There’s a lot of information out there for nonprofits using the Google Ad Grant. You’ve got the basics covered — how to apply, how to set up campaigns and ad groups, even how to find great keywords. You know all about important policy requirements and how to maintain compliance over time with account audits and optimization techniques. But what does a successful Google Ads campaign really look like? How do these tips translate into meaningful impact? Moving beyond the basics of a smooth-running Ad Grant with focused digital advertising strategies is how nonprofit organizations can build Google Ads that really work for your cause.
How to Build Google Ad Grant Ads that Work
Tip 1: Conduct An Audit
Take a look at what you already have to see what is working and what could be improved.
Strategy: What are our current organizational goals and do our marketing campaigns align with them? How are our campaigns organized? Do the campaigns reach the right audiences? Can we expand to new keywords/audiences?
Conversions: Which campaigns are driving conversions and why? Is there potential to increase budgets or expand keywords for high converting campaigns?
Landing Pages: Are your landing pages serving your organizational goals? Do your landing pages capture conversions? Do you have new landing pages to advertise?
Spend/month: How much of the $10k/month is your ad grant using? Is there potential to increase monthly spend?
CTR: Does your account at least meet the 5% CTR requirement? Can you optimize your CTRs to get closer to 10%?
Geo: Where are users coming from? Are users coming from relevant places? Are there specific places that are performing well that we should expand upon?
Tip 2: Conduct Keyword Research
Your campaigns and ad groups should be organized based on 3 things:
- Major search trends.
- Your corresponding content and site navigation.
- Target goal conversions.
The first step is to conduct keyword research to identify major search trends and find out what your target audience is actually searching for. Because Google Ad Grant Search campaign ads only show if the keywords you bid on match the query a user types in (and you win the auction), if you bid on unpopular keywords, your ad is unlikely to show. Conversely, if you bid on major keywords that your audiences use, the more chances your ad will show, and the more chances people will click to your site.
Use tools like the Ad Grant Keyword Planner and Google Trends to look at the data for search terms and topics relevant to your mission. Find out how users really speak about your cause, and pay attention to the words and phrases they’re typing into search engines to learn more. Target these keywords in your own Ad Grant account, and include them in your ads and landing pages to meet users on their level, both language and interest-wise, to drive them to appropriate resources.
We worked with our client Vot-ER to conduct keyword research for their ad grant and restructure their account, which drove 30% of all of Vot-ER’s voter registrations for the 2024 presidential election. Identify relevant and major search terms to drive more relevant and engaged traffic to your site.
Tip 3: Organize Your Landing Pages and Account for Impact
Not only should you organize your account by major search trends, but you should also consider your corresponding content and target goal conversions. As with any ad, the main goal should be to drive meaningful conversions, not superfluous clicks. Assess your landing pages to ensure they are optimized to capture the conversions that make the biggest impact to your goals. Assess your campaign and ad group structure and ensure they prioritize your target goal conversions. This also makes for a sustainable account layout. If topic groupings, naming conventions, and associated goals are clear from your team’s perspective, it will be easier to maintain and update the account over time.
We worked with our client Crisis Text Line to restructure their Grant account according to these best practices, and helped to generate a 38% increase in crisis counselor volunteer applications in one month from Google Ads-based traffic.
Tip 4: Test Your Theories
One of the great benefits of using the Ad Grant is the ability to test advertising language and tactics before applying those learnings to paid platforms. Responsive search ads let you input up to 15 different headlines and 4 descriptions, which makes it easy to test different value propositions. Google will test different copy combinations and optimize campaigns to show the best performing copy. While it’s not required to use every headline and description, try to use as many as possible without being repetitive.
Pro tip: Try out dynamic keyword insertion, which auto-inserts the phrase the user searched to trigger the ad into your ad copy. This makes the ad copy hyper-relevant to what the user was searching, increasing click through rates. Instead of a traditional 30 character headline, you would write something like: Buy {KeyWord:Chocolate}. Google will try to replace KeyWord with the user search query (in title case). If it can’t, it will use the word after the colon. More on how to format dynamic keyword insertion.
Tip 5: Ongoing Testing
The real trick behind achieving Google Ads success on the Ad Grant platform is just applying ongoing, creative attention to your account. Use your Google Ad Grant to test theories about user interest, brand messaging, and advertising techniques—don’t be afraid to try new ideas!
By using both imaginative marketing and data-backed testing, you’ll have the greatest chance of leveraging your Ad Grant for increased impact. If you have more questions about these strategies and case studies, explore additional Ad Grant resources. For more hands-on support, look out for the next session of our next 2-day Google Ad Grant Cohort.
