know what your potential customers like about competitors and what has allowed them to maintain success in the region.
Many companies, when entering new markets, think they can skip detailed market research and analysis. Key decision-makers may have previously studied or lived in that country, travel there often for work, or have lots of contacts in the market. However, first-hand anecdotal experience isn’t enough when it comes to making critical company decisions. Your information could be outdated or biased, and you never get a second chance as a company to make a first impression in a new market.
Your market research needs to be factual and contain objective data about the local environment. Entering a new market will always be risky, and many companies don’t survive the expansion, but conducting and paying attention to market research helps you mitigate risk by being as prepared as possible.
See also: International audience research methods: How to reach new markets
Key example: Target in Canada
Target, an American retail corporation that operates discount and hypermarket stores in the US, is hugely successful there, with a lot of name recognition and even memes extolling the Target retail experience, coined “Target runs.” Many Canadians expressed their desire to have Targets in their country, as people who lived close to the border would come to the United States just to shop there.
As Canada is seen as an extremely similar market to the US, and Target had anecdotal evidence that they thought guaranteed their success, the company skipped doing market research and banked on brand recognition driving customer traffic. In 2013, the company bought Zellers, a defunct Canadian discount chain, and began opening Target stores in those buildings.
Target spent millions on extensive social media, radio, TV and billboard campaigns to promote their new stores in the country, but didn’t actually sit down and research what Canadian customers liked about their stores and why they traveled to the US to buy from them.
Unbeknownst to Target, the discount market in Canada is particularly saturated and difficult to enter, with lots of competitors. Due to Target’s quick purchase and opening of the Zellers stores, they started with more stores (124 opened in 10 months) than they should have and didn’t properly remodel the stores to Target’s distinct look. The stores were often out of the way and struggled with distribution issues as there were so many of them.
Poorly stocked shelves, inconvenient locations, a product assortment that differed from US Targets, and higher prices discouraged both Canadian customers who were familiar with the brand and customers who were shopping there for the first time. Within two years, Target deemed the expansion a failure and closed all of their Canadian stores.
Global marketing mistake #4: Not accounting for regulatory requirements

While ignoring cultural differences, localization and the competitive landscape can cause your business to fail in the long run in a new market, not accounting for regulatory requirements may even prevent your business from getting off the ground there. Staying up-to-date on local regulatory requirements is not only important, it’s mandatory. It’s also a constantly changing process.
Operating and expanding internationally already comes with extremely high costs for businesses. And the sheer amount of regulations can seem overwhelming, complicated and expensive to implement. As a result, many companies may shrug off compliance as a nuisance or not do as thorough of a job as they should. Maybe they’ll think that since nothing bad has happened to them so far, they’ll be okay, or that they’ll just “deal with it later,” since it seems unlikely they’ll get caught.
However, the potential costs of non-compliance are extremely high and are significantly higher than the cost of complying in the first place. This is particularly true as the number of regions you operate in increases, with the EU, in particular, being known for its pursuit of non-compliant companies and hefty penalties.
For example, GDPR fines can be up to 20 million euros or 20% of a company’s entire fiscal turnover in severe cases, whichever is higher. There’s even a website that tracks and names every company that’s been fined for noncompliance with the GDPR, including the fine and the violation that occurred. You can see that it’s a relatively common legal process.
But fines are only one part of non-compliance. Negative media coverage of your company’s noncompliance can lead to reputational damage in that and even other markets. This can lead to lost customer confidence and revenue that can take years to fix.
In addition, getting caught for noncompliance can lead to business disruption due to legal holds or other penalties. Company workers also commonly suffer losses of productivity while your firm is dealing with troubling incidents like these. Needless to say, these can greatly impact your revenue beyond the fines you incur.
Point blank: Regulatory requirements are a huge part of business operations both nationally and internationally, and they are only becoming more impactful year to year. Each country has its own regulations regarding things from product standards to advertising to data policy, and your company needs to factor in the costs of consultations with local experts to navigate these complexities when expanding into new markets.
Key example: Google in the EU
As previously mentioned, the GDPR is a landmark regulation in terms of user privacy. Not just because of the actual requirements of the law, but because of the EU’s stated commitment to going after offending companies and imposing hefty fines on them.
While the GDPR went into effect on May 25th, 2018, it was not an overnight change. A comprehensive reform of previous data privacy laws was proposed all the way back in 2012. The European Parliament voted strongly in favor of adopting the GDPR in 2014 and it was officially adopted by all member states in 2016. The EU gave companies two years to properly comply with the stated regulations before they would begin pursuing fines and other penalties.
Google had been operating in EU member states since the early 2000s and was known for its global dominance in the search engine market, but it initially didn’t prioritize the GDPR or its implementation beyond the most basic requirements of the law. This led it to quickly incurring some hefty penalties: 50 million euros in 2019 due to a French data protection authority, and 10 million euros in 2022 from the Spanish data protection authority, for example.
Since the initial 50 million euro fine in 2019, which caused a media stir as it was one of the first cases of such a large fine being handed down to such a large company over inadequate data protection, Google reviewed its data handling practices and implemented key changes. It set in motion a cultural shift at Google to promote a privacy-first mindset, with extensive employee training on data protection.
Although Google has still made mistakes since its shift towards greater privacy protection, it has avoided the sheer amount of hefty penalties brought down on some of the other tech giants in the EU. Meta, for example, has been hit with seven violation fines since 2022, with the total amount paid so far reaching over 2 billion euros and the most recent fine (251 million euros) occurring in December of 2024.
While Google could have done better by complying from the beginning, its commitment afterward to rectifying its noncompliance has helped improve its reputation in the EU and avoid further fines and other business interruptions.
Global marketing mistake #5: Relying on stereotypes in marketing

While you may think that it’s obvious to avoid stereotypes or other things that could be considered offensive in marketing, you’d be surprised to know how many companies have committed this mistake. From lack of cultural awareness, to laziness, to lack of review from different groups, it’s a mistake that is unfortunately all too common.
As you know, stereotypes are overgeneralizations about certain groups that can perpetuate harmful biases. Different countries can have different stereotypes about different groups. In marketing, stereotypes usually manifest as reductive representations of different cultures, ignoring the diversity of these groups.
Beyond blatant stereotypical portrayals of different groups of consumers in advertising, marketers may rely on oversimplified or outdated stereotypes of different cultures when informing themselves of those cultures’ demographics, preferences or behaviors. This can lead to inaccurate or even offensive portrayals of those cultures.
Using stereotypes in ads can lead to big consequences. Inaccurate stereotypes in your advertising can alienate or even insult your audience, damaging your brand reputation and leading to lost revenue that could take years to recuperate. People may skip your ads if they find them distasteful or offensive, making your campaigns less effective.
Some countries are even trying to put legal restrictions on stereotypes in advertising. In 2019, the British Advertising Standards Authority passed a ban on negative gender stereotyping in marketing. The ban states that companies can’t associate certain qualities, activities, happiness or success with physical data like gender, and they can’t show gender limiting a person’s capabilities.
The law especially affected ads for goods and services aimed at children. Ads couldn’t show a boy being brave while a girl is being treated as fragile, and products couldn’t exclusively be targeted at boys or girls. For example, an ad for a doll should show boys playing with it, too.
To avoid stereotypes in marketing, there are a couple of different things you can do:
- As always, research is important. Don’t just rely on potentially inaccurate information you have when crafting messaging for different audiences. Just because two markets are near each other and speak the same language doesn’t mean you should advertise to them in the same way.
- Finally, always have someone from that culture review the content you want to use in your advertising. They can help you avoid potentially stereotypical or offensive things you may not even be aware of. Their participation gives you an important perspective that allows your marketing to be more respectful and effective.
Key example: Dolce & Gabbana in China
Italian fashion house Dolce & Gabbana’s use of stereotypes in a 2018 Chinese marketing campaign caused a public relations nightmare that cost them millions, if not billions of dollars in revenue. Their attempt at intercultural humor backfired spectacularly and offended one of their most lucrative markets.
In November of that year, D&G launched three video ads on Weibo, a Chinese social media website, to promote their fashion show in Shanghai. In the videos, a Chinese woman wearing a D&G dress tries to eat different Italian foods (pizza, a cannoli and spaghetti) using chopsticks, while a male narrator makes patronizing comments and traditional Chinese music plays in the background.
To make matters worse, soon after the video went viral, screenshots circulated online that purported to show one of the brand’s founders responding to the ad’s controversy via Instagram DMs to a Czech model of Asian descent. In the screenshots, he allegedly defends the campaign and makes several disparaging and offensive comments about Chinese people, including describing them using the poop emoji.
While the ads were pulled immediately and D&G claimed the founder’s account was hacked and released an apology video, the backlash was swift and immediate. Within hours, #boycottdolce was trending on Weibo and users filmed themselves destroying D&G products. The Shanghai show itself was canceled days later, D&G products were pulled from Chinese e-commerce sites, and the brand didn’t post on Weibo at all for three months.
Even years on, D&G still suffered in the Chinese market. Chinese celebrities canceled their contracts with D&G and never returned, and as recently as 2021 a Hong Kong pop singer received tons of backlash for wearing a D&G item of clothing in a music video. The number of D&G boutiques in China fell from 58 to 47, and its Asia-Pacific market shrank from 25% before the ad to 22% in 2020.
How to avoid the most common global marketing mistakes

Operating an international business comes with many challenges and difficulties, particularly in the marketing sphere. While it may seem difficult and time-consuming to manage and avoid all of these mistakes, they may mean the difference between your business succeeding or failing in a specific market.
Our advice? As much as possible, work with locals who have in-depth knowledge of their country’s culture, preferences and needs. While your own research and knowledge are also important and shape your strategy, getting locals to localize and review your marketing content can give you that last critical input to help you succeed.

CTA: Send the user to the next stage of the funnel. This is usually the commercial stage, so a lead magnet usually works best here, but don’t force it.