Translate, post-edit or transcreate
Match the method to the content. Raw machine translation suits internal gist and research. Machine translation with post-editing suits volume content: light post-editing makes text accurate and understandable, full post-editing makes it read as if written in the language, and ISO 18587 sets requirements for the full version. Transcreation suits anything that must persuade, amuse or carry a claim: a writer in the market rewrites from the brief, often returning a literal back-translation so the central team can see what the new line says. A specification sheet, an email body and a tagline need three different routes, and one setting for all of them fails at least two.
Glossaries, memories and locale settings
Consistency comes from assets, not from the engine. A termbase fixes brand terms, product names and do-not-translate entries; a translation memory reuses approved sentences so a claim reads the same this year as last. Style settings fix the register for each market, formal or informal address included, and the locale variant: European or Brazilian Portuguese, Spain or Mexico Spanish, France or Canada French, Simplified or Traditional Chinese. Then the conventions: units, date formats and quotation marks, which are guillemets in French and low-high marks in German. Insist on standard exchange formats, XLIFF for files, TMX for memories and TBX for termbases, so these assets are never locked into one vendor.
Review that scales with volume
Review by risk, not by habit. Regulated claims and hero copy get full review by a market marketer and, where needed, legal; long-tail content gets sampled review scored against an error typology such as MQM, which separates accuracy, terminology, linguistic conventions, style and locale conventions so feedback is specific. The step that is easiest to skip is closing the loop: every reviewer correction should update the termbase or memory, or the same error comes back next week. Synthetic White enforces terminology and approved claims while it localises copy across 30 languages, then routes each market's version through approvals with roles, sign-off and an audit trail.
Confidentiality and where text goes
Free online translators are an easy route for confidential marketing text to leave a company, because they are fast and nobody thinks of pasting a paragraph as a data transfer. Their terms may allow submitted text to be stored or used to improve the service. Uploading whole documents adds a quieter leak: files carry comments, tracked changes, hidden slides and author names. For launch copy, pricing and anything containing customer data, use a tool with contractual confidentiality, no retention and a known processing location, and strip revision history from documents before upload.
Updated 25 September 2026