Sign inStart free

SEO in Brazil: the LGPD, the consumer code and CONAR, and how a foreign company should hire an agency there

What an international company needs to know before it buys SEO, social media or digital marketing work in Brazil, built on the LGPD (Law 13,709 of 2018), the Consumer Defence Code, CONAR's influencer guide and StatCounter's Brazil figures, read on 22 October 2026.

Published by AI Knows Us · Updated 22 October 2026

To do SEO in Brazil, write in Brazilian Portuguese for Google, follow the LGPD for every form, pixel and email list, label paid influencer posts as advertising, and keep every Google, Meta and analytics account in your own company's name. Google handles about 88% of searches in Brazil and Instagram is unusually strong as a traffic source, so a good Brazilian plan pairs Portuguese pages that answer real searches with a social programme built for Instagram and YouTube as well as Facebook. The LGPD applies to a foreign company too, as soon as it offers goods or services to people in Brazil.

The Brazilian market in numbers

StatCounter's figures for September 2026 put Google at 88.41% of searches in Brazil, Bing at 9.63% and Yahoo at 1.54%. Bing is a bigger share than in most countries, so check a Brazilian site in Bing Webmaster Tools as well as Google Search Console.

Social media looks different from Europe or the US. StatCounter's referral figures for the same month show Facebook sending 44.08% of the social visits to websites in Brazil, Instagram 32.21%, YouTube 11.84%, X (Twitter) 4.32%, Pinterest 3.52% and Reddit 2.40%. Instagram alone sends almost a third of social traffic, so an agency that treats it as a side channel is planning for the wrong market.

The LGPD and your marketing

The Lei Geral de Protecao de Dados (Law 13,709 of 14 August 2018) is Brazil's general data protection law. The parts a marketer meets every week:

  • It reaches foreign companies. Article 3 applies the law to any processing, whatever the country of the company's head office, where the activity aims to offer goods or services to people in Brazil or the processing takes place there.
  • Every use of data needs a legal basis. Article 7 lists them. The two marketers use most are the person's consent and the legitimate interests of the controller, which do not apply where the person's fundamental rights prevail.
  • Consent must be provable. Article 8 says consent is given in writing or by another means that shows the person's will, and that the controller carries the burden of proving it was obtained properly. Keep a record of every opt-in: when, where and what text the person saw.
  • People can ask for their data. Article 18 gives the data subject the right, at any time, to confirm processing, access the data, correct it, and have unnecessary or excessive data anonymised, blocked or deleted, among other rights.
  • Name a data protection officer. Article 41 says the controller must appoint an encarregado and publish that person's identity and contact details clearly, preferably on its website.
  • Fines are real. Article 52 lets the national authority, the ANPD, issue warnings and fines of up to 2% of the company's revenue in Brazil in its last financial year, excluding taxes, capped at R$ 50,000,000 per infringement, plus daily fines and publication of the infringement.

For SEO and ads work, that means the cookie banner, contact forms, WhatsApp opt-ins and email lists all need a clear legal basis and a record behind them. Ask an agency to show you how its tracking and lead forms meet those articles before it launches anything.

Advertising rules: the consumer code and CONAR

Brazil's Consumer Defence Code (Law 8,078 of 1990) sets the legal floor. Article 36 says advertising must be shown in a way the consumer can easily and immediately identify as advertising, and that the supplier must keep the factual, technical and scientific data that support the message. Article 37 prohibits misleading or abusive advertising. So a claim such as "the best clinic in Sao Paulo" or a before-and-after result needs evidence on file before the ad runs.

On top of the law sits CONAR, the national council for advertising self-regulation, which hears complaints and publishes its decisions. Its Guide to Marketing and Advertising by Digital Influencers updates the guide CONAR first issued in December 2020. It says commercial content must be clearly identified as advertising. Where that is not obvious from the context, it asks for an explicit label: the platform's own paid-partnership tool, or terms such as "#publicidade" or "#publi", shown up front, without the viewer having to tap "more" to see it. Build that into every influencer contract you sign in Brazil.

Choosing an SEO or digital marketing agency in Brazil

A foreign company usually hires in one of three ways: a Brazilian agency, an international agency with a Brazilian team, or a freelancer for content. Whichever you choose, check these points in writing:

CheckWhy it matters in Brazil
Native Brazilian Portuguese writersEuropean Portuguese and machine translation read as foreign to Brazilian buyers
Accounts in your company's nameSearch Console, Google Ads, Meta Business and analytics stay yours if you change agency
LGPD setup for forms and pixelsArticles 7, 8 and 41 apply to your site, not to the agency's
Influencer labellingThe CDC article 36 and CONAR's guide both require ads to be recognisable
A plan per channelInstagram and YouTube carry far more weight here than in many markets

Agencies in Brazil price by monthly retainer, fixed project or hours. Compare proposals on the same lines: named people, pages produced each month, reports, and what is excluded. Refuse any proposal that promises a position. Google's own advice on hiring an SEO is direct: "No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google." If your team reads Portuguese, our Portuguese guide to choosing an SEO company in Brazil: contract, access, deliverables and warning signs goes through the contract clause by clause.

Local search in Sao Paulo, Rio and beyond

Brazil is a large country, and most service searches are local. A business with real premises should own its Google Business Profile, with a real address, the correct opening hours, photos and a WhatsApp number that someone answers. Then build one page per city or region you genuinely serve, written for that place. Our Portuguese guide to local SEO and how Google orders businesses on the map lists what you can fix in the profile yourself.

For a company selling nationally from abroad, the bigger job is content: Portuguese pages for each product and each common question, written by people who know how Brazilian buyers describe the problem. Translated English pages rarely match the words people type.

Questions about SEO and marketing in Brazil

Does the LGPD apply to a company with no office in Brazil?

Yes, where it offers goods or services to people in Brazil or processes data there. Article 3 applies the law whatever the country of the company's head office.

Do we need a data protection officer for a Brazilian website?

Article 41 requires the controller to appoint an encarregado and publish that person's identity and contact details, preferably on the website. Put them on your privacy page.

How should a paid influencer post be labelled in Brazil?

CONAR's influencer guide asks for the platform's paid-partnership tool or a clear term such as #publicidade or #publi, visible up front without tapping "more".

Can we use the same Portuguese content for Brazil and Portugal?

Better not. Brazilian and European Portuguese differ in vocabulary and spelling, and buyers notice. Write for Brazil if Brazil is the market.

When can we judge whether a Brazilian SEO agency is working?

Read Search Console for impressions, positions and indexed pages, the Business Profile performance report for calls and WhatsApp clicks, and your own count of enquiries by page and channel. The outcome depends on competition, your offer and your budget.

What a Brazilian buyer hears from an AI assistant

Brazilian buyers are asking assistants too. StatCounter's September 2026 chatbot figures for Brazil show ChatGPT with 76.63% of use and Gemini with 17.95%, a larger Gemini share than in most of Europe. When a marketing director in Sao Paulo asks one of them for the best SEO agency in Brazil, the short list comes from what the assistant can read in Portuguese: agency directories, Brazilian trade press, award lists and the agencies' own sites. Our Portuguese guide to SEO for AI and how to be cited by ChatGPT explains what Google says works. AI Knows Us measures it for a business, asking its buyers' real questions on ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude and Google AI Overviews and showing which firms are named and which sources each answer leans on.

Read next

Simon-Kucher pricing strategy, what the firm publishes about its own method and what a Singapore buyer should ask before briefing itThe firm publishes its approach, its scale and four named service lines, and publishes no fee, so the useful work before any call is reading what it claims and deciding which decision you are buying.International pricing strategies for a Singapore company, and the corridor that stops one market undercutting anotherA converted home price is the one answer that is almost always wrong, so set a price per market and keep the gaps narrower than the cost of moving a unit between them.Premium pricing strategy for a Singapore business, and the fence that makes the higher number holdCharging permanently more than the credible alternatives works when the buyer can name what the extra money buys, and the published Singapore writing ladder shows exactly how that is built.Red Antler publishes no price, so here is what its own site does publish and how to cost the same scope from SingaporeRead on 29 October 2026, three pages of redantler.com carry a complete deliverable list, three business stages and not one figure about what any of it costs.Hiring a full service content agency, the five stages a retainer has to cover and the two handoffs where the money leaksMost content retainers buy production and quietly leave strategy and distribution with you, so price the stages rather than the word count.Hiring a branding agency for a Singapore financial services firm, and the three registers to search before you fall in love with a nameIdentity work for a licensed firm starts with a clearance search rather than a mood board, and two of the three registers are free to read in a browser today.

Or browse the whole archive.

See what AI says about you.

The first scan is free, it needs no account, and it asks the questions your buyers ask.

Free. No card. We ask 5 real buyer questions on 2 AI apps.

Already sure you want this? Start free. No card needed, and the free plan stays free. Pay only when you want the work done. Or talk to a person if you have a question first. Or read how we fix what it finds.