The first reason is its size: it is a relatively large country, with a sizeable population, which means there will likely be a market for your product.
The appeal of this market only grows stronger when you realize that, according to the International Monetary Fund, Germany is the third-largest economy in the world in terms of GDP, after only the US and China.
Another reason is its strategic geographical location. Sharing borders with the major economies of France, the Netherlands, Poland and Switzerland, and with its close proximity to the wealthy UK and Scandinavian markets, it is well-placed to do business with brands with a physical presence in any of these European powerhouses.
It is also a digitally mature nation. Germany has a population of 84.1 million people. Of these people, around 94% are currently online.
There is a fairly equal gender split, with 94% of men and 93% of women using the internet.
The table below shows internet penetration by age group in Germany. As you can see, there are very high levels of internet penetration across the entire 16 to 64 age group (over 96%), with this then dropping off slightly over the age of 65:
There is no major urban-rural digital divide in Germany, with around 94% of urban households having internet access, along with 91% of rural households.
The typical German internet user spends 5 hours and 28 minutes online every day. Research by Meltwater and We Are Social found that the top three reasons German users gave for using the internet were: finding information, staying in touch with friends and family, and researching products and brands.
According to recent research, 57% of German internet users decline cookies on websites, 39% worry about how companies might use their online data, 33% use ad blocking tools, and 24% use a VPN to access the internet.
Online privacy is very important to Germans, who do not like to disclose personal information online or have their personal details stored. It should therefore come as no surprise that the country has some of the strictest online privacy laws in the world.
Looking at device usage, 57% of internet traffic in Germany comes from desktop computers, 41% comes from mobile phones, and 2% comes from tablets.
It is therefore important that your website is optimized to work well across a variety of devices, to meet the demands of internet users and provide them with a positive user experience when interacting with your brand and website.
Given the popularity of mobile, you may want to create an app, as this presents a big opportunity for brands wanting to target the German market. If you create an app, make sure to localize the language, especially if you are B2C. Make sure your app functions correctly and is valuable for users, otherwise your brand might suffer not only from poor return-on-investment but also negative reviews.
Internet speeds are around the global median on broadband, but slower than the global median on mobile. Germany ranks 57th in the world for fixed broadband speed, with a median speed of 98.33 MB per second. It ranks 55th for mobile internet speed, with a median speed of 70.54 MB per second.
Given the variable internet speeds in the country, it is crucial to optimize your website for speed. If your website is too heavy and loads too slowly, this will result in higher bounce rates, meaning you could lose potential customers before they even have a chance to see what you have to offer. Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool is very useful for diagnosing any speed problems with your website and suggesting what you can do to make it faster.
Google is the most popular search engine in Germany, with a market share of 85%. Bing comes in second place with 7%, followed by Yandex with 2%, Yahoo with 2%, DuckDuckGo with 2% and Ecosia with 1%.
Google is therefore the search engine that you must focus your SEO and PPC efforts on. Make sure you are following best practices for search marketing on Google.
I cannot stress enough how vital it is to have a strong presence on Google. Recent research has found that search engines are the number one main channel for online brand research in Germany, as well as the number one source of brand discovery.
However, be aware that 33% of German internet users use an ad blocking tool. This means you do not want to rely completely on search advertising. Your organic SEO and content marketing efforts must also be given the attention they deserve in order to reach those internet users who have turned on an ad blocker.
At the center of your organic and paid strategies should be your website, so make sure to think carefully about it and prepare it before you enter the German market.
Check that your geotargeting is correctly set up for your German website. This will vary depending on how you structure your domains, but you are likely to need hreflang tags correctly implemented to ensure that your Germany-targeted pages rank above your other country pages.
You should also check your website speed from within Germany, and if the loading speed is slow, consider hosting your website on a local server. You do not want to go through all the effort of creating, designing and localizing your website, just to have those efforts undone by poor loading speeds and high bounce rates as a result.
Be aware that your German website is legally required to have an “Impressum” page. The Impressum must be easy-to-access and provide the user with information including your company name, address, contact information, German trade register number or equivalent, VAT/business identification number, information on your board of directors, and more. Failure to have an Impressum on your German website can lead to fines of up to €50,000.
If you sell products on your website, make sure to display prices in the local currency, use local weights and measurements, and accept local online payment methods.
And finally, make a point of creating and displaying local content, telling stories that are relatable and relevant to the local audience. This also includes the visuals and photos that accompany your written content.
Social media is very popular in Germany. Research by Meltwater and We Are Social found that among its sample of German internet users, 83% were social media users. The average internet user spends 1 hour and 41 minutes on social media every day and uses an average of 6 social platforms every month. The most common reasons for using social media are keeping in touch with friends and family, reading news stories, and filling spare time.
As you can see in the graph below, WhatsApp is the most popular social platform in Germany, followed by Instagram and Facebook. All these platforms are used by more than half of all German internet users every month.
With 83% of German internet users being social media users, it is vitally important for brands to have a social media presence when targeting Germany. You should use social media to communicate and engage with potential customers, and it is also a useful way of understanding and getting to know your target audience. You should aim to create content that triggers emotions in users by offering real value or a real connection with your brand. Although you will obviously need to post localized content on your German social media accounts that caters to your audience in the country, your social media strategy will not differ significantly for Germany compared to how you do it for other countries. For example:
Of course, you do not need to be on every social media platform; you only need to be where your audience is. Research your industry and your audience before entering the market, see what platforms they prefer and prioritize them. Bear in mind that your audience will most likely be present on multiple platforms and interact with you across all of them, but they will not want to see the same things from you on all of them. Your content strategy should take into consideration both who your audience is and where they are interacting with you.
When entering any new market, it is very important to be aware of the local culture and to adapt your marketing collateral appropriately. One way you can examine the German culture is through the lens of Hofstede’s cultural dimensions.
Germany has a fairly low score of 35 for power distance. This means that:
Germany has a fairly high score of 79 for individualism. This means that:
Germany has a fairly high score of 66 for motivation towards achievement and success. This means that:
Germany has a fairly high score of 65 for uncertainty avoidance. This means that:
Germany has a score of 57 for long-term orientation, placing it around the middle of the spectrum. This means that:
Germany has a fairly low score of 40 for indulgence. This means that:
From my experience helping global brands succeed in the German market, I can add that Germans are known for being straightforward and frank in their communication style. They value honesty and clarity over politeness or ambiguity. People say what they mean, and expect others to do the same, as indirect communication can be perceived as evasive or dishonest. Communication is usually factual, explicit and focused on the issue at hand, rather than emotions. Germans tend to address topics head-on and may seem blunt, but this is meant to avoid misunderstandings. Bear all this in mind when crafting your marketing messaging, and make sure to follow German norms when it comes to your communication style.
And finally, be aware that data security and privacy are big concerns for Germans. They can be convinced to give up their data (e.g. their name and email address) if they get something valuable in return (e.g. an asset), but they will want to know that their data is safe and will not be shared with any third parties. It is therefore important to have a stringent data protection policy and to display this prominently on your website.
While the EF English Proficiency Index ranks Germany as having high English proficiency, it is still preferable to create content in the local language, rather than English, if possible – particularly if you are a B2C brand. Using English could give the impression that you do not really care about the market, since you cannot be bothered to communicate with them in their language, which could give a poor impression of your brand.
The language you should use when targeting Germany is German. German is a West Germanic language. It uses the Latin alphabet, is written from left to right, and has 30 letters (the 26 letters of the English alphabet, plus the German letters ä, ö, ü and ß). It has three grammatical genders (masculine, feminine and neuter).
The variety of German used in Germany has some grammar and terminology differences compared to the versions used in Austria, Belgium, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg and Switzerland, so if you have existing content targeting any of those countries, you cannot just copy this over to your German website; you must make sure to localize it for Germany first. To illustrate this, the table below contains some examples of differences between the varieties of German used in Germany and Switzerland:
Translation, localization and copywriting should always be done by a professional native speaker. Only a native will have a proper grasp of the local linguistic and cultural nuances and be able to create content that will truly resonate with your local German audience.
One thing you will need to do when addressing your German audience is decide which form of address to use. You must choose between the formal “you” (“Sie”) and the informal “you” (“du”) and stick to this across all communication channels. If formality is important in your sector, you should use the pronoun “Sie”. This will help you to build trust with users, as the more formal and respectful language will make them take your content more seriously.
Be aware that people in Germany will think poorly of you if you have mistakes in your written German content. If your content contains linguistic errors or if a translation does not make sense, your brand image could be damaged, with the poor-quality content gaining you a reputation as an unprofessional company.
If you are translating any content, be aware that your content may end up being a different length. For example, the German language can be up to 35% longer than English, mainly because of German’s extensive use of compound nouns. Therefore, be prepared to provide guidance on character limits and the space available for content on your webpage, and be conscious of how this can have an impact on things like your calls-to-action and product descriptions.
Speaking of calls-to-action, do not directly translate your calls-to-action from another market, as a direct translation is unlikely to resonate and work well in Germany. Instead, do some research to find out which calls-to-action are commonly used online in Germany in your sector.
Another area of digital marketing that is impacted by the German language is dynamic keyword insertion. German does not always take dynamic keyword insertion kindly, due to grammatical gender issues. Dynamic keyword insertion puts you at risk of producing copy that is faulty and off-putting. If you must use dynamic keyword insertion, make sure to use several templates to adapt to as many cases as possible and limit errors.
It is also important to think about your keywords. Keywords should never be translated; instead, you should always conduct local keyword research. This is because a translation will probably not produce keywords that have the most impact in the target market. Only fresh keyword research conducted by a native speaker will reveal the best keywords to target.
When it comes to targeting keywords in your PPC campaigns, you might have a bit of doubt when it comes to umlauts, of which German has a few (ä, ö and ü). Of course, when it comes to your content, you should always use them and make sure they are used correctly. But when deciding which keywords to target in your paid advertising campaigns, you may want to target keywords in their umlaut and non-umlaut forms. Many times, German-speaking users will make their search queries without any umlauts just to save time, so if you do not target these keywords, you might be losing some valuable search volume.
E-commerce is popular in Germany, although it still has growth ahead of it. 60% of Germans have made a purchase using a mobile phone or the internet in the past year. The B2C e-commerce market in Germany is worth the equivalent of USD 98.3 billion annually. The average German B2C shopper spends the equivalent of USD 2,200 online per year.
The consumer goods categories with the highest annual spend are fashion, furniture and electronics.
The main drivers of online purchases are key indicators as to what German users value most when making their online purchasing decisions, giving you an opportunity to understand what is best to highlight in your marketing collateral and calls-to-action, so that you can convert leads into customers. Free delivery is the top driver of online purchasing behavior in Germany, with 59% saying this would encourage them to buy. This is followed by coupons and discounts with 44% and an easy returns policy with 38%.
Looking at e-commerce payment methods, digital wallets are the most popular option, accounting for 35% of online purchases. Account-to-account payments come in second place, accounting for 26% of online purchases, followed by buy now pay later with 20%, credit cards with 10%, debit and prepaid cards with 6%, and cash-on-delivery with 4%. It would therefore be wise to offer multiple payment options when targeting the German market, since various payment methods have significant popularity.
Another important thing to remember is to ensure you are selling in the correct currency: euros (€ or EUR). This may sound obvious, but you would be surprised how many businesses see poor results simply because they have neglected to localize the currency on their website.
When creating your price labels, be aware that Germany is one of the countries that uses the comma as a decimal separator, and not the point. Furthermore, the comma is not used as a thousand separator; instead, groups of digits are typically separated by a point. This is the opposite of how numbers are written in English-speaking countries. The bullet points below illustrate this by demonstrating how to write one hundred thousand euros in the English versus the German way. When targeting Germany, make sure that your prices follow the German standard, to ensure clarity.
Alternatively, you could sell your products on an e-commerce marketplace. The most popular e-commerce marketplace in Germany is Amazon, followed by Kleinanzeigen, eBay, Temu and Idealo. If you want to sell your items on an online marketplace, Amazon should therefore be your first choice when targeting Germany.
Once you have sold a product, you still need to get it to the customer. The most popular e-commerce delivery method in Germany is home delivery by Deutsche Post (DHL), so it would be wise to offer this delivery option (if applicable).
Be aware that there are seasonal fluctuations in the German e-commerce calendar, when people are more likely to buy. Black Week – and more recently Singles’ Day – are popular annual shopping events that take place every November in Germany, with online shops offering high discounts during this time. The run up to Christmas in December is another popular time for Germans to shop online. Make sure you tap into this seasonality when selling your products and coming up with your marketing materials.
The German market is a large and lucrative economy that is digitally mature, with high levels of internet penetration and high spending power. It is a strong and established market that rightfully draws the attention of many global brands. I hope this guide has given you a good starting point from which to build your German success story. If you localize your strategy effectively, your digital marketing and business expansion efforts in the country have the potential to go far. Good luck!
Want to discuss how we can help your brand succeed in Germany? Let’s talk!
Written by Elin Box – Content Marketing Manager at TransPerfect Digital.
