Bilingual advertising in Québec: structuring an account in French and English
An ad account targeting Québec serves two official languages on a single territory. This page sets the structural rule we apply in Google Ads, Performance Max and Meta: one language per delivery unit, one landing page per language, one report per language. The rest of the blog covers the specific cases.
Why language is a structural unit, not a setting
In most countries, the language of an account is a box ticked once. In Québec it splits the market into two populations whose keywords, click costs, conversion rates and buying periods differ. The Office québécois de la langue française study on online shopping (fall 2023 survey, 3,534 respondents) measured that 56.1% of consumers most often search in French, 24.6% most often in English and 18.7% equally in both, with a clear gap between the Montréal region and the rest of the province.
Google has also announced that starting in September 2026 the campaign-level language targeting setting disappears from Search campaigns and stops applying to the Search ads of Performance Max campaigns. What determines the language served becomes the language of the ad and of the landing page. An account whose separation relied on that setting has to rebuild it in its structure.
The practical consequence fits in one sentence: every delivery unit (Search campaign, ad group, Performance Max asset group, Meta ad set) is monolingual, named with its language, and tied to a landing page in the same language.
What the Charter of the French Language requires, and what it does not
Section 52 of the Charter requires commercial publications, including those on a website and on social media, to exist in French. The Regulation respecting the language of commerce and business allows a version in another language provided the French version is available under conditions at least as favourable. Applied to an account: an English campaign is not illegal; an English campaign with no French equivalent is.
What the Charter does not require, and what we are often asked: no platform setting counts as compliance. Google Ads language targeting was never a compliance measure; it filtered an audience. The evidence an advertiser must be able to produce is the coexistence of both versions, ads and pages, with French at least as visible.
One point remains a grey area and we treat it as such: does a geotargeted paid ad fall under commercial advertising in the sense of section 58 (marked predominance of French) or under a commercial publication in the sense of section 52 (parity of access)? We found neither a written position from the Office nor a decision on this precise point. Our practice applies the stricter requirement to any asset visible from Québec, and we recommend having that choice validated by legal counsel.
The structure we set up, platform by platform
Google Ads Search: two campaigns per intent, one French and one English, each with keywords, ads and pages in a single language. Search terms are reviewed per language every week: an English term triggering a French ad becomes a negative keyword in the French campaign and a positive keyword in the English one. Campaign labels carry the language code as a prefix, which makes a per-language report a single filter away.
Performance Max: at least one asset group per language, two campaigns when budgets and profitability targets diverge. No text, video or image carrying text crosses the line. Audience signals and customer lists are also split by language when the data exists.
Meta: one ad set per language, never the multiple-languages feature within a single ad for Québec, because it makes review and proof of parity impossible. The landing page is chosen in the language of the ad, with no automatic redirect based on location: an English speaker in Laval and a French speaker in Toronto both exist, and the redirect gets both of them wrong.
Naming and reporting
- Language prefix in every campaign and group label
- One dashboard per language: cost per click, conversion rate, cost per acquisition
- Budget arbitrated per language on margin, not on demographic share
Landing pages
- One URL per language, reciprocal fr-CA and en-CA hreflang tags
- No automatic language switch based on location
- Prices in Canadian dollars, before tax, in both versions
Proof of parity
- Every English ad has its French twin live the same day
- Dated screenshots of both versions kept at each launch
- French reviewed by someone whose working language it is
Common questions
Can we target only English speakers in Québec?
Technically yes, and nothing prohibits it as long as the French version exists and remains available under equivalent conditions. What we advise against is doing it to avoid producing French: the French version is mandatory as soon as the commercial publication is visible in Québec.
Do we need two Google Ads accounts, one per language?
No. One account, two parallel structures. Two accounts double administration, billing and learning history without adding anything to targeting. The case that justifies two accounts is a change of currency or billed entity, not language.
What happens to an account that relied on Google’s language setting?
Inventory the Search and Performance Max campaigns that were separated only by that setting, check that each ad group is monolingual and tied to a page in the same language, then track search terms per language for four weeks. Our article on targeting French and English in a Québec account walks through the procedure.
Are Shopping ads affected?
Language settings have no effect on Shopping ads in Performance Max: the language comes from the Merchant Center feed. The question then becomes the feed itself, one or two, covered separately.
Have your account structure checked
A written inventory of your campaigns by language, with what breaks when the language setting is removed and what needs rebuilding.