Bilingual audience evidence for a Welsh media kit, with one anonymised Cardiff example

What to take away

What Welsh-language and regional public campaigns expect from creators

Public campaigns in Wales often run bilingually as a matter of policy and practice. If you pitch to a government body, a health board, a council or a national cultural organisation, expect the brief to ask how your content will work in Welsh and in English.

That expectation is not only about translation. Campaign managers want evidence that a Welsh-language post reaches a Welsh-speaking audience, and that the English version reaches everyone else. They also want to see that you understand the difference between translation and creation.

For a media kit creator, this changes what you put on the page. A generic reach figure is not enough. You need to show two audiences, one campaign, and a reason to believe both parts performed.

Welsh public bodies publish their organisational information and service commitments openly, and many describe bilingual service standards. You can reference that context when you explain why bilingual evidence matters to them: see the list of Organisations | In service | GOV.WALES. It is a useful anchor when your pitch explains that you understand their obligations.

Regional brands in Wales also care, though for different reasons. A Cardiff retailer or a North Wales tourism business may want Welsh-language content because it signals local belonging. They may not have a formal bilingual policy, but they will notice a creator who can speak to both audiences without making the Welsh version feel like an afterthought.

Your media kit should therefore answer three questions quickly. Who is your Welsh-speaking audience? How do you know? What did a bilingual campaign deliver for a comparable client?

Before you write any of that, be strict about who counts as your audience. A follower in Wrexham who never engages is not the same as a follower in Cardiff who shares your posts.

The distinction matters when you claim reach, and it is worth reading about how to decide target audience boundaries before you put numbers in a kit.

Finally, remember that public sector buyers often work to procurement rules and internal reporting cycles. They need figures they can defend in a report. If your media kit gives them a clean, sourced table, you make their job easier and your pitch stronger.

Cardiff campaign examples and bilingual reach evidence

Cardiff is where many Welsh public campaigns are commissioned, so it is the best place to look for patterns. The example below is anonymised, because client work is often confidential, but it shows the numbers a Cardiff campaign can produce.

Anonymised Cardiff campaign: health board vaccination push. A Cardiff health board ran a vaccination campaign with one Welsh-language video and one English-language video in the same week. The creator reported 1,800 Welsh-language accounts reached and 12,400 English-language accounts reached.

Welsh-language link clicks were 140, against 610 English-language link clicks. The reporting window was seven days, and the source was platform insights. The Welsh post had a 6.2% engagement rate, against 3.1% for the English post.

The key evidence is not the combined reach. It is the Welsh-language reach as a share of the Welsh-speaking audience the creator can plausibly claim. If the creator has 4,000 followers in Wales and the Welsh video reached 1,800 accounts, that is a clear, defensible figure. State the denominator.

This is where you need benchmark research that compares like with like, because a Welsh-language post with 2,000 reach is not comparable to an English-language post with 20,000 reach unless you explain the audience sizes.

ONS cultural identity data as a source for Welsh audience figures

You do not need your own survey to make a credible claim about Welsh language reach. National data gives you a baseline, and citing it shows that you understand the difference between your audience and the wider population.

The ONS publishes Cultural identity - Office for National Statistics covering national identity, language and related topics. Use it to describe the population your content sits within, not to claim that your followers match it.

The 2021 Census found that 538,300 people in Wales aged three and over could speak Welsh, 17.8% of the population, according to the ONS. Use that as population context, not as a measure of your own followers.

Regional accounts - Office for National Statistics give you economic context for Wales as a market. This helps when you explain why a Cardiff campaign has a different budget and audience profile from a London one.

Labour market data matters too. Employment and employee types - Office for National Statistics tells you how people in Wales work, which affects when they are online and what they can afford.

Use these sources as context, not as proof of your own reach. The honest structure is: national data describes the population, your platform data describes your audience, and your campaign data describes what happened. Keep the three separate in your media kit, and label each one.

When you combine sources, keep clear denominators. A percentage without a base is meaningless, and public sector buyers will ask what the base was. Write it down before they do.

A template for presenting bilingual reach figures

Use one table for the campaign, with one row per language, and a third row for the combined figure with a note. The table below is a worked example you can copy and adapt. Replace the figures with your own, and keep the source column honest.

Then add a short paragraph under the table. Explain the overlap, state the reporting window, and name the platform. If you cannot deduplicate, say so. Buyers respect a clear limitation more than a suspiciously round number.

Welsh-language caption example: 'Mae ein hymgyrch yn dod i Gaerdydd yr wythnos hon. Dilynwch y ddolen i gymryd rhan.' English: 'Our campaign comes to Cardiff this week. Follow the link to take part.'

Follow these steps to build the table for a real pitch:

Before you send the kit, run this checklist:

That last point matters more than it sounds. Public sector campaign managers often have to report upward. If your table is clean, they will use it, and they will remember who gave it to them.

Common mistakes when claiming bilingual audience reach

The most common mistake is double counting. If you post the same content in two languages and some followers see both, adding the two reach figures overstates your audience.

The second mistake is claiming Welsh language reach from location alone. Living in Wales does not mean someone speaks Welsh, and platform location data is imprecise. Do not present a Welsh location share as a Welsh language share.

The third mistake is translating without adapting. A literal translation often underperforms because idiom and humour do not carry across. If your Welsh-language content is a machine translation, say so, or better, do not present it as bilingual creative work.

The fourth mistake is using a single benchmark for both languages. Engagement rates differ by audience size and by language community. Compare Welsh-language performance with Welsh-language performance, not with a national average that includes much larger English-language accounts.

The fifth mistake is leaving out source dates. Platform insights change, and a figure from two years ago is not evidence for a campaign this year. Keep source dates next to every number, and update the kit when you refresh the data.

The sixth mistake is overclaiming the public sector relationship. A campaign for a Cardiff organisation does not make you an approved supplier. Describe the work accurately: who commissioned it, what you delivered, and what the results were.

Sources to cite when evidencing a Welsh media kit

A short source list at the end of your media kit does two things. It shows that your figures have a basis, and it gives the buyer something to check. Keep it to the sources you actually used.

For population and identity context, cite the ONS cultural identity data. For the Welsh market and regional economy, cite the ONS regional accounts. For working patterns that affect when your audience is online, cite the ONS employment and employee types data. For the policy and organisational context of Welsh public campaigns, cite the GOV.WALES organisations list.

Add your own platform exports as a source too, with the date. A media kit creator who names the export date looks more credible than one who does not, because it shows the numbers are current and checkable.

Finally, keep the list short and specific. Four or five sources, each linked once, each supporting a claim you actually make. A long list of sources you did not use reads as padding, and public sector buyers will notice.

Common questions