Hello everyone! We have been approved for the Google Ad Grants program. To help us plan our next steps, please join us in the marketing channel on Slack at 2021-05-13T19:00:00Z for a discussion. Thank you!
All: If you’re planning to attend, it may be helpful to familiarize yourself with the Google Ads Grants program – it’s a quick read. A few minutes spent here will greatly facilitate the discussion. 
About Google Ad Grants
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Also important to note for our conversation –
I’ve spoken with my own Google Ads guy (Matt) and his thoughts are as follows:
Thanks for thinking of me regarding this. Let me give you some background information about non profit grant accounts before we move forward. This way you are educated and you can ask the client if they are aware of these requirements. Grant accounts are much more difficult than your typical for profit business and I will explain.
Google is very strict on the location targeting.
Google requires a Click Through Rate (CTR) of 5% or better each month at the account level. If you miss this mark for two consecutive months they temporarily deactivate your account. To get it reactivated you have to request a review. Basically you would go in the account and remove all the keywords that brought down the CTR until the average is 5% and then request a review.
Each campaign MUST have two ad groups, two ads, and two sitelink extensions.
Conversions must be tracked. Ad Grants Conversion Tracking Guide - Ad Grants Help
We cannot use manual bidding. We must use an automated bidding process which isn’t my favorite thing but we have no choice.
Keywords with quality score of 1 or 2 must be paused or removed
No single work keywords or generic keywords
Conversion setup is something to consider. Of course donations are a good conversion metric but I honestly wouldn’t know where to start on how to target people for donations. Then after that I’m not sure what else we can do besides a contact form submission.
We can create goals in Analytics for time spent on the site or number of pages per session and make those conversions for set minimums.
I asked Matt what he would charge to set this up…
I would charge $400 for the account setup. I would love to discount it for you and for them being a nonprofit but the work involved is actually more labor intensive than a standard account. Also, since they are a pretty unique business I would need assistance on keyword selection. I feel ClassicPress would be difficult in regards to keywords and who exactly we’re targeting.
Needless to say, grant accounts are awesome considering the amount of money they give you but they do require someone to be on top of it. If they don’t plan to maintain it they will lose the grant.
So – basically – we need to commit someone who knows how to do this kind of work to maintain this from month-to-month if we want to keep this going. Does anyone here have Google Ads experience, and is willing to take this on pro bono?
If Matt takes it on he’ll charge $400/month, and we can’t afford that.
Thoughts are welcome…
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We will need to add GA back to the website, we had removed it so we could delete all cookie notices but I think that is the only way to track conversions, right?
Part of the analytics is already conversion tracking on a site, adwords is then linked.
What is currently used for tracking website users?
We had planned to remove Google Analytics but it is still on there (along with Heap).
Also linking back to the previous thread about Google ads grants/credits from December 2020: Google ad credits for non-profits
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Here’s some additional info on maintaining eligibility, direct from Google:
To maintain eligibility in the Google Ad Grants program:
- Your ads must only link to the ONE nonprofit website domain that was approved in the application.
- You are required to actively manage the AdWords account by logging in monthly and making at least one change to your account every 90 days, based on review of your account performance. Your account is subject to automatic pausing or cancellation without notification should you fail to make any changes in your account for over 90 days.
- Your ads must reflect the mission of the approved nonprofit organization and your keywords must be relevant to the nonprofit’s programs and services.
- Strictly commercial advertising is not allowed through this program. If you intend to promote products or services, 100% of the sales and/or proceeds must support your program.
- Your Google ads cannot link to pages that are primarily links to other websites.
- Ads offering financial products (such as mortgages or credit cards) or those requesting car, boat or property donations and related keywords are not allowed.
- Your website cannot display Google AdSense ads or affiliate advertising links while participating in Google Ad Grants.
Ad Grantees found in violation of any of these guidelines are subject to removal from the program. Google reserves the right to grant or deny an organization’s application or participation at any time, for any reason, and to supplement or amend these eligibility guidelines at any time. Selections are made at Google’s sole discretion, and are not subject to external review.
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