One of the biggest mistakes people make when advertising internationally is assuming that marketing works the same way in every country.
Brazil and Australia, for example, have very clear differences when it comes to communication, decision-making, and contact channels in paid traffic.
In Brazil, digital marketing is highly relationship-driven. WhatsApp is the main conversion channel for businesses. People expect to chat, ask quick questions, and make decisions almost in real time. Instagram and Facebook work as direct sales and contact channels. Ads that drive users to WhatsApp usually perform extremely well, especially for service-based businesses.
In Australia and other international markets, the logic is different.
The process is more structured, less immediate, and more rational.
Email is still one of the main business communication channels.
Forms, landing pages, and well-organized information flows make much more sense. Users expect to receive details, analyze them calmly, and decide later.
WhatsApp is not the primary professional contact channel, and Instagram is seen much more as a leisure and passive consumption platform than as a direct conversion tool.
Facebook still plays an important role, especially for more mature audiences, while LinkedIn is strong for positioning, authority, and professional decision-making but it requires higher investment and longer maturation time.
This month, I had a call with a client in Australia, and this became even more evident in the work I’m developing with GLA:D Back Australia, an evidence-based clinical program licensed by Macquarie University.
The goal of the campaigns is to generate registrations for clinical training courses in 2026. To achieve this, the paid traffic strategy had to be fully adapted to local behavior: a strong focus on forms, qualified data collection, clear and institutional communication, and a less direct sales approach.
This experience reinforces something I see more and more in practice:
paid traffic is not about pushing buttons. It’s about understanding culture, behavior, and purchase intent.
Anyone who wants to advertise outside Brazil needs to stop simply “translating campaigns” and start thinking strategically about how that market truly works.
And that’s exactly what makes international marketing so challenging and so interesting.