Charities & Non-Profits – Are You Using Google Ad Grants?

ByJason Carton

96% of European charities say they are not utilising digital marketing to its full potential, with only 40% of non-profits surveyed saying they are using paid search engine marketing.

A recent SalesForce survey from the beginning of the year has brought to light a number of challenges facing the non-profit industry as they navigate their organisation in an increasingly online world.

According to The Nonprofit Digital Marketer Report, 96% of European charities say they are not utilising digital marketing to its full potential, with only 40% of non-profits surveyed saying they are using paid search engine marketing.

Only 17% of respondents believed that PPC added any value to their mission, but this couldn’t be any further from the case. With one simple trick, discover how you can transform your charity or non-profit’s digital marketing activity – discover Google Ad Grants.

What are Google Ad Grants?

Google Ad Grants is an initiative from Google to provide eligible charities and non-profits up to $10,000 a month in Google Ad spend.

There are countless ways to use the grant to help your charity; from recruiting volunteers, attracting more donations, or helping those in need, the Google Ad Grant should make up an important part of your digital marketing strategy.

Exclusively for Search based advertising, the Google Ad Grant is there to help your non-profit achieve its mission.

How to qualify for Google Ad Grants

In order to qualify for a grant, certain criteria must be met to ensure that the ad spend is being used effectively.

Here’s how your non-profit can qualify:

  • Be based in an eligible country.
  • Your non-profit must hold valid charity status. Governmental entities, hospitals and medical groups, schools, academic institutions and universities are not eligible for Google Ad Grants.
  • Have a quality website that meets Google’s website policy.
  • Acknowledge and agree to Google’s required certifications regarding non-discrimination and donation receipt and use.

As well meeting the above eligibility criteria, your non-profit will also need to comply with the following policies to ensure that it continues to receive the grant on a monthly basis.

  • Do not target single-word keywords – own brand keywords and some other exceptions can be permitted.
  • Avoid overly generic keywords – helps to ensure that your advertising will be relevant to the searcher’s query.
  • Ensure keywords have a quality score about 1 or 2 – a quality score is Google’s rating of the quality and relevance of both your keywords and PPC ads.
  • Maintain a 5% click-through rate (CTR) each month – a high click-through rate is a strong indicator of the strength of your relevancy to a search term.
  • Must have valid conversion tracking – accurate conversion tracking shows to Google that you are using the grant effectively. This could take the form of a form submission, a donation or someone calling your organisation.
  • Use at least 2 ad groups per campaign – ad groups allow you to organise similar keywords under a common umbrella to allow for greater targeting.
  • Make sure you have at least 2 sitelink ad extensions – sitelinks provide searchers with other links to your website within your advertisement.

Google Ad Grants Success Story

PACT is an adoption charity and family support provider which helps hundreds of families every year through outstanding adoption services and award-winning therapeutic support and inspirational community projects across London and the south of England.

PACT identified that a Google Ads Grant would help the charity achieve its goals of reaching those looking to grow their families, as well as increase their awareness amongst prospective parents.

Since asking Generate UK to mage its Google Advertising, PACT now receive thousands of impressions from a highly relevant audience, increasing the chances of achieving their goals of strengthening families and finding children new homes.

“As a charity we have a limited budget for marketing so using the Grant account as effectively as possible is absolutely vital for us. Our work has a direct impact on the lives of children who have had a traumatic start in life and having the Google Ads Grant behind us is helping us make even more of a difference.”

PACT

How We Can Help

We are Google Ads certified partners and have extensive experience with all paid advertising channels enabling us to advise, build and optimise campaigns to meet your marketing goals.

We’ve helped countless charities and non-profit organisations benefit from Google Ad Grants – vastly increasing their marketing performance – helping to achieve their mission.

Speak to one of our marketing specialists today to learn more about Google Ad Grants and how they can help your organisation.