From Engineering Problem to Revenue Catalyst

AI is changing localization, but native insight and cultural nuance still win markets.

Jun 03, 2025

A question recently landed in my inbox:

“Why are more revenue leaders not involved in the collaboration process for Localization?”

It’s a deceptively simple question, and one that cuts to the heart of how global companies scale, or stall.

As we close 2025, 38% of global enterprises are holding localization budgets flat; 39% are cutting them.

In difficult times, language services are often the first to go, seen as low-hanging fruit for quick cost savings. But in doing so, companies risk making a classic mistake:

Saving pennies while losing millions.

A Legacy Problem: Why Localization Still Gets Sidelined

To understand today’s mindset, you have to go back a few decades.

When tech companies first went global, localization was seen as an engineering afterthought. It was a checkbox at the end of a product build — extract the strings, translate the interface, move on.

No one thought about language as market access. No one thought about cultural nuance, positioning, or revenue enablement.

That legacy persists. Localization is still treated as a vendor service, not a strategic lever.

And because it’s rarely connected directly to revenue outcomes, revenue leaders stay out of the conversation.

Why This Thinking Doesn’t Hold Up in 2025

Most useful content never gets translated. Less than 1% of global content is available in more than one language.

And customers don’t buy what they don’t understand.

Research consistently shows that 75% of customers prefer to buy in their native language, and many will abandon brands that don’t speak to them.

Localization isn’t a cost center. It’s a revenue enabler. Without it, entire markets are closed off before you even get a chance to compete.

Cutting localization to save money is the equivalent of slashing your international sales team: a short-term saving with a long-term cost.

The ROI of Localization

Consider a hypothetical company:

44% of its revenue comes from non-English-speaking markets.
It spends $2M a year authoring content in English — websites, documentation, UI text.
It supports 19 additional languages — but only translates about 5% of its English content.
Its localization budget? Around $270,000 per year.

Translation, by the way, is cheap: $0.15 per word to translate vs. $1.00 per word to author original English content.

Each dollar spent on localization enables 5.8x more revenue than a dollar spent on English content.

Cutting that $270,000 would risk losing the 44% of revenue it helps unlock.

That’s not savings — that’s sabotage.

How to Build a Bulletproof Localization Business Case

If you're facing budget scrutiny, here’s what you need to bring to the table:

1. Track Sales by Language

Tie revenue data to customer language preferences. No direct data? Estimate based on primary languages spoken per market.

2. Calculate Localization ROI

Break it down:

Cost per localized word.
Revenue per localized market.
Revenue enabled per dollar spent on localization.

Show leadership where localization drives growth — in terms they care about.

3. Model the Incremental Value of Adding Languages

Use analytics to estimate:

How adding Spanish, Portuguese, or Korean would open new revenue streams.
Projected revenue increases from expanding language coverage.

For example: adding Spanish for Spain and Mexico could boost total revenue by 32% — for a fraction of the cost of conventional market entry.

A Smarter Way to Prioritize: The Localization Investment Framework

Below is a breakdown of key factors to assess both market and company readiness for localization initiatives:

Think tiers:

Tier 1 Markets: Full product and content localization.
Tier 2 Markets: Lighter-touch adaptations.
Tier 3 Markets: English-only, but monitor engagement carefully.

This reframes the question from “Should we localize?” to “Where will localization drive the highest ROI?”

Companies Getting It Right

HubSpot: Ties localization directly to their international expansion strategy.
Airbnb: Bakes localization into product development — it’s a requirement, not an afterthought.
Shopify: Embeds localization within Go-to-Market (GTM) Strategy — aligning language efforts to revenue goals.

They aren’t just translating. They’re enabling markets.

Localization: More Than an Engineering Problem

At its core, localization is still an engineering challenge.

Scaling globally requires internationalization best practices — properly extracting strings, designing UI that handles any language, building the infrastructure for a multilingual world.

But here’s the trap:

Localization can’t be treated as just an engineering checkbox.

When it’s siloed in product teams and disconnected from business strategy, it misses the point.

In a truly global company, localization should sit at the intersection of engineering, marketing, and revenue strategy.

Your global Go-to-Market (GTM) plan should have a direct line to your localization team. Not just to ensure the product works, but to prioritize which markets to enter, which content to adapt, and how to maximize ROI.

Localization isn’t just about making your product accessible, it’s about making it desirable and purchasable.

It’s not about managing strings on every sprint. It’s about unlocking markets.

In 2025, as budgets tighten, the companies that view localization as a revenue catalyst — not a line-item cost — will be the ones that grow while others stall.

And in the new AI era, the game is shifting even faster:

Costs will be reduced where repetition and inefficiency live — in redundant tasks and layers of intermediaries.

But this isn’t about doing less. It’s about doing better.

While product and sprint development will continue to demand strong i18n and L10N engineering, global marketing could — and perhaps should — move away from traditional translation altogether.

With AI agents capable of analyzing markets and crafting content that truly resonates with local cultures, the only shared asset between product and marketing will be terminology — ensuring brand consistency without constraining creative adaptation.

This shift in mindset will be nothing short of an earthquake for the industry. It will happen gradually, but only those prepared for it will thrive. With the right innovation, companies can reallocate savings toward what truly moves markets: real native insight, cultural nuance, and hyper-localization at scale.

The future will be won by those who realize localization is not about words or strings. It’s about translating intent, trust, and relevance into every market they enter.