Among the products that Google Non-Profit makes available to non-profit organizations is Google Ad Grants, offering them a Google AdWords account with a free maximum budget of $10,000 per month to advertise on Google’s search engine, without any cost or commitment. That is to say, there are 120,000 dollars a year in free advertising that Google gives to each targeted non-profit.

Did you know about this? Let’s discuss what Google Ad Grants is and how it can help your non-profit gain visibility!

The purpose of Google Ad Grants is to help give visibility to non-profits, increase their visibility on the internet, and get partners or volunteers, redirecting traffic from Google to the website. More non-profit organizations can immerse themselves in online advertising thanks to this opportunity.

Requirements for Using Google Grants

You need to know a series of requirements before applying for a Google Ad Grants account. Although the account creation and management process are very similar to that of advertisers in Google Adwords, there are a series of prior restrictions to take into account:

• Campaigns can only be created for the Search Network.
• The daily budget is capped at $329 (maximum investment of $10,000 per month).
• Grants ads will always appear on the Google results page below the Google Adwords ads (paid advertisers).
• Search partners must be disabled.
• You’ll need to log in to your account at least once a month to review performance, and you’ll need to make one or more changes to your account at least once every 90 days. If you do not perform these actions, Google may deactivate your account.

Changes to Google Grants in 2018

At the beginning of the year 2018, Google applied a series of important changes and updates to Google Grants to improve the quality of these announcements, affecting those who already have an active Grants account and those who are considering applying.

• Drops the $2 max bid, now allowing you to use the bid strategy: maximize for conversions.
• Accounts must maintain an overall CTR of 5% each month. If this requirement is not met for two consecutive months, the account will be canceled.
• Each campaign must contain at least two active ad groups.
• Active ad groups must contain a minimum of  2 active ads. In addition, it is mandatory to add at least two ad extensions with sitelinks.
• Keywords must have at least a quality level of 3.

Why is it Interesting to Sign Up for Google Grants?

Many non-profits have trouble getting enough visibility and resources. Making good use of those $10,000 a month in free advertising can be key to getting more resources, promoting the organization’s website and increasing its social impact.

Each non-profit can choose what they invest that budget in (as long as they are campaigns related to their charitable mission and meet the requirements). But, in general, they can decide how they want to advertise, which ads to show and which pages of their website to promote.

Therefore, each non-profit can use Google Ad Grants for the priority objectives of their organization. For example:

• Capture more donations or volunteers
• promote events
• capture signatures
• Increase the visibility of your solidarity programs
• Get more readers for your informative content

According to a recent study, non-profits earn an average return of $3.59 for every dollar they spend on search engine advertising.

As a rule of thumb, if a non-profit takes advantage of $10,000 per month from Google Ad Grants with that 3.59 return, they would be getting $35,900 worth of value each month from this program. And without having to invest a penny.

Not all non-profits will get those figures, but it is clear that Google Ad Grants is a great opportunity. And, of course, it is a clear mistake not to sign up.  Please take a moment to complete our self-assessment to get the process started.

Let’s Go!