What is Google Ad Grants?

Google Ad Grants empowers nonprofit organizations, through $10,000 per month in in-kind AdWords™ advertising, to promote their missions and initiatives on Google search result pages.           

The Google AdWords Grant as it's officially named,  provides 501(c) (3) organizations with $10,000/mo in advertising credit. 

While this is great news,  most nonprofits only spend a small percentage of their budget because they are only targeting keywords specifically related to their goals. This is where opportunity is missed. 

Below are 3 effective ways nonprofits can put these advertising credits to good use.

1. Get More Website Traffic

The number one thing that the Google Grant is guaranteed to do is bring more traffic to your website. Google AdWords are the ads you see on the top and right side of search results on Google.com.

Once your primary goals are targeted, think about other things your primary audience is searching for online related to your organization.

2. Get More Donations

This is by far is the most important goal of almost every nonprofit organization. It's how they are able to exist. However, most people aren't searching the web to find an organization to give away their money to. The people who are looking to donate online are using search terms that are usually too expensive for the grant to cover.

The Google Grant is limited to bidding $2 per keyword. Many keywords that produce a greater profit to the advertiser have been bid up much higher than $2.  To get around this, try offering an incentive or schwag to persuade a donation. You can then promote this “deal” with your grant. In a dog-related nonprofit example, you might give away a free dog tag with every donation.

The keyword phrase 'dog tag' is only $0.33 a click so you can use the grant to target it.

You can also go after broader related searches. Then once visitors land on your page, you can display banner ads and clear calls-to-action for donations.

3. Website Optimization

Remember that the grant can only send people to your websites. Once they arrive it's up to you to deliver your message and convert them to your desired goal. If your landing pages don't satisfy the searcher, they'll click the back button. Because the grant credit is so large, you have the opportunity to gather a lot of valuable data about your target audience. What are their search habits? What other keywords are they searching for?

AdWords will reveal all of this data to you. You can then use the information learned to optimize your website and landing pages to satisfy your visitors. People search the web to find answers to their questions. Give them what they are looking for, and you'll have a better opportunity to share your desired message with them in the end.