Digital Tabby

Austin Pets Alive! - Google Ad Grant Case Study

Logan Mastrianna — Fri, 28 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Introduction To Austin Pets Alive!

Austin Pets Alive! is one of the largest no-kill shelters in the country, running adoption, foster, and medical programs out of Austin along with operations in North Carolina and a thrift store that helps fund the mission.

They came to us with a Google Ad Grant that was already approved and already active, but through 2024 and into early 2025 the account was only trending around $3,500 a month, which is roughly a third of what was available to them.

Google Ad Grant Goals

Austin Pets Alive! wanted to use the Google Ad Grant to:

Drive adoption applications for both dogs and cats
Recruit foster parents
Generate donations, including recurring monthly giving
Support the thrift store that funds shelter operations
Reach beyond Austin to their North Carolina programs

They also needed conversion tracking that reported real donation revenue instead of button clicks, since without that there's no way to know which campaigns are worth scaling and no way to stay compliant with the Google Ad Grant rules.

Overall Results

Our launch date was May 1, 2025 and the preceding month had closed at $3,447.58. We were able to ramp the account up quickly and within 90 days we went from around $3,000 a month to above the maximum grant utilization, with July finishing at $10,381.26:

That's actually beyond the $10,000 a month that's available and there's no downside to it, it's just bonus spend for the nonprofit. This happens when an account consistently reaches more than the $329 daily average, which we're able to achieve quite frequently by running a high-performing account and targeting the right keywords that generate a high volume of searches.

After reaching $10K for the first time in July 2025, the account continued to reach 99% or more of the grant every single month, which led to a total grant utilization of $132,034.44 from July 2025 to July 2026 compared to roughly $54,000 the year before. That's close to two and a half times the free advertising Austin Pets Alive! was putting to work previously.

Process and Strategy

Let's explain what went into the account.

Leveraging Performance Max

We started by leveraging Performance Max. Performance Max is available to Google Ad Grant accounts and we find it often performs exceptionally well, especially for local campaigns.

The structure is critical since Performance Max doesn't use keywords, it uses audience signals. So to get the best results we segmented by cats and dogs, which meant each campaign could use a dedicated email list, a dedicated customer list, and audiences specific to that animal:

Prior to this, most accounts we take over just use a generic Performance Max asset group and, as is often the case with paid ads, we find this kind of segmentation makes a big difference.

Generating Donations

We generated donations by making sure our headlines clearly matched the landing page they were pointed at.

Austin Pets Alive! runs a lot of rotating special events, offers, and particular appeals, and most Google Ad Grant accounts use a generic headline to go to a generic page. Instead, we sent traffic (for branded searches especially) to the dedicated appeal page with dedicated headlines.

That extra time generated a higher conversion rate than previous years in the account even with the same search terms.

Full Funnel Conversion Tracking

When we first took over the account there was no dog adoption application or cat adoption application tracking, so we added full funnel conversion tracking that shows not only whether someone clicked the adoption application but whether they completed the application.

Critically, we also fixed issues with the donation event listed as purchase in Google Analytics 4, which is what finally gave us complete donation tracking:

With complete conversion tracking we're able to send better data to the Google Ad Grant algorithm and that's what helped us reach $4,549.67 in a single month. Conversions across the account are significant too, with 6,109 dog adoption applications and 1,500 cat adoption applications.

Moving Forward

Not only were we able to quickly scale to the max and above the max, we've been able to maintain grant utilization for a full year:

From July to July the account ran at $132,000 in free search advertising with conversion tracking that reports actual donation revenue instead of clicks.

If you want to see similar results for your organization, you can work with Digital Tabby to manage your Google Ad Grant and it all starts by booking a call.

Museum Nonprofit - Google Ad Grant Case Study

Logan Mastrianna — Fri, 28 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Introduction

This client is a large nonprofit with a museum function, and at their request we've kept them anonymous here. Everything below is from their live Google Ad Grant account.

The grant had been sitting on the account for years without doing much. Across the whole of 2023 it spent $1,051.12 and produced zero conversions, which is about as close to a dead account as a grant gets:

Google Ad Grant Goals

The nonprofit wanted to use the Google Ad Grant to:

Drive attendance to the museum
Generate real revenue through ticket purchases
Reach people planning a trip, not just people already in the area

That middle goal is the one most people write off. There's a persistent belief that the Google Ad Grant can't produce revenue, and it's the reason a lot of accounts sit unused the way this one did.

Overall Results

When we took over the account the first thing we had to add were conversions, and after working on hundreds of these accounts we have found that adding conversions makes a massive difference to how they perform. This is a strategy we've discovered across hundreds of grant accounts and it isn't something anyone else is talking about.

You can see the effect below, where conversions come off zero on the yellow line and the green cost line climbs with them:

After an April 1 launch we went from a spend of just about nothing to max daily grant utilization within two weeks, and the account has continued to hit the max since. Across May 2025 to May 2026 that represents $129,265.18 in grant utilization while hitting the daily max every month but one, which was down to volatility around the holidays:

The nonprofit has since focused the grant on the museum, where we've been able to generate revenue through ticket purchases. So while many people believe the grant is not a viable source of revenue, this account has produced $5,746.87 in ticket sales from the grant alone:

Process and Strategy

Let's explain how we did it.

Creative Location Targeting

Instead of only using the grant to target people in the immediate metro area, we target people from around the country, but it isn't as simple as widening the radius.

You don't want to reach somebody in southern California searching for "museum near me". What you want is to force the keywords to include the city, so that someone living in San Francisco searching for a museum in this particular city is still somebody we get in front of, because they're likely planning a trip to the area.

That's a great use case for the grant, because it puts you in front of people making lower intent queries that a paid account would usually skip.

Targeting "Things To Do"

The other thing we were able to do is look for people who are searching for things to do, which is again higher up the awareness funnel than someone specifically looking for a museum.

You can see the kind of queries that brings in below:

These are more creative approaches that don't necessarily make sense in a paid account unless you have the budget for them, because in a paid account you want to get in front of that high intent "museum near me" search to get the most for your spend. In a grant account you can afford to get creative, and as you can see from this one, creativity still generates significant revenue.

Moving Forward

The account went from $1,051 across an entire year to $129,265 in twelve months, and it now produces ticket revenue rather than just clicks.

If your nonprofit has a Google Ad Grant sitting unused, there are more ways to put it to work than most accounts ever try. You can work with Digital Tabby to manage your Google Ad Grant and it all starts by booking a call.

Public Radio Nonprofit - Google Ad Grant Case Study

Logan Mastrianna — Fri, 28 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Introduction

This client is a large public radio nonprofit, and at their request we've kept them anonymous here. Everything below is from their live Google Ad Grant account.

We took over the account in November 2025, when it was stuck at around $3,440 a month. The grant was active but it wasn't being pushed anywhere near what was available.

Google Ad Grant Goals

The nonprofit wanted to use the Google Ad Grant to:

Show up for the events happening in their area
Serve only their freshest content, never anything out of date
Support their pledge drives and turn interest into donations

Overall Results

November 2025, the month we took over, closed at $3,440.08:

Within four months we had broken $9,900, and by May 2026 the account reached an all-time high of $10,200.12, which is the full grant and then some:

Process and Strategy

Let's explain the three things that got it there.

Expanding Into Event Keywords

The nonprofit wanted to show up for the different events happening in their area but was previously unsure how to approach it, so we built out a collection of event-based keywords.

Some of those are specific to an individual event, like jazz festivals or music festivals, and others are deliberately generic, like things to do with families. We also set up conversions across the account, which were critical for the event campaign in particular, because without them there's no way to tell which of those two groups is actually worth the spend.

Serving Only The Freshest Content

The nonprofit wanted the grant to promote only their newest content, which is harder than it sounds in a search account.

Their URL structure happens to contain the date and month, so we built a dynamic search campaign around a URL pattern that matches a rolling three month window. That means content can start showing as soon as it's published, and anything older than three months drops out on its own. No stale content ever gets served.

Turning Brand Searches Into Donations

This nonprofit runs very large pledge drives, and they already have real brand awareness for their national programs, which is the kind of demand most grant accounts never think to capture.

Rather than sending someone to the homepage when they search the brand, or search for one of the many programs the nonprofit produces, we send them to a pledge drive page. So somebody looking for one of their best known shows lands on the current pledge drive alongside the content they came for, which turns traffic that was interested in the programming into donors.

For 2026 alone that has come to $32,888.91 in donations:

That is exceptional performance and it is not typical for a Google Ad Grant account. It's driven by the heavy brand awareness this nonprofit already had before we started, so not every organization should expect results at that level. The strategy itself is replicable, but what the grant can return depends a great deal on the demand already out there for you.

Moving Forward

The account went from $3,440 a month to the cap in six months, and it now supports the pledge drives rather than just producing clicks.

If you want to see similar results for your organization, you can work with Digital Tabby to manage your Google Ad Grant and it all starts by booking a call.

Humane Society of Sarasota County - Google Ad Grant Case Study

Logan Mastrianna — Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Overview

The Humane Society of Sarasota County (HSSC) is a no-kill shelter serving Sarasota, Florida. They came to us before their MEGA Adoption Weekend, a three-day Empty the Shelters event where every adoption fee would be waived. The goal: get as many animals into homes as possible across the weekend.

The marketing situation when we started was thin. They had a Google Ad Grant account that was inactive and barely utilized. No paid Meta ads were running. No paid Google Ads of any kind, anywhere.

For an event-driven push like Empty the Shelters, single-channel never works. We needed to be in front of the right people on every platform they use — searching, scrolling, and being reminded — over the few days leading up to the weekend.

The strategy

Three channels, one event. Each one doing a job the others can't.

Channel 1 — Google Ad Grant for search capture

We rewrote every headline and description in the grant account to mention the Empty the Shelters event and the fact that all adoption fees would be waived. The grant runs $10K/month in free Google Search ads — we used every cent to make sure that anyone searching for "adopt dog Sarasota," "pet adoption near me," or anything in that adjacent zone saw an ad that pointed directly at the weekend event.

Channel 2 — Meta ads for event RSVPs

We created a Facebook event for the MEGA Adoption Weekend and ran three ad types in parallel:

Event-promotion ads. These let people RSVP directly inside Facebook by tapping Interested. We love these because Facebook automatically sends RSVPs reminders leading up to the event and shows their friends that they're going, which compounds reach for free.
Engagement ads. Pushed the event post itself out to as many Sarasota residents as possible to amp up the hype and seed comments.
Reach ads. Direct broad coverage for awareness.

The Meta side of this campaign hit a wall of value. We generated more than 500 event responses at $0.42 per RSVP.

Channel 3 — Paid display for top-of-mind hype

This is where most agencies would have run Performance Max and called it a day. We went the other direction. Paid display ads keep the offer top of mind without the conversion pressure, and at extremely cost-effective CPMs.

Display has a reputation for being a waste of money. It usually is. When 90% of your impressions go to .games sites, mobile arcade apps, and content farms, your budget evaporates against an audience that will never adopt a dog from Sarasota.

So before launching, we deployed a script we run on every display campaign. It looks at placement reports daily and automatically excludes domains matching low-quality patterns — anything with "game" in the URL, crypto sites, content mills.

The result is a clean publisher network of local Sarasota and Florida lifestyle media. Real audiences who could actually attend.

The flow

A real adopter that weekend hit all three channels before walking through the door. They searched and saw a Grant ad. They scrolled Facebook and saw the event. They read the local paper and saw a display banner. By Saturday morning the event was inevitable.

The numbers

Headline numbers across the paid Google Ads side:

3.02K clicks across 3 active campaigns
26K impressions in the campaign window
32% conversion rate on tracked actions
$412 total spend on paid Google Ads
500+ event RSVPs from Meta at $0.42 each

The Google Ad Grant ran in parallel at zero cost (it's the free grant — that's $10K of additional ad inventory we used to back this up).

The result

Highest single-day adoptions in the history of the shelter.

Why this worked

Three things made the difference:

The offer was strong. Free adoptions for a single weekend is a sharp, time-bound hook. Display ads don't work without one; with one, they crush.
The channels covered the full funnel. Search captured intent (people already looking to adopt). Meta captured warmth (people in the local community who weren't searching but would be interested). Display captured the hype window (the 7 days leading up to the event where people who already knew about it needed a reminder).
The display script preserved budget. Without filtering low-quality placements, paid display would have burned through the budget on audiences that don't adopt dogs. The script kept the spend on real publishers reaching real Sarasota residents.

If you're running an event-driven campaign for a nonprofit and only using one channel, you're leaving the result on the table. The Google Ad Grant alone won't fill a shelter on Saturday. Meta ads alone won't either. The combination did.

27 Google Ad Grant Tips To Help Your Nonprofit Maximize Your Google Ad Grant

Logan Mastrianna — Fri, 02 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The internet is flooded with "Google Ad Grant tips." Most of them are generic, outdated, or just plain wrong. They tell you to focus on vanity metrics or follow "best practices" that don't actually move the needle for nonprofits.

You don't need another list of vague advice. You need actionable strategies that work in the real world from someone who manages these accounts every single day.

That's exactly what this guide is. We're cutting through the noise to give you 31 field-tested tips that cover everything from foundational setup to advanced optimization. No fluff and no theories. Just the honest truth about what it takes to turn your Google Ad Grant into a powerful engine for your mission.

1. Start With A Specific Goal

Your Google Ad Grant account needs a purpose. Without clear goals, you're just driving traffic without direction. Before you launch any campaigns, you must define the specific actions you want users to take on your website. These should be tangible outcomes that support your mission.

Good examples include tracking completed donation forms, volunteer applications, event registrations, or newsletter subscriptions. Start by tracking your baseline metrics for these actions. This data will become the benchmark you use to measure the success of your optimization efforts later on.

2. Understand the $329/Day Budget

The $10,000 monthly budget is one of the most attractive parts of the Google Ad Grant, but it's also one of the most misunderstood. This budget breaks down to an average of $329 per day. It's important to know that any unused budget from one day doesn't roll over to the next.

Your primary focus should always be on driving quality traffic, not just spending the full amount. A well-optimized account that effectively spends $2,000 a month (learn more about whether the Google Ad Grant is worth it) on qualified visitors is far more valuable than an account that poorly spends the full $10,000 on irrelevant clicks. Quality will always beat quantity. The goal of a Google Ad Grant agency is to get both.

3. Build a Proper Account Structure From Day One

A disorganized account is an ineffective one. Setting up a logical account structure from the very beginning is critical for management, reporting, and scalability. A core requirement of the Ad Grant is that every campaign must have at least two active ad groups.

Beyond that rule, you should organize your campaigns and ad groups by themes that reflect your services and the intent of your users. A solid structure makes it easier to write relevant ads, manage keywords, and understand performance. Plan for a structure that can grow with your organization as you add new programs and initiatives.

4. Create Campaigns Based on Audience or Location

Don't create new campaigns just for the sake of it. Your campaign structure should be determined by two key factors which are audience and location. This is because your location targeting and conversion goals are set at the campaign level.

If you need to target different geographic areas with different messaging, you'll need separate campaigns. For example, a campaign for local services in New York should be separate from a national awareness campaign.

Likewise, if you're targeting entirely different audiences, like patients versus healthcare professionals, they should be in separate campaigns. This prevents you from sending mixed signals to Google's bidding algorithm.

5. Keep Ad Groups Tightly Themed

Think of ad groups as small, focused containers. Each one should contain a tight cluster of closely related keywords. For an animal shelter, you wouldn't mix "cat adoption" keywords with "dog adoption" keywords in the same ad group.

Keeping themes tight allows you to write highly specific ad copy that speaks directly to the user's search. This improves your ad relevance, your Quality Score, and ultimately your performance. Remember that the Ad Grant requires a minimum of two ad groups per campaign, so this structure is essential for compliance.

6. Use Geotargeting Strategically

Your ads should only show where you actually provide services or have an audience. For local nonprofits, this means focusing your targeting on your specific city, state, or service radius. For national or international organizations, you can still use geotargeting to focus on high-performing regions or run separate campaigns for different countries.

Don't just set your location and forget it.

Google Ad Grant accounts perform best with MORE reach, not less. If your campaigns are struggling to get impressions, consider expanding your geographic targeting rather than narrowing it. The more people who can see your ads, the more opportunities you have to connect with supporters.

7. Don't Expect To Fundraise With The Google Ad Grant

The Google Ad Grant can be used for a lot of goals...but it doesn't do great with donations or fundraising. That's because the Google Ad Grant struggles with competitive keywords like "donate to charity" and similar revenue generating searches. Your best option for generating donations is going to be leveraging your brand:

8. You Only Need One Ad Per Ad Group

Previous Google support documentation said that you needed to have two ads per ad group...which honestly didn't make any sense. While the support documentation has since been updated, this Google Ad Grant myth still persists.

Google's system will automatically test different combinations of your assets to find the best-performing ad. Instead of spending your time creating multiple, slightly different ads, focus your energy on crafting one great responsive search ad with diverse and compelling headlines and descriptions.

9. Use Google Keyword Planner for Research

Your best starting point for keyword research is Google's own free tool, the Keyword Planner. You can find it inside your Google Ads account.

It helps you discover new keyword ideas, see estimated search volumes, and understand how competitive certain terms are. Use it to build your initial keyword lists and filter by location to see search demand in your specific service area.

10. Use Google Autocomplete for Free Keyword Ideas

One of the most underrated keyword research tools is Google search itself. Start typing your core terms into the search bar and pay close attention to the autocomplete suggestions that appear. These are real, popular searches that people are making right now.

It's a simple, free way to find long-tail keywords and understand the language your audience is using. We go over this technique (along with several others) in our Google Ad Grant course.

11. Start With Broad Match

Keyword match types give you control over how closely a user's search must match your keyword to trigger your ad. There are three types. Broad match gives you the widest reach but least control. Phrase match offers a balance of reach and relevance. Exact match gives you the most control but has the narrowest reach.

Keep it simple and start with broad match. You can worry about the other match types as your account grows.

12. Use Negative Keywords Proactively

Negative keywords are just as important as the keywords you target. They prevent your ads from showing on irrelevant searches, saving you from protect your CTR and protecting your click-through rate. You should review your search terms report weekly and add any irrelevant search queries as negative keywords.

You can build shared negative keyword lists (like one for "jobs" or "careers") and apply them across multiple campaigns to work more efficiently.

13. Understand The Limits When It Comes To Competitive Keywords

The Google Ad Grant uses a dual auction system when it comes to competitive keywords. This is the REAL limit of the Google Ad Grant and it's explained here:

14. Write Compelling Responsive Search Ads

A Responsive Search Ad (RSA) lets you write multiple headlines and descriptions, and Google mixes and matches them to find the best combination. To make them effective, you need to use all the available space. Write at least 10-15 unique headlines and at least 3 descriptions. Your ad copy should include your target keywords, highlight what makes your organization unique, and have a clear call-to-action that tells the user what to do next.

15. Use All Available Ad Assets

Ad assets (formerly known as extensions) are extra pieces of information that make your ad bigger, more informative, and more likely to be clicked. You should use every asset that's relevant to your organization. Sitelinks are especially valuable but use as many as you can.

16. Use Strong Calls To Action In Your Headlines

Whenever I audit Google Ad Grant accounts, I frequently see generic, bland, or generally uncompelling headlines. And Google almost encourages this by looking for your specific keywords in headlines.

However, you have 15 headlines to work with so make sure to include some clear calls to action in your headlines. Keep it simple and just tell the user exactly what you want them to do!

17. Select and Track Meaningful Conversions

Not all actions are created equal. A good conversion is an action that's genuinely valuable to your organization. When deciding what to track, ask yourself this question. "If someone told me this action happened, would I be excited or just say 'so what'?" You want to track the actions that make you excited, like donations, volunteer applications, or program registrations. Avoid vanity metrics like page scrolls or time on site.

This video goes into much greater detail on conversions and how to select the right ones:

18. Use Conversion Data to Optimize Geotargeting

Your conversion data is a goldmine for refining your location targeting and allows you to exactly how far out you can target and still get results. This video shows you exactly how to set this up:

19. Understand Grant PMax is Search-Only

This is the most important thing to know. The version of Performance Max in a Google Ad Grant account is different from the one in a paid account. Currently, it only shows ads on the Google Search network. It does not run on Display, YouTube, or other channels.

Think of it as a more advanced and powerful version of a Dynamic Search Ad campaign. Because it's search-only, you don't need to waste time creating video assets for your Grant PMax campaigns.

20. Use the Tiered Audience Signal System In Performance Max

In PMax, you provide "audience signals" to guide the campaign's targeting. For the best results, you should prioritize your signals in a tiered system. Your best signals are your own first-party data. Start with customer match lists of your past donors or volunteers if you have them.

Next, use your website remarketing audiences.

After that, you can layer in Google's in-market or life event audiences. Finally, use broader affinity audiences. Don't add too many signals. A few strong, relevant signals are better than a dozen weak ones.

21. Make Sure You Understand How Final URL Expansion Works

By default, Performance Max uses Final URL expansion, which allows Google to send traffic to any page on your website it deems relevant. When this feature is turned ON, Google can crawl your entire website and choose landing pages beyond what you've specified. This means users might land on old blog posts, expired job listings, or pages you didn't intend to promote.

When Final URL expansion is turned OFF, Google will only use the specific URLs you provide or the pages in your page feed. This gives you more control over where traffic lands and ensures users see your most relevant, up-to-date content.

Understanding how this setting works is important for managing your Performance Max campaigns effectively. If you notice a low click-through rate or traffic landing on unexpected pages, review your Final URL expansion settings and adjust accordingly.

Instead, provide specific URLs or use a page feed to tell Google exactly which pages you want to promote. This is especially important if you notice a low click-through rate in your PMax campaign.

22. Performance Max Works Great for Local Nonprofits

While any nonprofit can use PMax, it has shown particularly strong performance for organizations with a local focus.

If you provide services in a specific geographic area, you can leverage PMax to reach users in your community. Make sure you have your location assets set up and that your campaign is targeting the correct service area.

23. Set Realistic Expectations. Campaigns Take Months to Optimize

Patience is a virtue in Google Ad Grant accounts.

You won't see amazing results overnight. It typically takes at least 3 months for a new account or campaign to mature. During this time, Google's algorithms are learning, you're gathering performance data, and you're making iterative improvements. Don't get discouraged by slow initial results. Stick with it, and you'll see performance improve over time.

24. Use HIGH Target CPA Bidding to Jumpstart Campaigns

Target CPA (Cost Per Action) is a bidding strategy that tells Google the average amount you're willing to pay for a conversion. While Maximize Conversions is the simplest starting point for most Ad Grant accounts, Target CPA can be a powerful tool to jumpstart campaigns that need more aggressive bidding.

For Google Ad Grant accounts that need to unlock more traffic and impressions, set your Target CPA to $500. This gives the system plenty of room to bid more aggressively while still staying within the Grant's cost structure. Monitor performance closely after making this change, but don't make adjustments during the learning phase (at least 5-7 days).

25. Review Search Terms Weekly and Refine

The search terms report is your most valuable optimization tool. It shows you the exact search queries that people typed into Google before they clicked your ad. You should review this report at least once a week. Add any high-performing, relevant search terms as new keywords.

Add any irrelevant terms as negative keywords to prevent protect your CTR. This simple, regular task is one of the most effective ways to improve your account's performance over time.

26. Understand The Google Ad Grant Rules

Don't wait for Google to send you a warning email. You should be proactively monitoring your account's compliance health. This means checking your account-wide click-through rate (CTR) monthly to ensure it stays above the required 5%. It also means regularly checking for keywords with a Quality Score below 3, as these are not allowed. Set up automated rules or alerts in your Google Ads account to notify you of any potential issues before they become a problem.

27. Know the Appeal Process if Rejected or Suspended

If your account is suspended, don't panic. Suspensions can be appealed. The key is to first identify and fix the policy violation that caused the suspension. Once you've corrected the issue, you can submit an appeal through this form.

In your appeal, be specific about the changes you've made to resolve the problem. It typically takes three to five business days to get a response.

Google Ad Grant vs Paid Google Ads: Understand The Difference

Logan Mastrianna — Fri, 02 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

While both Google Ad Grants and paid Google Ads work within the same ecosystem, they play by different rules. Knowing when to use each, and how to use them together, can make the difference between a campaign that just drives clicks and one that drives meaningful impact.

Let's break down the main differences. We'll look at the dual auction system, what you can target, and how the two accounts can support each other. If you're also weighing whether to run Facebook and Instagram ads, the same logic applies: each channel does something the others can't.

What is the Google Ad Grant?

Google's Ad Grant program gives eligible nonprofits up to $10,000 USD per month in free advertising credit. It's a great opportunity for organizations looking to boost awareness, and drive website traffic. Contrary to popular belief it can also be a powerful tool in encouraging donations without paying out of your own pocket.

But there are limitations. Ad Grants accounts:

Can only run search campaigns (no Display or YouTube).
Must maintain a minimum 5% CTR and adhere to other compliance rules (like avoiding single-word keywords, branded competitor terms, and low-quality landing pages).
Can only use remaining ad inventory which means they show after paid ads have a had a chance to go which causes them to struggle with competitive keywords.

So, while it's free advertising, it comes with boundaries.

Understanding The Dual Auction System

The biggest difference between a Grant account and a paid account lies in how they compete in Google's auction system.

Google Ads operates on a live auction every time someone searches for something. Each advertiser's ad rank is determined by a mix of bid amount, quality score, and expected impact (like CTR and relevance).

Ad Grant accounts, however, participate in a separate auction from paid advertisers. That means your ads can still appear alongside paid ones, but only if they meet Google's quality thresholds and there's space below the paid results.

This setup prevents nonprofits from directly outbidding paying advertisers. It also explains why grant campaigns sometimes have lower impression shares or can disappear for highly competitive terms.

In practice, that means your grant account is great for consistent, ongoing visibility, while your paid account can help you fill the gaps where competition is strong or performance goals go beyond what the grant allows.

What You Can Target In Each Account

Because Ad Grants are limited to search campaigns, you can only target text-based ads on Google search results. You can't use Display, YouTube, Discovery, or Shopping formats. Even though Performance Max is available in grant accounts, it's also only search.

With a paid Google Ads account, however, you can run:

Display campaigns for awareness and remarketing.
YouTube campaigns for storytelling and video engagement.
Performance Max campaigns that combine multiple channels and placements.
Shopping ads for eCommerce nonprofits or social enterprises.

A paid account also offers more flexibility in targeting. You can use audience targeting, remarketing lists, demographic filters, and custom intent segments which are features not available in Ad Grants.

This means a smart nonprofit strategy often involves using the Grant for top-of-funnel awareness (bringing in new visitors and keeping your brand visible) and your paid account for remarketing and conversion-focused campaigns (donations, event signups, or volunteer recruitment). If you'd rather have someone handle the paid side for you, Google Ads management for nonprofits is one of the services we run.

When To Use Your Paid Account

If you already have a Google Ad Grant account, you might wonder why you'd need to spend on paid ads at all. Here's when it makes sense:

You're targeting high-competition keywords.
You want more ad formats. You can't run video, Display, or Performance Max in a Grant account.
You need to scale. Once your Grant campaigns hit their monthly cap or performance plateau, a paid account helps expand your reach.

In short: use your paid account to go deeper, not broader.

How To Use Both Together

The best results often come from using both accounts strategically.

Don't Worry About Competing With Yourself

Grant accounts will always show after paid accounts and serve ads in a separate auction. That means you won't ever increase your cost per click on your paid accounts.

Use Your Grant For Always-On Visibility

Think of your Ad Grant as your evergreen foundation. It keeps your nonprofit visible all year round, attracting steady streams of visitors.

Use Your Paid Account For Campaigns That Convert

When you run fundraising drives, events, or seasonal pushes, your paid account can leverage the warm audiences that your Grant campaigns have been building through remarketing.

Share Data Between The Two

Use Google Analytics and shared conversion tracking to learn which keywords, pages, and audiences perform best across both accounts.

When managed together, the Ad Grant can act as a cost-free traffic driver that supports your paid strategy. The Grant fuels awareness and volume; paid ads drive targeted action.

Final Thoughts

The Google Ad Grant isn't a replacement for paid Google Ads, it's there to compliment it and the best results come from when they work hard together: one building awareness, the other driving deeper engagement and conversions.

By understanding the dual auction and managing keyword overlap carefully you can build a Google Ads ecosystem that maximizes reach and ROI, without wasting a dollar of your Grant.

Done right, it's not Google Ad Grant versus Google Ads. It's Google Ad Grant and Google Ads, working together to help your nonprofit grow.

16 Google Ad Grant Myths Busted: What Nonprofits Really Need to Know

Logan Mastrianna — Tue, 04 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMT

For more than two decades, the Google Ad Grant has been a game-changer for nonprofit organizations, providing up to $10,000 per month in free Google Ads spend to help raise awareness and attract donors. Yet, despite its impact, there are still plenty of misconceptions floating around.

Non-profits are often confused about how the Grant works due to misunderstandings about eligibility, setup, and maintenance. Common myths often discourage nonprofits from taking full advantage of one of the most powerful digital marketing tools available.

Below are some of the most common Google Ad Grant myths busted.

Myth 1: The Google Ad Grant doesn't work

Many nonprofits believe the grant is ineffective because they've heard stories of how it drives low traffic or irrelevant clicks. The truth is, when managed strategically, the Google Ad Grant can drive thousands of qualified visitors to your website each month.

Success depends on a number of crucial factors including proper account setup and keyword strategy just like a paid Google Ads account. It also requires ongoing optimizations. If an account is underperforming, it's almost always because it's been set up and left to run itself. Sometimes it's also because the account goals aren't aligned with the organization's goals and audience intent.

But the short version is that the Google Ad Grant can work and is worth the effort.

Myth 2: The Grant will lead to immediate fundraising success

Rome wasn't built in a day, and while the Google Ad Grant can help increase donations, it's not an instant fundraising machine….just like any of your other marketing efforts. The goal of your Grant is to increase visibility and awareness while driving meaningful engagement, which often supports fundraising indirectly.

Just like your other marketing activities your funnel is still essential to lowering CPA and scaling. Donations typically come after someone learns about your mission, engages with your content, and builds trust in your organization. The Grant helps make those first steps possible, and plays a crucial role in top and middle of funnel activity. It should be seen as part of a broader digital strategy, not a one-click donation tool.

Myth 3: It's hard to get approved for the Grant

Once upon a time this was the case and Ad Grant applications were lengthy processes with the select few being approved. This is now however a a common misconception, it's not complicated and doesn't take months. The process is really straightforward when your nonprofit meets Google's eligibility requirements.

You'll need a valid charity status, and a high-quality website that meets Google's standards. The full eligibility requirements are explained here:

You'll also need a Google for Nonprofits account, which Google provides you with upon application approval. Many organizations can get approved within days when they follow the outlined steps correctly. If you get stuck, we have a mini-course that shows you exactly what to do and where to click.

Myth 4: Small nonprofits can't benefit from Google Ad Grants

Some people assume that it's only large organizations with big marketing teams that can make the Grant work. That's not true. Small nonprofits can benefit just as much, sometimes even more.

Local or niche organizations often have very specific audiences, which means less competition for relevant search terms. With the right keywords and content strategy, small nonprofits can reach highly engaged audiences without needing large teams or budgets.

Myth 5: You can't track ROI or measure conversions

Another common myth is that the Grant doesn't allow for proper tracking. In fact, you can measure ROI better with Ad Grant than you can some of your other marketing activities by connecting your Google Ads account to Google Analytics 4 (GA4) or Google Tag Manager.

You can track actions like donations, volunteer sign-ups, newsletter subscriptions, and downloads. These insights help nonprofits understand what's working. It allows them to refine their messaging, and improve overall digital performance.

Myth 6: If you don't spend the full $10,000 each month, you'll lose your account

This one's widespread, and completely false. Google doesn't expect nonprofits to spend all $10,000 every month.

The Grant provides up to $10,000 in free ad spend, meaning you can use what you need based on your campaign goals. Performance and policy compliance matter far more than hitting the full spend amount.

Myth 7: Unused ad spend rolls over to the next month

Unfortunately not, unused Google Ad Grant funds do not roll over. The $10,000 resets each month. But we believe it's better to spend $2,000 effectively than $10,000 poorly.

Focusing on high-quality traffic and conversions will benefit your organization much more than trying to "use up" the full allowance.

Myth 8: The $2 bid cap makes it impossible to compete

There used to be a $2 maximum cost-per-click (CPC) limit, which led many to believe that Grant accounts couldn't compete with paid advertisers, and maybe it's arguable that previously it was a bit harder.

Today however, that restriction only applies to campaigns using manual bidding. Nonprofits can use automated bidding strategies like "Maximize Conversions," which allows Google to adjust bids intelligently and compete more effectively, even against paid accounts.

Myth 9: Paid accounts and Grant accounts can't coexist

Nope, this is another misunderstanding. You can absolutely run a paid Google Ads account alongside your Google Ad Grant.

Many nonprofits successfully use both accounts together and here's how. Using their Grant for awareness and education campaigns, and their paid account for high-intent keywords and remarketing. This combined approach allows organizations to cover more of the user journey without wasting budget.

Myth 10: Facebook Ads are a better investment for nonprofits

Meta (Facebook, Instagram and Audience Network) Ads can be powerful, they serve a different purpose. Meta excels at reaching warm audiences and building community. With the exception of re marketing it focuses on interest based audiences vs Google Ads which capture people actively searching for your cause.

In other words Google helps you reach people with intent. The best digital strategies use both platforms, each playing a unique role in your marketing funnel.

Myth 11: Google suspends accounts all the time, and it's permanent

It's true that Google can suspend accounts that violate Grant policies, both paid and Ad Grant.

But suspensions usually happen because of inactive accounts, low-quality ads, or missed policy requirements. There's lots of ways to maintain your Ad Grant account such as: maintaining compliance, logging in regularly, keeping campaigns active, and meeting quality standards. Do these things and you can easily avoid this issue.

Myth 12: Agencies take part of your $10,000 Grant budget

Google Ad Grant funds cannot be paid to agencies or consultants. The $10,000 per month is exclusively for ad spend within the Google Ads platform.

If a nonprofit chooses to work with an agency, those fees are separate and paid directly. The Grant budget itself always remains intact.

Myth 13: Google Ad Grants cause tax issues for nonprofits

Some people worry that the Grant will create complicated tax reporting or affect their nonprofit status but Google Ad Grant is considered an in-kind donation, not taxable income.

There's no need to declare it as revenue on your Form 990, and it won't affect your organization's financial reporting beyond standard accounting disclosure for in-kind support.

Myth 14: Once you're approved, you don't need to do anything and the Google Ad Grant account runs itself

While the Google Ad Grant provides an incredible opportunity, it requires ongoing management to perform well.

Testing, and optimizations are still needed to see success, just like with any other marketing platform. Google's algorithm rewards active, optimized accounts. Leaving it on autopilot leads to declining performance and potential policy violations. Regular reviews and keyword updates are essential for continued success.

Myth 15: You need to log in every 30 days and make a change every 90 days

There's some confusion around activity requirements. While it's true that accounts must remain active, logging in once a month or tweaking one ad every quarter isn't a Google imposed rule to maintain your Google Ad Grant.

Instead, to stay compliant, organizations should consistently review performance, refresh campaigns, and maintain a minimum click-through rate (CTR) of 5%. Active management is the key to maintaining eligibility and results.

Myth 16: Performance Max works like in paid accounts

Google's Performance Max campaigns are a popular option amongst digital marketers and when we found out that they were coming to Ad Grant most of us were thrilled. Many nonprofits assume they can use the same features available to paid advertisers but unfortunately, that's not the case.

Performance Max in Google Ad Grant accounts is limited to Search Network only. That means your ads won't appear across YouTube, Display, Gmail, or Discovery placements like they would in a standard paid account.

While this may sound restrictive, it actually helps ensure that Grant funds are spent on high-intent search queries, the users most likely to be looking for your cause. For broader awareness campaigns, nonprofits can always run separate paid accounts alongside their Grant to reach audiences on those additional channels.

Closing Thoughts

Google Ad Grant remains one of the most valuable opportunities available to nonprofits, but it's often wildly misunderstood. Many of these myths stem from outdated information or experiences with unmanaged accounts.

When implemented strategically the Google Ad Grant can help nonprofits reach new audiences and support fundraising goals long-term. It's not free money, but it is free visibility that can transform how your organization grows online.

If you want to learn how you can get more from your Google Ad Grant click here to book a call and let's get started!

Google Ad Grants Application & Eligibility: 2025 Guide for Nonprofits

Logan Mastrianna — Sat, 10 May 2025 00:00:00 GMT

If your nonprofit has ever applied for a grant before then you know just how tedious, complicated, and confusing the process can be!

Heck, there are whole industries of grant managers, writers and more just to support the process.

But that isn't the case with the Google Ad Grant which provides $10,000 a month of in-kind Google Ads advertising and can be applied for in less than 20 minutes. This grant is available in more than 60 countries around the world and can have a huge impact on your nonprofit's mission.

In this article, I'll explain exactly how to apply for the Google Ad Grant in 3 steps.

First, we'll make sure that your nonprofit is eligible, then we'll apply for a Google for nonprofits account, and finally we can apply for the Google Ad Grant.

The entire process will typically take less than 20 minutes of your time but because we have to wait for verification on Google's side it will typically take 7 to 10 days between starting the process and having access to an active Google Ad Grant account.

Let's get started!

Step 1: Eligibility Requirements

Before we apply, we need to make sure your nonprofit is eligible for a Google Ad Grant. Below is a video walkthrough of the eligibility criteria, plus links to Google's official documentation.

You can also refer to Google's documentation and we'll be covering everything on the eligibility requirements and website policies pages.

Are You A Registered Nonprofit?

In the United States, that means you're classified as a 501(c)(3), in the United Kingdom organizations need to be registered with the charity regulator and so on. Organizations that have a proven affiliation to a nonprofit that has 501(c)(3) status are also eligible.

Is Your Nonprofit In An Eligible Country?

The Google Ad Grant program is active in more than 60 countries so there's a good chance your country is included. You can see the full list of countries here.

Are You In An Excluded Industry?

Not all nonprofits are eligible and Google excludes the following from the program:

Governmental organizations or entities
Hospital or health care organization
A school, academic institution, or university

If you're not sure, you should still apply as there are many educational and healthcare nonprofits. These rules are primarily intended to exclude governmental organizations and nonprofits that effectively function as a business.

Do You Fully Own Your Domain?

While this might seem obvious, I've spoken with several nonprofits that want to send traffic to things like an event page that's hosted on Eventbrite or a landing page hosted by Constant Contact. Unless these are subdomains of your owned domain, you won't be able to send traffic directly to those pages.

Instead, you'll need to send them to a related page on your domain and direct them from there.

Does Your Website Have An SSL Certification?

When it comes to security, Google is expecting you to have an SSL certificate and serve your website via HTTPS. This is a web standard at this point and any host will be able to provide and help you set this up.

If you're not sure what this means or how to check, you can use GoDaddy's free SSL checker here and check your nonprofit's website in just a few seconds.

Does Your Website Load Quickly?

When it comes to "loading quickly" things are a bit more ambiguous but if your page is loading in under two seconds you shouldn't have any issues. You can use Google's Page Speed Insights tool to check your page speed.

If your website is above 50 out of 100, you should have no issue with getting approval. If you're below, you may need to make improvements before getting approved.

Does Your Website Have Technical Issues?

Google wants to make sure your website doesn't have broken links, a poor mobile experience, or unclear navigation. These easy to spot issues can easily lead to your application being denied.

Spend 60 seconds clicking around your website and make sure you don't have 404 errors or clicks that don't function.

Is It Easy To Understand Your Mission?

Pretend you're a typical user on your website, is it easy to navigate and understand your nonprofit's mission? If a random Google employee can't quickly understand your nonprofit's mission then you'll need to make some changes.

Does Your Website Have Unique Content?

Make sure your website has original material that relates directly to your nonprofit's mission. While it might be tempting to republish content from other sources, Google wants to see that you're creating unique value.

Does Your Website Include Your Registration Number?

In the US this is your EIN but whatever it's called you'll want to make sure it's clearly noted in the footer, homepage and about page of your website. Typically adding this to the footer is enough to get the job done since it will cover the entire site.

Is Your Website Overly Commercial?

Your website and your nonprofit should not be overly commercial. This means you don't have affiliate links, display advertising and your organization offers something to the general public beyond only paid services. Those services could be as simple as public information or as complex as free care but you need to be offering something outside of paid services.

These rules are intended to keep for-profit businesses from presenting themselves as nonprofits and as long as your organization is a true nonprofit I rarely see this become an issue.

Step 2: Sign Up For Google For Nonprofits

Once you've confirmed that your nonprofit is eligible, it's time to start applying! This video explains the process in less than 3 minutes:

The first thing you'll do is sign up for Google for Nonprofits which will then get you access to apply for the Google Ad Grant.

To start this process, go to Google For Nonprofits and click the "Get Started" button in the top right corner.

You'll be taken through a series of prompts where you'll verify your nonprofit's status, confirm your eligibility based on the criteria we just reviewed, and then submit your information to be verified by Goodstack (which is a 3rd party that Google uses to verify nonprofits). It typically takes less than 5 days to get approved but if you run into issues you can contact Goodstack directly here.

If you do get rejected, make sure to contact Goodstack (and not Google) to verify your status. Incorrect rejections can happen, especially if your nonprofit is very new, and while they're uncommon you should still follow up.

Once you're verified, you'll receive a confirmation email and you'll be able to move on to the next step.

Step 3: Apply For A Google Ad Grant

Now it's time to login to your Google For Nonprofits account and apply for the Google Ad Grant program. Click the "Get Started" button in the Google Ad Grants section and you'll be taken through a series of prompts.

Once you've completed the steps (which should take around 10 minutes), Google will check your website to make sure everything is compliant. This process typically takes 3 days and you should look for an email once you're approved.

Do not create a Google Ads account prior to getting accepted!

Instead, once your nonprofit is approved, Google will allow you to log into a ready-made Google Ad Grant account. If you aren't sure if you're in a paid or grant account, navigate to the billing summary page using the left sidebar where you should see something that reads "We don't bill you So there's nothing to see here. Happy advertising!"

That's it! You now have a Google Ad Grant!

What To Do If You Get Stuck

Applying for the Google Ad Grant isn't always straightforward and some nonprofits will run into account access issues or cryptic rejection messages from Google.

If you get stuck, you can always contact Google For Nonprofits. However, the support you get can be spotty.

If you're a nonprofit struggling with this process, you're welcome to book a free call and we can help you navigate the process. Just find a time here. There's no obligation or expectation and we'd be happy to help you get the Google Ad Grant!

But getting approved is just the beginning of your Google Ad Grant journey. Once you've secured that $10,000 monthly budget, you'll face a whole new set of challenges...

Now What?

Now it's time to start using and eventually maximizing your Google Ad Grant! We've helped dozens of nonprofits turn their $10,000 monthly grant into real results, and we're ready to share our strategies with you.

While getting approved is an achievement, many nonprofits find themselves overwhelmed by Google's requirements once they have the grant. Between creating effective campaigns, following grant compliance rules, and constantly adapting to Google's changing policies, it's no wonder that the average nonprofit uses just $300 of their available $10,000 monthly budget.

If you want to have someone else handle it, you can always work with Digital Tabby to manage your Google Ad Grant! But if you'd prefer to handle things internally, check out our Google Ad Grant course and program where you'll join a community of nonprofits mastering their grants together with expert guidance.

Not sure which option is right for you? You can always book a call here and our Google Ad Grant pros will get you pointed in the right direction!

Why Google Ad Grants Struggle With Competitive Keywords (Dual Auction System Explained)

Logan Mastrianna — Tue, 07 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMT

You may have heard that Google Ad Grants are "only good for awareness" or that they "struggle to show up for competitive searches". This is generally, but not always true, and understanding why will give you a much better insight into what this really means and how it impacts Google Ad Grant effectiveness.

It all comes down to the dual auction system that Google uses to determine the placement of free or grant ads compared to paid ads.

Google Ad Grant ads show up after paid ads and for highly competitive searches (like those related to donations) there might not be any advertising space left for grant ads to take. As a result, you'll see very few or even no impressions.

That means it's more accurate to say that Google Ad Grants struggle with highly competitive keywords, but that doesn't mean they're only good for awareness as a result. We've regularly used the Google Ad Grant for a wide range of strategies including promoting events, local services, list building and much more.

Let's take a closer look at exactly how this dual auction works.

Understanding The Dual Auction Process

We'll start by breaking down the auction process step by step.

1. Advertisers Target Keywords

Everything starts with keywords.

Advertisers (both paid and grant) select keywords they want their ads to show for and create relevant ads to match those keywords.

2. The Search Trigger

When someone searches on Google using terms that match your keywords, it triggers an auction.

In this auction, each advertiser bids on the keywords they want to target. But unlike a traditional auction where the highest bidder wins, Google uses Quality Score and the maximum an advertiser is willing to pay to create their Ad Rank score.

Because Quality Score uses relevance factors like Landing Page Experience, Expected CTR, and Ad Relevance it allows Google to give extra ranking power to the most relevant advertiser. In other words, it's not just your bid that matters but instead your bid and your relevance to the search term.

This graphic from WordStream does a great job explaining this and notice how the advertiser with the highest bid isn't necessarily the one with the best ad position:

3. First Auction: Paid Accounts Only

The first auction includes only paid Google Ads accounts. If there's a lot of competition, paid accounts will potentially take all the available ad spots.

4. Second Auction: Grant Accounts

Only after the first auction completes does Google consider grant accounts.

The crucial detail here is that grant accounts only enter this second auction if there are remaining ad spots after paid accounts have finished bidding. If paid accounts take all the available spots, there will be no second auction for grant accounts since there's no space to bid on.

Why This Matters For Your Google Ad Grant

Highly competitive searches (like those related to donations) often have no space for grant ads since paid ads have taken all the available positions. This is why targeting "donate cars" or similar high-competition terms rarely works well in grant accounts.

When keywords have a very high-intent (like "donate car" or "donate for cats") they'll often have more competition. One of the ways around this is to focus on keywords with lower, but still highly valuable intent. That could be something like "how to help cats" or "what to do with an old car".

This video explains a specific example used for HeroBox:

Should You Have Both A Paid And A Grant Account?

Nonprofits are often concerned that having both paid and grant accounts will lead to competition, and higher cost per click, for both accounts.

But now that we understand the dual auction system, we see that this isn't an issue.

Instead, the dual auction system actually creates a unique opportunity to run both paid and grant accounts without them competing against each other. Since they operate in separate auctions, running both accounts won't drive up costs. This allows you to use each account type strategically:

Your grant account can focus on lower intent (but still valuable) keywords to avoid competition.
Your paid Google Ads account can target those high-intent, competitive searches where grant ads struggle to show like donation or revenue generating searches.

This combination gives you the best of both worlds, complete keyword coverage without internal competition. Many nonprofits also layer in meta ads for nonprofits to capture demand that doesn't show up in search at all, like prospective donors and event attendees on Facebook and Instagram.

The Bottom Line

Understanding the dual auction system is crucial for understanding why grant accounts can struggle with some (but not all) competitive terms. However, the details matter and what paid advertisers are targeting can vary wildly between advertisers.

Remember: your goal isn't to outbid paid advertisers (you can't), but to find the valuable keywords they're not targeting. This might require more creativity and testing, but it's the key to maximizing your grant within Google's dual auction system.

Performance Max Added To Google Ad Grant (How To Maximize It)

Logan Mastrianna — Mon, 09 Sep 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Google announced in September that Google Ad Grant accounts would now get access to Performance Max campaigns. This is one of the biggest (if not the biggest) change to Google Ad Grants in the last decade and while it's got people excited, it's not quite as amazing as it seems at first glance.

That's because nonprofits are getting a much different version of the Performance Max campaign type.

The version you'll find in a grant account is only utilizing search instead of the multi-channel placements that really give Performance Max its power.

Let's take a closer look at this change, what it means for the future of the Google Ad Grant, and how you can optimize this version of Performance Max.

This Isn't Your Standard Performance Max

Performance Max campaigns allow you to advertise using images, videos, and text across a huge range of Google's advertising channels including search, display, maps, YouTube, Discover, shopping and more.

With Performance Max, you're giving more control to Google's algorithms and instead of selecting keywords you're targeting via audiences or themes. Performance Max is extremely powerful, assuming you're giving it the right data, and a great way for any nonprofit to expand their reach.

The Google Ad Grant version of Performance Max isn't the same as what you'd find in a paid account, instead, it's currently only showing ads in search results.

That makes the grant PMax closer to a souped-up version of dynamic search ads where we're scanning the website and creating ads without keyword inputs, although likely with better results compared to the somewhat finnicky dynamic search ad.

Overall, this is a huge limitation when you consider that one of the big benefits of a Performance Max campaign is the ability to easily advertise across multiple channels at once. It's one of the main things that Google highlights when they talk about Performance Max so it's a little strange that they've completely removed this selling point:

It's unclear if Google is going to expand the grant version of PMax to match the version we see in paid accounts and we can only speculate at this point.

I could honestly see this going either way and while PMax is based around multiple channels, grant accounts have always been focused exclusively on search so adding a PMax campaign type that's in line with this limitation might not be that unusual.

What makes this even more confusing, is that the version of Performance Max found within grant accounts is still prompting users to add videos and other assets despite only serving in search. Hopefully this gets resolved soon as this will no doubt confuse anyone trying to launch a Pmax campaign within a grant account.

Maximizing Performance Max In A Grant Account

Let's go over a few key tips for getting the most out of Performance Max in a Grant account.

1. Understand Text Expansion & Final URL Options

Text expansion & Final URL in Performance Max can be both powerful and problematic for nonprofits.

If you leave both of these on, you're essentially creating a Dynamic Search Ad (DSA) where Google will crawl your website, find any URL that it thinks has search demand and create appropriate ad copy for it.

You have to keep in mind (just as you would with a DSA ad) that Google will crawl anything that's indexed including a random blog post from 2013, a job posting that's expired, your privacy policy or a thank you page. However, this is already a concern with DSA ads so take the same precautions that you would there.

For nonprofits with a lot of content (like an online magazine for example) leaving these two options on and excluding some URLs can be a great way to use Performance Max.

For everyone else, I recommend leaving Final URL unchecked and giving yourself more control over the targeting. Whether that's with a specific URL or by uploading a page feed. If you're unfamiliar with page feeds, this video does a great job explaining how to get this set up:

2. Choose The Right Audiences

Remember that in Performance Max, audience signals are simply suggestions and not necessarily the audience that will be targeted. Think of these like suggestions and not specific targeting.

But we still want our "suggestions" to be good!

Most nonprofits make the mistake of adding a ton of audience signals into their Performance Max campaigns. Too much signal is really just noise so focus on the most important audiences for your nonprofit.

Additionally, I've seen the best results from prioritizing customer match lists if they're available, remarketing audiences, in-market audiences or life events and then affinity audiences in that order.

This video explains these audience types, and the benefits of each, in detail:

Sprinkle in some search themes on top of that as well and don't worry too much about detailed demographics unless your nonprofit is very specific to a gender or age range.

Because we're using audience signals instead of keywords, I've also found it valuable to segment more than you might with a DSA campaign. For example, for Cat Care Society, we'll have a different audience signal for our cat adoption pages compared to our volunteer pages. For cat adoption, we can use the Life Event of "Adding Cat To Household Soon":

But for volunteering campaigns we would likely find better results from the "Charitable Donors & Volunteers" affinity audience.

In both cases, we should be prioritizing our customer match or retargeting lists if we have them available as they'll give the best signal (or "suggestion") to Google.

3. Don't Stress Your Ad Strength

Because there's no reason to add video to your Assets, you're going to end up with "Good" ad strength as the max. Don't stress it, your ads will still serve and there's no reason to spend time uploading videos that won't serve.

How To Manage Low Click-Through Rate

With around 10 Performance Max campaigns across just as many Google Ad Grant accounts, I'm seeing a surprisingly low Click-Through Rate (CTR) in several campaigns, as in below 3% and in some cases below 1%. This would be an inconvenience to work through in most paid accounts, but in a grant account nonprofits have to worry about the 5% minimum CTR requirement.

However, reliable sources (see below, last paragraph) are saying this 5% rule won't apply to Performance Max but I'd still be careful with it.

There are some theories as to why CTR is so low for some of these campaigns but the best solution right now is to narrow down your targeting and increase segmentation when you see it. That means turn off Final URL expansion if it's on and narrow down your Asset groups to one page or at least one key theme while focusing on your most important and clearest signals.

Is Performance Max In Grant Accounts Showing Display Ads?

One possible explanation for a low CTR is that Performance Max could be inadvertently showing display ads. I have not been able to spot a display ad in the wild yet but when running Jack Felstead's Performance Max Insight Report (which I highly recommend) I'm seeing several campaigns with display placements listed.

However, running Performance Max Placements report natively in Google Ads doesn't show any Display placements.

Because this Google Ads script pulls from Google's API, I tend to trust this data. I'm also seeing a pattern between Performance Max campaigns with lower CTR and a higher percentage of Display placement listed.

If this is happening, it isn't intentional and I'm still researching this further. I'll keep this post updated with what I find.

Why Don't I See Performance Max As An Option?

Not every grant account will have the option to launch Performance Max yet and it looks like this feature is going to be rolled out over time. So far, I'm seeing around 50% to 60% of Google Ad Grant accounts with access.

Keep checking your account creation screen and look for a new campaign type between the "Search" and "Smart" campaigns that are typically offered.

Closing Thoughts

Adding Performance Max to grant accounts is a good thing, even if we're getting a watered-down version. Not only does it show that Google is still giving some attention to the grant program, but it also sets that stage for the addition of the full version of Performance Max which would be an absolute game-changer for grant accounts.

What do you think? Are you looking forward to using this search-only version PMax?

If you want the full version of Performance Max (with Display and YouTube placements), that runs in a paid Google Ads account, not the grant. We run paid Performance Max campaigns for nonprofits alongside their grant accounts. If you're eyeing social-style placements as well, our Meta Ads management is the cleaner path to Facebook and Instagram audiences.

Acupuncture Now Foundation - Google Ad Grant Case Study

Logan Mastrianna — Sun, 01 Sep 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Introduction To Acupuncture Now Foundation

The Acupuncture Now Foundation (ANF) helps people understand what acupuncture is, how it really works, and whether or not it's a good fit for them. They gather and share accurate, unbiased information and research about acupuncture and share it with potential patients via helpful articles on their website.

Additionally, ANF connects with acupuncturists to share the latest techniques and research so that the industry as a whole can continue to develop. In 2024, ANF launched a campaign focused on helping patients with peripheral neuropathy via acupuncture. This campaign shared the latest research and how acupuncture could help patients find relief from this notoriously difficult to treat condition.

Google Ad Grant Goals

The Acupuncture Now Foundation wanted to use the Google Ad Grant to:

Promote their peripheral neuropathy research to people suffering from the condition and make them aware that acupuncture is a viable treatment option for pain relief.
Connect patients to acupuncturists certified by ANF to treat peripheral neuropathy. ANF created a directory that allows people to find certified practitioners in their area.

While we're targeting similar audiences between these two goals, we do have a variety of location targeting that will need to be managed. Let's get into the results!

Overall Results

The Acupuncture Now Foundation had an active Google Ad Grant that was spending around $5,000 to $6,000 per month.

While that's more grant utilization compared to the average nonprofit, the account had major quality issues and was targeting generic, low-intent, keywords instead of searches related to peripheral neuropathy. Additionally, the account was lacking conversion tracking which not only limited the account performance but made it impossible to know if results were truly good or bad.

Within 3 months, we were able to scale the account to the full spend, and even reached $16,984.24 in December thanks to extra budget from Google during the holidays.

We had a dip in spend in October after a team internal to ANF changed website tracking but we were able to resolve this as fast as possible and scale the account to new all time highs immediately after.

It also highlights that working with Digital Tabby isn't about just having a team to handle the Google Ad Grant, instead, it's also about having a digital marketing expert that you can consult to solve unexpected problems as quickly as possible. We were able to help ANF troubleshoot the tracking issue and get back on track.

We also shifted the conversion tracking from low value or inaccurate conversions (like viewing the homepage) to meaningful conversions like signing up for the newsletter, engaging with a certified acupuncturist, and more.

As a result, we were able to generate almost 100 newsletter sign ups, send more than 200 users to certified acupuncturists in their area, and increase professional engagement with the ANF.

I run a very small non-profit that almost went under during COVID. We survived but needed to get our Google Ad Grant back on track with a new focus. Logan has been a life (or grant) saver. Very professional, knowledgeable, and understanding of the difficulties we face. I would highly recommend Logan's services.

Matthew Bauer, President of the Acupuncture Now Foundation

Process and Strategy

With ANF, we were taking over an account and shifting existing spend to new priorities. This requires a different approach compared to starting with a fresh account so let's break down how we achieved these results.

Conversion Tracking

Whether it's a new account or one that's been active for years, we always start with conversion tracking. Not only is it required to keep your Google Ad Grant account compliant, it's also essential so that you can understand exactly what's happening in your account.

This video explains exactly how we approach conversion tracking, why it's important, and how we communicate this process to nonprofits:

For ANF, we removed weak or outdated conversions in favor of more valuable actions like newsletter sign ups and tracking when users engaged with the directory of acupuncturists. These conversions let us move beyond simply reporting on clicks or spend and instead focus on the valuable actions that actually matter to ANF.

Account Updates & Build Out

When Digital Tabby takes over accounts that are already active, we always leave previous campaigns live and build out our new campaigns.

We typically find that once proper conversions are in place, many old campaigns "come to life" and provide even more valuable data. Over time, we'll pause these campaigns in favor of the new build but this approach allows us to scale the account without having a drop in ad spend.

The Acupuncture Now Foundation's account was quite dated with no changes to the account for several years. We found conversions from Universal Analytics which hasn't been functional since July 2023 and Expanded Text Ads which haven't been available since June 2022:

Additionally, the account had a very redundant and complicated structure that made management more difficult than it needed to be. You can learn more about our recommended campaign structure in this short video.

Despite having existing spend, we effectively started from scratch since the account had dated or useless conversions, ancient (at least in the world of digital marketing) ads, and a focus on keywords that were not moving the mission forward.

Dealing With Policy Issues

When it comes to healthcare nonprofits like the ANF (and others we've looked at), policy issues are common but still very confusing to understand.

Most healthcare nonprofits will have to deal with a policy violation of "Health In Personalized Advertising" which is explained by Google here. Google's cryptic explanation leaves many nonprofits confused but as long as your policy violation also shows "Approved (limited)" you should still be able to get impressions.

However, this account ended up with policy violations that showed "Disapproved" which means these ads will not have a chance to get impressions. In many cases, we had to rewrite ad copy until we found a combination of headlines that Google approved. There isn't an easy answer here and Google's system will flag first and then sort it out later.

Instead, this is a process that requires monitoring, modifying and updating ads over time to stay compliant and keep accounts active.

Moving Forward

The Acupuncture Now Foundation faces the same challenges as most nonprofits when it comes to maximizing their Google Ad Grant, including confusion about policies, difficulty getting the account to serve ads, and a lack of clarity about how to hire.

Healthcare nonprofits face unique challenges with Google Ad Grants, but ANF's success proves it's absolutely possible to overcome policy hurdles and drive meaningful results. Within just three months, we took their account from basic spend to maximum grant utilization while connecting real patients with the care they need.

Your nonprofit deserves the same level of results. Schedule your Google Ad Grant audit today and let's get your account working as hard as your mission does.

Cat Care Society - Google Ad Grant Case Study

Logan Mastrianna — Sun, 01 Sep 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Introduction To Cat Care Society

Cat Care Society is a private, non-profit cat shelter founded in 1981 that was established to improve the quality of life for cats in need. They're a free-roaming cat shelter which means they only use cages when medically necessary. That means happier cats and more fun for visitors with plenty of cats to pet!

The core activity of Cat Care Society is sheltering cats, providing medical support, and adopting cats to the public. Additionally, Cat Care Society is part of the Denver-metro community and regularly holds educational events and creates content that's helpful to cat owners around the world.

Google Ad Grant Goals

Cat Care Society wanted to use the Google Ad Grant to:

Find more adopters and increase foot traffic to the shelter
Find more volunteers, including foster volunteers
Find more donors
Share educational content about cats across the United States. This content helps solve common cat problems or generally supports cat parents

That's a lot to cover but they're all strategies we've used to maximize the Google Ad Grant before!

Additionally, Cat Care Society wanted to prioritize local efforts over national efforts whenever possible.

Overall Results

Cat Care Society started with an inactive Google Ad Grant and within 40 days we were able to take it to 95% of the maximum spend while generating over 100 adoption inquiries and increasing website traffic by over 2,500 visitors a month.

You can see how the account scaled in the overview image below:

Highlighting March 2024, we were able to generate 32 adoption leads. Not only do these leads get cats adopted, which is the core of their mission, they also have a notable financial impact in the form of adoption fees and donations.

We've also been able to generate 2,000+ clicks to educational cat content every month. This content does several things:

It helps support cats by educating cat parents and the public. This content answers questions like "how to help feral cats during winter" or "what is feline leukemia".
It helps build Cat Care Society's email lists, which is one of the core ways to maximize any Google ad grant, a great to lay the foundation for future donations, and part of the appropriately named C-A-A-T nonprofit marketing framework.
It helps build awareness and positions Cat Care Society as an authority on cats. This can help in a long list of ways including future donation campaigns.

The majority of the Google Ad Grant budget is going to adoptions and content with the rest fueling foster parent and volunteer campaigns.

Logan helped our small cat shelter implement our Google Ad Grant, and thank heavens we had him guide us through the process. Logan is an expert in the ins and outs of getting the most of the ads account, even helped us set up conversion tracking and walked us through other digital marketing recommendations to maximize our efforts. His expertise was incredibly thoughtful, personalized and oh so helpful. We couldn't have done it on our own without his help, and I would so highly recommend him to others!

Amanda Huggett, Director of Communications & Engagement at Cat Care Society

Process and Strategy

So how did we achieve these results?

Let's break down the process and strategy that went into this account starting with Google Analytics 4.

Google Analytics 4 and Google Tag Manager

Even though this is a Google Ad Grant case study, Google Analytics 4 is a critical part of conversion tracking. Not only do you obviously need to know what's happening in your account, you also need to be sending conversions to stay Google Ad Grant compliant and Google Analytics 4 is typically the easier way to do that.

While the latest update to Google Analytics has expanded the tracking capabilities, we still find that Google Tag Manager is easier to use when setting up conversions.

We always want to track as far down the funnel as possible but that's not always possible. In the case of Cat Care Society, adoption applications are completed on a third party site so we're tracking button clicks instead of completed applications.

We created the following conversion actions to send to Google Ads:

Adoption application button clicks
Foster application button clicks
Volunteer application button clicks
Donation button clicks across a variety of donation types
Wish list button clicks
Email form submits
Donations and amount donated

Additionally, we created more conversion actions (now called Key Events in GA4) that would be helpful for Cat Care Society but that wouldn't be sent as primary conversions to the Google Ad Grant account:

Adoption photo clicks to answer how many cat photos does the average user view.
Three pages viewed
Interest in various programs and events

Once tracking was in place, we built out our campaigns!

Adoption Campaigns Strategy

Because Google Ad Grants accounts already struggle to get impressions, strictly local campaigns can be difficult since you're further limiting the amount of available impressions. We can balance this, and take full advantage of the grant, by expanding our location beyond what you might expect.

We know that someone will drive 15 minutes for a cat they love. But would they drive 45 minutes? What about an hour? We think so and our data confirms it.

We set up location targeting using concentric circles so that we can compare conversions from users 20 miles away from the shelter compared to 40 miles, 100 miles and so on.

Those are conversions you're not going to get without some kind of paid strategy and I explain why in this short video:

We used a similar approach for other local focused campaigns but with much less expansive location targeting since volunteers and foster parents are less likely to drive great distances compared to adopters.

However, volunteers may still be willing to drive 30 minutes (or more) for a weekly shift and the grant allows to reach more of these volunteers that simply wouldn't be possible if Cat Care Society only focused on organic (instead of paid) search.

Content Promotion Strategy

Cat Care Society produces excellent blog posts covering everything from supporting community cats to preventing and resolving common cat problems. This content does several things:

Moves Cat Care Society's mission forward by helping cats, in this case the help is coming from better educated cat caretakers.
Gives Cat Care Society exposure at a national level. Even though their services are primarily local, donors could come from around the country.
Helps build a list of cat lovers for future campaigns. Blog content has an opportunity to sign up the Mewsletter. New subscribers can support Cat Care Society's mission for years to come.

In March, our traffic campaign generated more than 2,000 clicks along with 160 conversion across email sign ups, donations, and other engagements:

Campaigns that focus on larger geographic regions allow us to fully utilize the Google Ad Grant spend while still moving the mission forward. We always prioritize local actions and don't let national campaigns take too much budget.

Moving Forward

Cat Care Society's successful implementation of the Google Ad Grant demonstrates the power of strategic digital marketing for non-profit organizations.

By focusing on local adoption efforts while also promoting educational content nationally, they've significantly increased their reach and impact.

The results speak for themselves: a 95% utilization of the grant budget, over 100 adoption inquiries, and a monthly increase of 2,500 website visitors.

These outcomes not only further Cat Care Society's mission but also provide a blueprint for other non-profits looking to maximize their online presence. If you want to see similar results for your organization check our blog for more information on how you can do it yourself or book a call with me here.

Foundation For Sickle Cell Disease Research - Google Ad Grant Case Study

Logan Mastrianna — Sun, 01 Sep 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Introduction To The Foundation For Sickle Cell Disease Research

The Foundation For Sickle Cell Disease Research (FSCDR) is the United States' first outpatient center exclusively dedicated to the treatment of and innovative research for sickle cell disease. Located in Florida but attracting patients and healthcare professionals from around the world, FSCDR opened their treatment center in 2012 in Hollywood, FL.

FSCDR publishes research on sickle cell disease, provides educational content to the public, coordinates treatment via their sister organization, and holds an annual symposium where they share the latest sickle cell disease research.

Google Ad Grant Goals

FSCDR wanted to use the Google Ad Grant to:

Generate more registrations to their 2024 annual symposium where they connect more than 500 physicians, clinicians, stakeholders, advocates, and social workers from all over the world, all with the goal of finding better treatment and, ultimately, a cure for sickle cell disease.
Utilize any remaining budget to increase exposure for their treatments not only to people in their local area but also on a national level as well.

That means we have two distinct audiences (medical professionals and patients) but for this case study we'll be focusing on the medical professionals to generate event registrations.

Overall Results

FSCDR had a Google Ad Grant account but the spend was only a few dollars a day and typically stayed below $15. We were able to quickly scale the account to 98% grant utilization and send more than 89 interested medical professionals to the registration page. This all occurred in May, one month before the symposium started.

You can see the overall results for May here:

The 89.52 conversions are clicks to the registration page which was hosted on a 3rd party domain. We always want to track as far down the funnel as possible, but for this project this was as far down the funnel as we could go.

It's also worth noting the cost per click, which is quite high compared to most Google Ad Grants.

Process and Strategy

Let's break down the core components that led to these quick results.

Google Analytics 4

FSCDR did not have live Google Analytics 4 and like many organizations they had not yet made the switch from Universal Analytics to GA4.

Google Analytics 4 is a standard part of our Google Ad Grant management (which isn't the case for every agency) and so that was our starting point. Once we had tracking in place for donations, contact forms submissions, and of course registration clicks to the symposium we were able to move to the Google Ads build out.

Once GA4 was implemented, FSCDR was able to compare results across multiple marketing channels and this screenshot shows results for the first 10 days of May (click to expand):

Data like this is not only nice to have, it's critical for any nonprofit marketing plan since it allows FSCDR to know what's working, what isn't, and focus on the channels with the best results.

Keyword Targeting

There are two search intents when it comes to medical conferences:

Those looking for a conference on a specific subject to learn more and satisfy annual CE requirements
Those looking for a medical conference to satisfy annual CE requirements but with some flexibility on the subject.

Of course, there are more reasons than that to attend a conference but from a keyword perspective these are our core audiences. As a result, we have a campaign structure that looks something like this (with many more ad groups than what we see here):

More generic keywords like "nursing conference" have a lower conversion rate compared to high intent and highly relevant keywords like "sickle cell disease research conference" but of course specific keywords like that also have a lower total search volume.

To utilize as much of the Google Ad Grant as possible, we targeted both while focusing on the highest intent keywords whenever possible.

Moving Forward

This case study is far from over and the account continues to pick up steam as we give Google Ads more conversion and better data. We'll continue to find new registrants for FSCDR along with expanding their treatment and education campaigns.

HeroBox - Google Ad Grant Case Study

Logan Mastrianna — Sun, 01 Sep 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Introduction To HeroBox

HeroBox provides care packages to deployed US military service members. They've supported more than half a million service members since they started. They help connect US citizens that want to support troops with troops that are looking to receive a taste of home in the form of a care package.

HeroBox also works with businesses and large groups to create HeroDay events where people can create dozens or even hundreds of care packages at once. These are especially valuable for HeroBox since they allow them to support so many service members at once. These events are also popular with corporations because they can be done remotely allowing for a wide range of team types and remote workers to volunteer.

Google Ad Grant Goals

HeroBox wanted to use the Google Ad Grant to:

Connect with more active deployed military who want to receive a care package. Many service members receive care packages from family and friends but not everyone has that luxury and that's where HeroBox comes in.
Find more sponsors who want to send HeroBoxes to active service members. People are actively searching for ways to support the military and send care packages but they're not sure how to do it. HeroBox wants to get in front of those people.
Find more corporate volunteers to promote HeroDay events. These events have a major impact on HeroBox since these events allow them to send dozens (or hundreds) of care packages at once.

We have three distinct audiences which means we'll have 3 distinct campaigns.

Overall Results

HeroBox had a Google Ad Grant account but the spend was sporadic and rarely broke $40 in a single day. Additionally, the account was technically noncompliant due to no active conversion tracking.

We were able to quickly scale the account from a few dollars a day to hitting $329 a day during the week with small dips in spend on the weekends.

You can see the final results for July here:

![July overview for HeroBox military nonprofit](/media files/Overview-HeroBox-Grant-Google-Ads-July-Overview.png)

The 133 conversion actions are direct contact with HeroBox, starting the registration process, or making a donation. All three audiences (active military, sponsors, and corporate volunteers) are directed to register on the HeroBox website but many of the larger potential HeroBox sponsors make direct contact with HeroBox rather than registering first.

Because we have a heavy emphasis on corporate sponsors, we have a slight dip in spending that occurs each weekend (the green line) but we're still utilizing just under 90% of the Google Ad Grant. We also see a relatively high average cost per click at $15.24, again a result of targeting corporate sponsorships.

Logan is phenomenal. He has helped grow our organization after a post-Covid slump and we have seen real, demonstrable, increases in our campaign areas. He is kind, thorough, and very patient and his communication style and tools are excellent for those not versed in the GA4 language. Google Ad Grants are an excellent tool if you know how to use them, I do not, Logan does. I highly recommend giving him the chance to make sense of things and to maximize the tool for your benefit.

Amanda Hand, Program Director at HeroBox

Many Hopes - Google Ad Grant Case Study

Logan Mastrianna — Sun, 01 Sep 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Introduction To Many Hopes

Many Hopes is an organization that rescues children from injustice and equips them to be adults who can help others. Many Hopes calls this "Survivor Driven Change" and it's amazing to see the children rescued from terrible conditions go back and rescue more children.

Many Hopes works around the world with a focus on Central and South America along with Africa. Each area has a local partner that provides region-specific support from locals, which is somewhat unique approach for this type of nonprofit.

Google Ad Grant Goals

Many Hopes wanted to use the Google Ad Grant to generate as much awareness as possible about their organization with a special focus on their most active locations in South America and Africa.

While we typically suggest more specific goals like building a list, the Google Ad Grant is still a great tool for generating awareness- especially if you're trying to target an international audience.

Overall Results

Many Hopes had a Google Ad Grant that went from $9,000 or more in monthly grant utilization down to just $100 a month. But with a massive account overhaul, we were able to turn things around.

Over the last 30 days, the Google Ad Grant account has utilized 95% of the grant, generated more than 4,000 impressions, and raised more than $2,000 in donations (Conv. value in the metric in the image below):

While impressions aren't typically a focus of our Google Ad Grant case studies, we're highlighting it here since the goal was awareness. We also had 50+ other conversions during this 30 day period that included views of Many Hope's short film and other conversions showing deeper engagement with the website.

Logan knows his Google Ads Grant! I have been working in the digital marketing space for 10 years, many of which actively managing Google Ads account. When our nonprofit relaunched G. Ads Grant, Logan managed to help us with all the little nuances that a Grant account vs. a normal one has. His response time and communication style is excellent. I fully recommend Logan for any nonprofit!

Alex Smith, Head of Digital Marketing at Many Hopes

Process and Strategy

Let's explain what went into the overhaul that helped transform this account.

Account Review & Bidding Strategy

Many Hopes had a Google Ad Grant account that was previously performing well and utilizing 90% or more of the total grant every month.

But starting in July 2023, the account spend steadily dropped until they were utilizing only around $100 (or less) a month:

The first thing we had to do was figure out why and one of the biggest factors was a change in cost-per-click over time. Many Hopes had some campaigns using a Maximize Clicks bidding strategy and while that isn't technically compliant, it was working for them as many of the keywords they were targeting had a cost per click that was below the $2.00 bid cap.

However, as more competition entered the space, cost per click increased and Many Hopes got a steadily reduced impression share. The fix was adding conversion-based bidding with meaningful conversions supporting it.

Additionally, the account was heavily segmented into half a dozen campaigns that weren't sharing conversions. This meant that even when conversion-based bidding strategies were used they weren't getting the data they needed to make an impact.

Keyword Selection & Account Structure

With most Google Ad Grant accounts, we have a series of services that we're trying to promote or several audiences that we want to target (like in this example). But when it came to Many Hopes, we were targeting a very broad audience with a focus on awareness.

That means we're looking at keywords at the top of the awareness funnel like "NGO in Africa", "NGO in Kenya", or "Children's Charity". While these can be great keywords, they're often quite competitive so we focused on heavily segmented ad groups so that we could create very specific ads supported by specific landing pages that were all about the individual location.

As a result, we were able to improve Quality Score massively across the account:

Higher Quality Score means improved Ad Rank and a better chance of our ads showing- this combined with conversion-based bidding helped scale the account quickly. You can see just how quickly the account scaled here and the daily spend went from $16.88 to $329 over a period of one day:

Donations

In addition to enhanced awareness, the account was also able to generate almost $2,500 in donations. These came from a combination of top of funnel search terms (like "charity for children") but also for branded searches.

Brand campaigns are an excellent way to utilize the Google Ad Grant and while it can seem strange to "pay" for your own brand name, doing so allows you to send users exactly where you want them to go and control more of the search results.

In this case, that meant sending people searching for Many Hopes to donation pages which led to great results.

Moving Forward

Many Hopes now has a Google Ad Grant account that is consistently utilizing the maximum daily spend of $329 while generating both impressions and donations.

While Google Ad Grant accounts are typically slow to get started, Many Hopes is the exception with huge turnaround from $16.88 to $329 in just one day. But that's what can happen when you take a previously active account and publish a complete account overhaul in a single day (via Google Ad Editor).

If you want to see similar results for your organization, you can work with Digital Tabby to manage your Google Ad Grant and it all starts by booking a call. If you want to work on your Google Ad Grant on your own, we're always publishing new helpful content on our YouTube channel.

Theatre of the 7 Directions - Google Ad Grant Case Study

Logan Mastrianna — Sun, 01 Sep 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Introduction To Theatre Of The 7 Directions

The Theatre of the 7 Directions is a nonprofit ecotheatre organization located near the Findhorn Ecovillage in Scotland. Their mission is to reconnect humans to themselves, and the rest of Nature, through the ancient art of performance.

The core activities of the Theatre of the 7 Directions are camps, programs, and performances for adults and children that promote a unique "ecotheatre" approach that's designed to strengthen performance skills, help participants connect with nature, and improve mental health.

They attract an international audience across a huge age range with participants flying from all over Europe and across the United States to attend.

Google Ad Grant Goals

The Theatre of the 7 Directions wanted to use the Google Ad Grant to:

Find more teens and adults for ecotheatre camps starting throughout the month of July
Find attendees from across the world with a focus on Europe and the United States.

With so many locations to target and different age ranges for different camps, we immediately knew the proper segmentation and account structure would be critical to success!

Overall Results

The ecotheatre camps started in July but we didn't get access to the account until late May. Google Ad Grant accounts are slow moving and while they're great for events, you want to give yourself as much lead time as possible.

We didn't have that luxury here, but we were still able to get the account scaled quickly as you can see from the screenshot below:

We ran the account from mid-May to the end of July and were able to generate a total of 103 conversions in the form of contacts to schedule or enhanced interest in a specific camp.

The biggest challenge was the short amount of time we had to get results. It's not uncommon for Google Ad Grant accounts to take a week (or more) to really start to scale and with less than 60 days until the first camp time was not on our side.

The advantage we had was experience in the retreat and summer camp space as well as a large geographic area to target both of which allowed us to find success despite the tight timeframe.

Logan is an exceptional professional. He managed to bring a lot of traffic to our website in very short time while paying attention to details and making sure we don't lose our identity in the process. He is extremely reliable, trustworthy, passionate and generous with his time.

Laura Pasetti, Founder and Artistic Director for The Theatre of the 7 Directions

Process and Strategy

The massive geographic region that we could run ads in helped us, but it also added some extra complication to this Google Ad Grant account. We also had the challenge of a very unique camp type (ecotheatre) that didn't have much direct search volume.

Let's look at how we handled both issues.

Keyword Selection

One of the big benefits of Google Search Ads is the ability to capture intent.

But when your offering is too unique, you may not have any search volume. That was the case here and no one was truly searching for "ecotheatre camp" which has a monthly search volume of 0 according to Google Keyword Planner.

That means we had to target relevant and closely related keywords and then make sure our user understood what was different about our camp offer. Because the camps had a restorative and wellness component to them along with a focus on nature, we targeted keywords like:

Nature camp
Wellness retreat
Eco retreat

Additionally, we targeted keywords like "summer camp" but needed to have variations like the ones above to avoid extremely competitive terms and round out the account. In addition to conversions for terms like "summer camp" or "teen summer camp" we also generated conversions from search terms like "depression retreat" and "mental health retreat".

This highlights how keyword selection is critical for maximizing a Google Ad Grant account and the need to look beyond the most obvious (and usually most competitive) keywords.

Even with a broad (but still very relevant) keyword targeting we were able to achieve a 10.82% clickthrough rate which is well above the Google Ad Grant requirement of 5%.

Audiences and Location Targeting

The other layer we had to consider on this account is the location targeting. We had campaigns targeting both U.S. and several countries in Europe.

This adds further segmentation but was needed since the phrasing used by people in each major location (like U.S. compared to Europe) can be quite different. For example "residential theater camp" will make sense in Europe but that would be more commonly called an "overnight theater camp" in the United States. To keep our clickthrough rate high, we want to make sure our ads are using phrases that make sense for that region.

But too much segmentation can lead to too few conversions per campaign so to prevent that we utilized a portfolio bidding strategy which allowed us to share conversions across all of our campaigns. This structure allowed for easier management, better conversion data for Google and better results overall.

Moving Forward

Summer camps are a competitive space with plenty of paid and grant accounts competing for conversions. But with strategic account structure, segmentation, keyword selection we were able to achieve impactful results over a short period of time.

We also have data on what works and what doesn't so that future Google Ad Grant campaigns for camps can be launched even more quickly and with even better results. The Theatre of the 7 Directions plans on running more events and leveraging the Google Ad Grant to attract international attendees.

If you want to see similar results for your organization, check our nonprofit marketing blog for more information on how you can do it yourself or book a call to discuss how to leverage Google Ad Grants for your non-profit's growth.

Washington DC Economic Partnership - Google Ad Grant Case Study

Logan Mastrianna — Sun, 01 Sep 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Introduction To Washington DC Economic Partnership

The Washington DC Economic Partnership (WDCEP) is a nonprofit that facilitates economic development initiatives in Washington, DC. The organization works to connect businesses seeking to relocate or expand in DC with local resources.

WDCEP provides several services, including real estate and site selection assistance, business-to-government connections along with access to grants and financial incentives. They also develop market research that helps business owners understand the benefits of selecting DC as their base of operations.

WDCEP is different from most nonprofits because they're a business-to-business (B2B) organization rather than business-to-consumer. This creates a unique challenge when it comes to maximizing the Google Ad Grant as B2B keywords are typically more competitive with lower search volume.

Google Ad Grant Goals

WDCEP wanted to use the Google Ad Grant to:

Share latest market research across key markets. WDCEP conducts in-depth research on Washington D.C. covering everything from neighborhoods and education levels to real estate and site selection details. Businesses considering moving or launching in DC would be looking for this sort of information early on in their research process which is a great time to make them aware of how WDCEP can help.
Support business development with grants, incentives and soft landing program. WDCEP wants to get in front of people that are searching for DC-specific grants and incentives but also people searching more generally for grants that could be unsure of what location they want to choose or are looking for locations with the best incentives.
Connect with entrepreneurs and business owners visiting DC. WDCEP is active at business conferences and networking events. They want to use the grant to promote their presence at these events and connect with their ideal audience in person.

We have one core audience type (business owners) with several types of content to promote.

Overall Results

WDCEP had a Google Ad Grant since July 2023 but over that time the account had never utilized more than $1,300 in a single month. We took over the account in May and were able to steadily scale each month and eventually reach $9,620.73 in October:

Of course, grant utilization is just one piece of the puzzle and we also expect to see valuable conversions from those clicks. You can see in the screenshot from October that we had a healthy number of conversions and excellent CTR along with 96% grant utilization:

The 56.24 conversion actions are contact form submissions, newsletter sign ups, and downloads of detailed marketing data in PDF format. The dips in daily spend come from weekends which is typical for an account focused on a business audience and search terms.

This account focuses on both high-intent keywords (like "Washington D.C. grants") and lower-intent keywords (like "best city for tech" or "Washington D.C. education stats"). Lower-intent keywords can often lead to a lower CTR but we can see an excellent CTR of 16.30% thanks to thoughtful ad copy and a balance of low-intent vs high-intent keywords.

Process and Strategy

Let's break down a few of the core strategies that went into this account.

Conversion Tracking & Smart Bidding

Conversion tracking is critical for every Google Ads account - paid or grant.

However, conversion tracking is about more than just seeing what actions people take on your nonprofit's website. Of course, that's important, but we also need proper conversion tracking so that we can send correct data to Google on what's working. Google will then use that data to inform their smart bidding strategies like Maximize Conversions or Target CPA.

This will not only improve account quality, but I've also seen this scale spending in a grant account. With bad or no conversion data, accounts will get "stuck" and either fail to spend anything or hit a ceiling.

That's why conversion tracking is always the starting point for a new account and WDCEP is no different. Here are the conversions we added:

Newsletter sign up
Contact form submission
Marketing report downloads across several categories
Phone calls

When people take these actions, Google knows that they've shown the ad to the right users. This is especially critical anytime you're using lower-intent keywords like we did in this account.

Once we added these new conversions and focused on Target CPA bidding, we were able to increase grant utilization while improving conversion quality.

Connecting and Networking With Conference Attendees

WDCEP attends several conferences that take place in the DC area. These conferences are a chance for the WDCEP team to meet their ideal client in person.

In June, we targeted conference search terms for an upcoming event that WDCEP was attending (in this case SelectUSA Investment Summit) asking to connect along with offering transportation to the event. You can see an example of the ad here:

When running ads targeting another popular search term, you need to be careful not to mislead the person. That's why our ads are relevant to the conference but we are still making it clear that we are not the conference. Instead, we simply want to convey that WDCEP is attending and interested in connecting with the added bonus of offering transportation.

Once users click an ad, they're taken to a landing page with more information about WDCEP and a form to set a meeting with the team at the conference.

We had a very short time to run this ad but you can see our results here:

With a cost per conversion of $272 this is not a campaign you would likely run in a paid Google Ads account- but in a grant account that cost per conversion, at least over the short term for a specific event, is well worth it.

Especially since the conversion value here is an in-person meeting compared to something much less valuable like a newsletter sign up.

This campaign gave the account a nice boost in grant utilization as soon as Digital Tabby took over management but since this only ran in June it didn't have an impact on the 96% grant utilization achieved in October.

Performance Max

Performance Max is a new campaign type for Google Ad Grants and has been slowly rolled out over the last quarter of 2024. While this campaign type serves multiple channels in paid accounts it will only serve search ads in a Google Ad Grant account.

Still, this can be a powerful tool for nonprofits and something that we were able to leverage for WDCEP's account. Instead of keywords, Performance Max campaigns primarily use audience targeting and we've seen the best results when we use our own data first followed by in-market then affinity audiences.

WDCEP has an email list of more than 20,000 people which we used as our primary audience. This campaign is still new, but you can see the 30 day results so far:

With a variety of content, WDCEP is in a good position to leverage Performance Max campaigns using URL expansion which allows Google to crawl the site and create an ad from any page.

Moving Forward

The WDCEP case study shows how even business-to-business nonprofits can effectively use Google Ad Grants despite common challenges like low search volume and high competition. Through focused targeting of research seekers, grant applicants, and event attendees, the account maintains consistent performance across key metrics: 96% grant utilization, stable conversion rates, and strong click-through rates.

You can see more Google Ad Grant Case Studies here or book a call to discuss how we can help you leverage your nonprofit's Google Ad Grant and achieve similar results.

The REAL Max Cost Per Click In A Google Ad Grant Account

Logan Mastrianna — Mon, 26 Aug 2024 00:00:00 GMT

If you do a quick Google search, you'll see official Google Ad Grant documentation showing you that the max cost per click (CPC) is just $2.00 in a Grant account. You'll also see this info repeated across the internet but I'm here to tell you that it's not entirely accurate.

The $2.00 cost per click is a manual bid limit that's in place for bidding strategies like Manual CPC or Maximize Clicks, but if you use conversion-based bidding (which you should be) then your maximum cost per click will be much higher than two dollars.

You can see screenshots from 10 accounts that all have a cost per click higher than $2 in this video:

Real World CPC Data From Google Ad Grant Accounts

Here's a quick sample of cost per click data for June 2024 from 10 accounts we're currently managing:

$9.88 CPC - Healthcare $14.55 CPC - Consumer Services $9.35 CPC - Education $9.28 CPC - Economic Development $13.97 CPC - Healthcare $5.19 CPC - Consumer Services $10.81 CPC - Healthcare $6.17 CPC - Education $2.73 CPC - Animal Welfare $3.69 CPC - Animal Welfare

The average CPC is $8.56 from this small sample but that's still more than 4x the commonly reported maximum Google Ad Grant cost per click.

However, even the account with the lowest average CPC (of just $2.73) still had a click in June that cost $56.36, yes, in a grant account! You can see it here and even more surprising it's for a search term that's very relevant to nonprofits compared to a term that's targeted by for-profit businesses like you might expect:

Should I Worry About CPC In A Grant Account?

The short answer...no, you shouldn't worry about cost per click in a Google Ad Grant account. Instead, you should be optimizing for conversions and trying to reduce your cost per conversion. The cost per conversion is what really moves the mission forward!

For example, what if you could get conversions for $50 but your CPC was also $50? Would you prefer that over a $10 cost per click but a $70 cost per conversion?

In other words, CPC is a distraction compared to the metric that really matters which is your cost per conversion.

Why Is There A $2.00 Bid Cap At All?

You might be wondering why Google has this confusing structure in place for Google Ad Grant accounts? In other words, if we can effectively bid above the cap with conversion-based bidding why not allow that for manual bidding?

By adding a bid cap, Google is trying to prevent auction inflation and relying on their conversion algorithms to keep cost-per click under control. Without the bid cap, nonprofits could continuously bid higher and higher which would likely just reduce the effectiveness of the Google Ad Grant over time.

Closing Thoughts

Not only does this rule confuse a lot of nonprofits, it's also one of the more common issues I see in audits. Accounts will get "stuck" at the $2 cap and simply changing to a conversion-based bidding strategy will immediately increase grant utilization and conversions. It's simply a myth that you can't bid above $2.

It also helps that utilizing a conversion-based bidding strategy is required to stay compliant with Google Ad Grants so there's truly no reason to struggle or worry about the $2.00 cap.

And when you genuinely do need to outbid the cap (donation keywords, competitive auctions), that's a paid Google Ads conversation, not a grant one.

What do you think?

Google Ad Grant Agency: What You Need To Know In 2026

Logan Mastrianna — Tue, 20 Aug 2024 00:00:00 GMT

You have a Google Ad Grant but you're not sure how to maximize it or if it's worth your time to learn the ins and outs and inevitable frustration that come with Google Ads.

So should you hire an agency?

This article will go over everything you need to know about finding, vetting, and hiring a Google Ad Grant agency including the types of results, reporting, and pricing you should expect.

Let's get started!

What Is A Google Ad Grant Agency?

A Google Ad Grant agency helps nonprofits manage (and maximize) their Google Ad Grant. Many agencies specialize in the Google Ad Grant while others include it as part of an overall nonprofit marketing plan or package.

But regardless of how the agency is structured they should offer the following:

Management of the Google Ad Grant so that you're utilizing as much of the $10,000 a month as possible.
Reporting on results from the account that goes beyond simply reporting clicks (you need to know conversions).

Additionally, some agencies will offer the following with their Google Ad Grant management or as an add-on:

Google Analytics 4 implementation, management, and reporting.
Marketing strategy to help you make the most of out of your grant. This could be suggesting ways to build an audience, maximize donations, increase conversions and more.

That's the high level overview but we're going to take a much closer look at what goes into these various services so you have a better understanding of what Google Ad Grant management really means.

What Does Google Ad Grant Management Include?

"Management" is quite vague so let's breakdown the specifics of what an agency really does when they manage an account.

Assisting With The Application Process

If your nonprofit doesn't already have an active account, a Google Ad Grant agency can help you understand eligibility requirements and guide you through the application process.

It's relatively straightforward and most nonprofits don't need an agency to support them through these steps but it can still be helpful. This article will guide you through the entire process.

Keeping Google Ad Grant Accounts Compliant

Compliance is a huge part of management and every Google Ad Grant agency should understand the various rules and policies required to keep a Google Ad Grant account in good standing.

While many of these rules shouldn't be an issue in a well managed and optimized account (like maintaining 5% Clickthrough-rate) others are a bit less straightforward or may not be as obvious, like not bidding on single-word keywords.

These rules can make Google Ad Grant accounts more difficult to manage and lead to account suspension if they're not followed. You can check out this video to learn more about all the rules and policies related to the Google Ad Grant accounts:

Google Ad Grant compliance can get confusing, especially if you're also new to the Google Ads platform and learning jargon like clickthrough-rate, search term, and Quality Score for the first time. A Google Ad Grant agency should be well-versed and experienced at finding success within these rules which can save you a lot of time, stress, and prevent a suspension in the future.

Setting Up Conversion Tracking With Google Analytics 4

Conversion tracking is not only best practice for any Google Ads account, it's part of the Google Ad Grant requirements.

Google Analytics 4 is the best tool for setting up conversions and importing them to your Google Ad Grant account. Many Google Ad Grant agencies (including Digital Tabby) add this setup as part of their standard Google Ad Grant management package. Other agencies may charge extra for this.

You may already have Google Analytics 4 installed on your nonprofit's website but you'll need to have meaningful conversions to maximize your grant. Most nonprofits don't have anything beyond a basics install set up which isn't going to be enough for Google Ads.

Having Google Analytics 4 installed, with proper conversion tracking, will not only allow you to get better results from your Google Ad Grant but it will also let you compare marketing channels as the same conversions you're reporting for Google Ads can be reported on in Google Analytics 4 (where they're called "key events") for other marketing channels.

Google Analytics 4 (and possibly Google Tag Manager) can be set up by a Google Ad Grant agency and while these services can sometimes be priced separately, you simply can't run a successful Google Ad Grant account without conversion tracking. Additionally, some agencies will include reporting on other website activities via Google Analytics 4 which can be helpful to your nonprofit.

Building Out The Google Ad Grant Account

Google Ad accounts (including Grant accounts) have a build out stage and a management stage.

The "build out" is typically more time intensive since it requires large amounts of keyword research, writing dozens of ads at once, researching the audiences related to the nonprofit, setting up the account structure and more.

As a result, some Google Ad Grant agencies may charge more for the "build out" stage. Others will stick with a flat monthly fee but may include a minimum contract duration while some agencies will keep it simple and stick with a flat fee from the start.

There isn't one approach that's better than the other but a confident Google Ad Grant agency with a history of success will typically be more comfortable with a flexible agreement that doesn't lock you into a minimum duration. Just make sure you understand the pricing structure and contract terms of any agency you're considering.

Account Optimization and Upkeep

But there's a lot more to Google Ad Grant management than just the build out and an agency will continuously optimize the account over time based on changing goals from the nonprofit, new programs or events, and of course data from the account.

Agencies should be looking at a long list of metrics to decide what changes to make including clickthrough-rate, quality score, conversion rate, total conversions and more. One of the most important reports agencies should be consistently reviewing is the search term report which shows the exact phrases triggered your ads. This report can be used to find new keywords to target or find keywords that should be added to the list of negative keywords.

This process of continued optimization should leverage the agency's knowledge and experience to maximize the grant spend and improve conversion quality and quantity over time. Additionally, Google Ad Grant agencies will be available to solve policy issues, add or remove campaigns based on nonprofit goals and interpret the data in the account to make suggestions for how the nonprofit can further utilize the grant.

Reporting Results

Google Ads can be a tough platform to navigate whether you're trying to make changes, add keywords, or simply want to understand what's happened in your account over the last month.

A Google Ad Grant agency can help you easily understand results by breaking them down into easy to understand key performance indicators.

However, a bad agency can just confuse the situation and report on metrics that don't matter or don't move your mission forward.

A good Google Ad Grant agency should focus on conversions and be able to explain exactly what those conversions mean for your organization in a way that you understand.

For example, number and amount of donations, email sign ups, or new registrations for your event. Weaker conversions like scroll depth, time on page, pages viewed, and similar may look good at first (since they often happen in high numbers) but they aren't really moving your nonprofit's mission forward.

A Google Ad Grant agency should provide easy to understand reporting that saves you time. This reporting is often done in Looker Studio where you can easily see the most important metrics without having to dig around your account.

Here's an example of a simple report from Digital Tabby that shares the key information an easy-to-understand dashboard:

How Much Should You Expect To Pay A Google Ad Grant Agency?

As is often the case with a service, the cost will vary greatly between providers, and so will the results.

You can find Google Ad Grant agencies that charge $400 a month on the low end up to $1500 a month on the higher end. If you work with a freelancer, instead of agency, you can expect similar prices. Most agencies will charge a monthly management fee but some freelancers may be willing to charge an hourly rate as needed.

While it might be tempting to just go with the cheapest option, it's not always the best.

Make sure you understand what the Google Ad Grant agency includes in their package. Here are a few of the major points you need to know when comparing agency offers:

Check For Campaign Or Ad Group Limits

Some agencies will put a cap on how many campaigns or ad groups they'll build out. This is a somewhat arbitrary limitation and while it's not a great sign it isn't a deal breaker. Just make sure that you aren't stuck with only one or two campaigns or ad groups.

This even more problematic now that Google has added Performance Max to grant accounts.

Avoid Keyword Research Limitations

Some agencies have tiered keyword research (like basic vs advanced) while others don't add any stipulations here.

I highly recommend avoiding Google Ad Grant agencies that put limitations on something as fundamental as keyword research. This is like offering to build a house but only allowing one bag of concrete to be used for the foundation, you might be able to make it work but it's not great.

Keyword research is also one of the major areas for continued and regular optimization so limits here will make a big impact on the account performance over time.

Understand Build Out Vs Management Fees

If a monthly fee looks too good to be true, there's often a one-time build out fee that's required to start. That doesn't mean it's not a good agency, and it's an acceptable pricing model, but just make sure you understand the true price.

Ask About Reporting & Availability

Budget agencies will often have less frequent reporting or less availability for questions. Some of this will come down to personal preference or the current structure of your nonprofit but make sure you ask about reporting before getting started.

Additionally, some agencies will be available to answer strategy questions or make suggestions about your overall marketing strategy. For larger organizations with marketing teams in place this might not be as valuable, but for smaller organizations this type of feedback could be very helpful.

Consider Your Return On Investment

Nonprofits have budgets and any agency's offer needs to be within your budget. But you should also consider the potential return on investment when shopping for agencies.

You're asking a Google Ad Grant Agency to generate a return on their fees via the $10,000 a month grant budget. This could be a real return in the form of ticket sales and donations or it could be a return in the form of exposure. But however you measure it, you should expect a positive return on your investment.

For example, we work with a nonprofit animal shelter that earns an average of $80 per adoption. If we generate 10 adoptions in a month, that's $800 in direct monetary value in addition to the value of a successful adoption or a long term relationship with a new adopter. It also doesn't take $10,000 to generate 10 adoptions so the grant is providing other value on top of that as well.

You don't need to have an exact formula or the perfect return on investment calculation, but you do need to consider the cost of the agency compared to the potential results of your Google Ad Grant.

How Do You Find A Google Ad Grant Agency?

You have several options when it comes to finding a Google Ad Grant Agency to work with. There are the usual channels like LinkedIn and Google Search but you can also find agencies (or freelancers) on Upwork and other job posting platforms.

There's no one way that's necessarily better than any other but I do recommend searching Google for the agency's name to see what's out there.

What About Google Partner Agencies?

Google Partners are agencies that Google has recognized based on the total amount of budget managed, account quality, and certifications held by the agency. The program isn't perfect and doesn't guarantee that you'll have a exceptional Google Ad Grant agency but it does show that the agency is active and has several clients.

However, agencies can qualify with both paid or grant accounts so the badge doesn't indicate grant-specific expertise or specialization.

Google Partner agencies will display their Partner badge somewhere on their website and you can see Digital Tabby's Google Partner badge here or find it in the footer of our website.

What About Google Certified Nonprofit Partner Agencies?

Unique to Google Ad Grants, Google has a directory of certified nonprofit partner agencies many of which do specialize in Google Ad Grant work.

This might sound like the obvious place to start, and it is a great resource, but this directory hasn't been updated in several years.

As a result, some agencies are no longer around, have changed focus, or may have had a major drop in quality. It also means that newer agencies (which could still have several years of Google Ad Grant management) won't be included since Google has simply stopped updating the directory.

So while it shouldn't be the only deciding factor, it can be helpful to review and you can see the directory here.

Should You Hire An Agency Or Manage The Grant Yourself?

With all the considerations that go into finding and hiring a Google Ad Grant agency you might be wondering if you should simply do it yourself.

It is possible to manage the Google Ad Grant on your own, but it rarely makes sense unless your nonprofit is too new to have revenue. Hiring an agency will save you time, help you fully maximize the grant, and allow you to focus on the tasks that only you can do but it will cost money.

However, if you have a marketing manager or director, it might make sense to bring the work in house. But outside of someone with a role dedicated to digital marketing, it's rarely worth the effort and steep learning curve just to end up with subpar results.

If you're interested in having someone on your team learn how to manage your own grant you can check out the Google Ad Grant Catalyst Program which teaches you how to do exactly that.

Hiring A Google Ad Grant Agency

Once you're ready to hire you can start reaching out to agencies and begin the conversation. A quick video call is typically best, but that can take up a lot of time if you're looking at a few agencies so consider starting with email.

Begin with the basics and make sure you understand what's included in the package so that you're comparing apples to apples when it comes to pricing and services. Here's a good starting template that covers pricing, communication, reporting, and agency experience in a just a few paragraphs:

Hello! I'm looking for more information on your Google Ad Grant management service.

Can you explain your price structure (monthly fee, any setup fees, etc.) and whether or not there's a minimum commitment period. I'd also like to know if your pricing includes everything related to Google Ad Grant management or if there are additional fees based on the number of campaigns or additional keyword research.

Is Google Analytics 4 and conversion tracking set up part of the package or is that an additional fee? Can you also share the typical reporting cadence or types of reports you share?

Lastly, can you share any case studies or opportunities you see to maximize the Grant based on our website?

These few questions will address everything you need to know before setting a video call. The last question will also give you a chance to understand the communication style of the agency you're considering and get a feel for how they'd approach your specific goals.

Want To Work Together?

Digital Tabby is a Google Partner agency that specializes in Google Ad Grants.

And just to save you some time, we'll answer the above email template!

We have no set up fee, no minimum contract duration, and no extra fees or limits on your Google Ad Grant account.

Our $750 a month management fee covers everything you need to maximize your Google Ad Grant including Google Analytics 4 set up. We report monthly and you always have email access to us with any questions whether that's related to your Google Ad Grant or general nonprofit marketing. You can see all our Google Ad Grant case studies here and read our Google reviews here.

You can also book a call with me at any time here and on the first call we can set expectations and learn more about your nonprofit's specific goals for the Google Ad Grant.

Closing Thoughts

Hiring a Google Ad Grant agency can be a game-changer for nonprofits looking to maximize their $10,000 monthly grant.

While it's possible to manage the grant yourself, an experienced agency can save you time, navigate complex policies, and drive better results through strategic optimization.

When choosing an agency, consider factors like pricing structure, reporting capabilities, and their track record with nonprofits. Remember to look beyond just the cost and focus on the potential return on investment for your organization. With the right agency partner, you can fully leverage your Google Ad Grant to increase awareness, drive donations, and further your nonprofit's mission.

Are Google Ad Grants Worth It?

Logan Mastrianna — Thu, 15 Aug 2024 00:00:00 GMT

What is a Google Ad Grant?

The Google Ad Grant is $10,000 per month of free Google Search advertising that Google gives to eligible nonprofits. It is not a cash grant — it is ad credit that runs on the same Google Ads platform paid advertisers use.

Whether the grant is "worth it" depends entirely on what you do with it and how the rest of your digital presence is set up.

The case that the grant IS worth it

For most nonprofits, the answer is yes. Here's why:

It is free. There is no cost to apply, no cost to maintain, and no cost to use the ad credit. The only investment is the time (or agency fee) to set it up and run it well.
It puts you in front of high-intent searches. People actively searching for terms related to your cause are the warmest possible audience.
It scales over time. Once a nonprofit account is mature, $10,000 in monthly ad spend can translate into thousands of website visitors, donor leads, volunteer signups, and program inquiries.

The case that the grant is NOT worth it (for some)

The grant is not the right fit for every nonprofit. The two main reasons:

Very narrow local focus. If your nonprofit only serves a single small city or town, the search volume in your area may be too low to spend a meaningful portion of the $10k.
No clear conversion path. If your website does not have clear actions for visitors (donate, sign up, learn about a program), the traffic from the grant won't translate to outcomes. The grant amplifies what is already there; it does not fix a broken funnel.

How to decide

The easiest way to know if the grant is worth the effort for your specific nonprofit is to look at the search volume for your category and audit your website's conversion paths. If both are healthy, the grant is almost certainly worth it. If one or both are weak, the grant can still help, but you'll want to fix the underlying issue first.

Either way, getting professional help to set the account up well in the first 90 days is what separates the nonprofits that maximize the grant from the ones that let it sit at 10% utilization for years.

13 Google Ad Grant Rules and Policies You Need To Know (Updated 2026)

Logan Mastrianna — Sat, 22 Jun 2024 00:00:00 GMT

It's exciting to get approved for the Google Ad Grant but that excitement can quickly turn to stress once you start getting into the rules and policies.

Not only do you have to learn Google Ads, but Google Ad Grant accounts have to comply with rules that go well beyond the standard Google Ad account rules. However, these rules aren't intended to stress out nonprofits! Instead, they're intended to give you better results in your Grant account and for the most part, they achieve that.

However, Google's official documentation around these rules and policies can be unclear, confusing, or even inaccurate in some cases. In this article, we'll dive deep into the various rules and policies, explaining their purpose, implications, and strategies to stay compliant while maximizing the effectiveness of your Google Ad Grant.

Let's get started!

Why Do The Rules Exist?

Free money always comes with rules and just as you'd expect with any grant, there are expectations on how that free money is used.

When it comes to the Google Ad Grant, new policies were first added at the start of 2018 and they've been continually updated ever since. These rules typically help nonprofits maximize their ad grant by making best practices required (and not "optional" like they are in paid accounts).

But this goes beyond just seeing nonprofits win. Google also wants to make sure that the grant is used in a way that keeps searchers happy and keeps users coming back to Google.

Google needs their search results to show the best possible answer to the person searching, that's what keeps people coming back, clicking ads, and generating revenue. If a nonprofit uses the ad grant to try and show irrelevant results, that's bad for the nonprofit and bad for Google search. As a result, Ad Grant accounts have rules around the types of keywords that can be used, the relevance of those keywords, requirements on click-through rate and so on.

Across almost all these rules you see the theme of relevance coming up again and again so keep the idea of relevance in mind as you review the rules and policies.

Do Ad Grant Rules Limit Effectiveness?

Google Ad Grant rules rarely, if ever, limit the effectiveness of your account. Instead, the real limiting factor is that Google Ad Grant accounts only show ads in positions below paid ads and there are two separate auctions that occur, one for grants and one for paid accounts.

If you're targeting keywords that have a lot of competition from paid accounts, like "donate my vehicle", you're going to have a very hard time getting results in an ad grant account.

Beyond that, the Google Ad Grant rules can make these accounts more difficult to manage (at least at first) but the actual effectiveness of your search ads aren't limited by the rules.

Google Ad Grant Rules

With the background out of the way, let's start taking a look at each rule, what it means, why it exists, and what you really need to know about it.

Rule 1: No Single Word Keywords

Remember that Google values relevance for search ads and you're unlikely to be consistently relevant for single word keywords like "cat", "healthcare", "camp", etc.

Instead, you'll need to add more to your keywords like "foster a cat", "healthcare for sickle cell", "mental health camp" and so on. All of these variations will help increase your relevance and make sure you're finding the right people.

There are exceptions to this rule and Google has a list of single word keywords that are allowed which you can see here. You're also allowed to use your brand name as a keyword if it happens to be a single word.

It's rare, in a grant account or a paid account, that a single keyword phrase is mission critical so for the most part this rule shouldn't slow you down too much.

Rule 2: No Overly Generic Keywords

Similar to the first rule, Google doesn't want Ad Grant accounts to target overly broad (or generic) keywords. Keywords like "today's news" or "free stuff" comply with rule 1 but are too broad and unlikely to be relevant enough to match the search intent of the person searching. After all, how much do we know about the intent of someone searching for "free stuff", what stuff are we talking about?

Instead, narrow down your keywords further to more closely match the intent of the search, like "free stuff for cat parents" or "free stuff for older adults". Of course, there's some room for interpretation so use your best judgement and let your click-through rate and conversions tell you what's a good intent match and what isn't.

Google does give a tip to check your landing page score and if you see a "below average" score then your keyword targeting could be too generic. I've found this to be helpful but far from gospel and a low landing page score could simply be an issue with the landing page and not the keywords you're targeting.

Don't overthink this too much and remember to stay relevant and specific to your mission when adding keywords and you shouldn't have a big issue here.

Rule 3: No Keywords With Quality Score Of 1 or 2

Google uses your Expected click-through rate (CTR), Ad relevance, and Landing page experience to determine your Quality Score which is a 1 to 10 rating of how helpful and relevant your ad and keywords is for search queries you're trying to target.

Essentially, if your keyword isn't a good fit for your landing page (the page someone goes to when they click an ad) or doesn't match the text on your ad then you're likely to end up with a low quality score.

We're glossing over a few details here and quality score has many more layers to it but when it comes to getting started with your Google Ad Grant, it really comes down to relevance (again). If you're targeting keywords that make sense for your landing page, ads, and mission you're rarely going to have quality score of 1 or 2.

These days, Google will automatically pause keywords with a quality score of 1 to 2 so they're less an issue of compliance and more an issue with how you've structured your campaign.

Rule 4: Must Maintain 5% Click Through Rate Each Month

Click-through rate (CTR) is the percentage of people that click your ad after seeing it. If 100 people see your ad and 5 people click it then your click-through rate is 5%.

Once again, this rule brings us back to the idea of relevance and maintaining a 5% click-through rate will not be difficult if the text in your ads match up to your keywords. For example, if you're advertising on the keyword "adopt a cat" but your ad is all about donating a car you can expect a low click-through rate. On the other hand, if your ad tells the searcher you have dozens of cats available for adoption, you're likely to have a much higher than 5% click-through rate.

If you fail to maintain a 5% CTR for two consecutive months, your account will be suspended. But when starting a new account, you have 90 days to comply and get things in order.

That might sound intimidating, but not only is achieving 5% CTR relatively easy if you're selecting the right keywords but you can also greatly increase your CTR through strategies like adding a branded campaign (which you can read about here) or simply pausing lower CTR campaigns for a bit to "balance" out the account.

Rule 5: Must Have Conversion Tracking (And 1 Conversion Per Month)

Conversions are actions that you want users to take on your website and could be anything from clicking a particular button, signing up for an email list, completing a donation, and much more.

Google requires that you have conversion tracking in place and that you're getting at least one per month. In most cases, you'll want to use Google Analytics 4 to set up your conversions and import them into Google Ads. Not only will this give you more flexibility in the type of conversions you report but it will also allow you to track conversions on other platforms which is critical for your overall nonprofit marketing plan.

But not all conversions are equal and Google wants to see meaningful conversions from your Ad Grant Account which are important actions like contacting your nonprofit, donating, or anything that truly moves your mission forward. Low quality conversions are usually page views or more passive events that happen a high percentage of the time. Google explains that "A good indicator is whether the Conv. Rate is greater than 15%, If so, consider excluding some actions from Conversions."

If your conversion rate is over 15% for the entire account (not individual campaigns) you will need to adjust your tracking to comply with Ad Grant requirements. Not only does this need to be done to comply with Google Ad Grant rules, if your conversion rate looks like this then you're not really getting accurate data:

Besides selecting low quality conversions (like pageviews), the other mistake I commonly see is counting conversions every time instead of once. If you're counting a button click, pageviews, phone calls and similar conversions and you have this set to "Every" one person could generate several conversions despite only the first one really providing value to your nonprofit.

Instead, selecting "One" will usually lead to better reporting unless you're specifically tracking purchases.

Rule 6: Must Use Conversion Based Bidding

In addition to tracking and generating conversions, Google Ad Grant accounts also need to use conversion based bidding strategies like Maximize conversions, Maximize conversion values, Target CPA, or Target ROAS bidding.

However, unlike some of the other rules here, which can get your account suspended, if you fail to implement this Google will likely (but not always) automatically switch your account over to a conversion based bidding strategy.

Still, I've seen many accounts that have used Manual CPC or Maximize Clicks for months or even years without being automatically switched. As a result, these account are usually stagnant since they're stuck at the $2.00 cost per click maximum. But that $2.00 bid cap is effectively removed when using conversion-based bidding.

Rule 7: Two Ad Groups Per Campaign

This rule could be considered a sort of best practice in most Google Ad accounts (paid or grant). Each ad group should be clustered around a theme with appropriate keywords along with an ad that's relevant to the keywords.

To better understand this, take a look at this image of Google Ad Account structure:

In general, your campaigns should target a specific audience and geographic location with your ad groups segmenting from there.

For example, if you're running a campaign for an animal shelter you may have a campaign that's targeting adopters in your area with the following ad groups:

Adopt A Dog
Adopt A Puppy
Adopt A Kitten
Adopt A Cat
And so on

The important part is to make sure that every campaign has two ad groups below it.

Rule 8: Two Sitelink Extensions

Sitelink extensions are the extra links that show up under your main headlines and they're a great way to take up more space in the search results and get more clicks. Here's what they look like (they're inside the box):

Within the Google Ads platform, they're now called "Assets" and this is another example where the official Google Ad Grant documentation needs to be updated. But whatever you call them, you'll absolutely want more than 2 and it's not uncommon to have a dozen sitelinks in an account.

Best practice is to make your sitelinks relevant to your specific ad. For example, if you have an ad group about adopting a cat, your sitelinks could include pages that support that search like:

Where We're Located
Our Adoption Process
Meet Our Cats
Contact Us
Etc

Sitelinks are just part of several extensions (now called assets) that you can use and it's recommended that you use as many as make sense in your grant account!

Rule 9: Campaigns Must Use Geotargeting

Google explains that nonprofits must "show ads in locations where users will find your nonprofit's information and services useful".

Simply put, you can't just target the entire world and call it a day. Instead, you need to put some thought into your location targeting and make sure it makes sense for your organization. This is done when you create a campaign and can be adjusted under the location settings at any time:

This doesn't mean you can't target multiple locations or countries though. Google shares an example of a nonprofit in Nepal that has a donor base in the United States, in that case it makes perfect sense to have ads targeting the United States.

However, just make sure you're not misleading anyone with your ad copy and if you're running a summer camp in Scotland but campers often fly from the United States to attend, make sure that your US ads indicate that the camp is actually in Scotland.

Rule 10: Respond To Program Survey

Google's documentation explains that they'll send out an annual survey with around 25 questions about Google Ad Grant experience. However, they haven't actually been emailing it out in recent years. Still, I typically suggest that nonprofits take a few minutes to complete it even if they don't get an email just in case it got caught up in spam filters, sent to the wrong person, or any other number of things.

The survey is connected to your account ID (ten digits in the corner of your account), so even if you didn't get the email directly you can still fill it out. You can find the link to the survey here.

Google Ad Grant Policies

The Google Ad Grant program also has a set of website policies that are usually considered when you first apply. However, I have seen nonprofits run into problems by drifting into noncompliance after being approved for the grant so it's important to be familiar with these as well or make sure you're working with a Google Ad Grant agency that is.

Policy 1: Only Send Traffic To Your Owned Domain

You must own the website that searchers go to when they click your ad. I know, that seems obvious but nonprofits regularly run into problems when it comes to subdomains. It's common for donation platforms, shops, event signups and other actions to occur on a subdomain like nonprofit.teespring.com or nonprofit.eventscribe.net.

Because they aren't actually domains owned by you (and instead owned by Teespring and Eventscribe in these examples) you can't send people to those domains. However, if you own the subdomain (like blog.yournonprofit.com) then you can send traffic to that domain without an issue.

If you're not sure, check the last part of the domain before the ".com" and if it's your domain (like blog.yourdomain.com) then you're good to go. If it's not, then you won't be in compliance without specific approval (which you can request here).

Policy 2: Have A High Quality Website

Your website should load quickly and not have broken links or significant technical problems (like very slow page speed). Additionally, your mission should be clear, your content up-to-date across your website and your website should be secured with HTTPS (using SSL certificate).

The issue that usually leads to noncompliance is a lapse in your SSL certificate which will then show your website as "unsecured" in the Chrome browser. This is an easy fix and your hosting provider should be able to help you resolve it.

Policy 3: Limited Commercial Activity and Advertising

Commercial activity can't be the main purpose of your website and you have to comply with policy before you're approved for the Google Ad Grant.

However, that doesn't mean you can't have any commercial activity and it's not uncommon to promote shops and services with the Google Ad Grant.

But where I see nonprofits fall out of compliance after approval is with some of the smaller details like "your website may not host affiliate advertising links". It can be easy enough to toss in an affiliate link and I've worked with several nonprofits who have been approached by organizations with incentives to add those affiliate links.

Again, these policies are generally reviewed at the time of grant approval, but you'll still need to be aware of them as your organization grows and make sure you're not drifting to noncompliance.

Are There Rules On How Frequently I Log In?

There was a rule at one point that required you to log in every 30 days and make an edit every 90 days but that's no longer an active rule. You will still see it floating around quite a bit but there's no active Google documentation supporting it.

It's also one of those rules that should never be an issue. You should be logging into your Google Ad Grant account more than once every 30 days and typically making edits as well. However, it's not part of compliance and this catchall rule was replaced by the much more specific rules we've already covered.

My Account Isn't Compliant...But Nothing Has Happened!

That doesn't mean something won't happen.

The accounts I've seen get suspended usually have multiple issues and they're relatively extreme. As in, not one generic keyword but dozens with no conversion tracking and missing sitelink extensions.

However, it also seems that Google will routinely "sweep" accounts (which is consistent in how they manage other products) and leave non-compliant accounts alone for weeks or months until they suspend a large portion at once. So just because your account has been performing while still non-compliant doesn't mean you don't need to fix the issues!

How To Get Your Account Reactivated

If you're here because your account has been inactivated for not complying with one of these rules, you can use this form to get your account live again after you fix the issue. To increase your chances of success and make the process easier, try to include an image of the changes as this will usually speed up the process.

Closing Thoughts

The Google Ad Grant is an amazing tool but the rules (and concerns over accidentally breaking them) have kept many nonprofits from ever starting. I hope this article helped clarify these rules and give you the motivation to maximize your Google Ad Grant!

And if you want help or have questions about your grant, feel free to book a call with me here or learn more about our Google Ad Grant management here. Thanks for reading!

Nonprofit Marketing Plan & Template: The C-A-A-T Framework

Logan Mastrianna — Tue, 30 Apr 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Marketing, especially digital marketing, can seem really complicated.

But it doesn't have to be.

Today, we're looking at simple 4-part nonprofit marketing framework that will work with any marketing approach and allow you to create a clear, logical, and scalable plan that moves your mission forward.

We're going to use the C-A-A-T Nonprofit Marketing Framework (pronounced "caahhhht") to understand the strategy first and then we can get into the nitty gritty details.

Most of the other nonprofit marketing plans out there seems to do the opposite. They're creating a 50 step process where it's easy to end up getting lost in the details as you consider the perfect font for your marketing rather than the real strategy behind it.

So let's get to it!

C-A-A-T Nonprofit Marketing Framework

Simple is good. Simple is functional. Remember that when you look at the framework and know that we're going to dive into the details for each stage. Here's the C-A-A-T Nonprofit Marketing Framework:

And if funnels (not felines) are more your thing, then here's the same framework in a more traditional style:

Now that we see the big picture, let's breakdown each step so we understand how it all works together.

Start With A Specific Goal

Of course, it's hard to know where we're going if we don't have a goal so start with a target.

It can be general like "find more volunteers", "attract more donors", or "get more people aware of our mission."

Don't overthink this part! You know what will move your mission forward so start there! The C-A-A-T Marketing Framework will help us understand how to get there but you need to be clear on where you want to go.

#1 Connect On Your Chosen Channel

A channel is the platform you use to connect with your audience. Google, LinkedIn, Facebook, Tik-Tok, E-mail, YouTube and even direct mail are all channels. On the Google side, that includes search ads through paid Google Ads for nonprofits as well as the Google Ad Grant.

At this stage, we want to decide what channel to use so we know what type of content we need to create. It could be a direct sales or service page, an entertaining video, or just helpful content but our channel will help us understand what works best.

While many channels are often grouped together, like social media, even a quick look will show us that there are big differences and what you'd post on Facebook, LinkedIn, Tik-Tok would likely be quite different even though they all fall under the social media umbrella. Paid social, like Meta ads for Facebook and Instagram, is its own discipline again and worth thinking about separately from organic posts.

As a result, we want to start by looking at each channel individually so we understand what to post.

Understanding High-Intent, Low-Intent, and Mixed Channels

We know that there's a big difference in content between channels like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Google search. Yes, you're more likely the find emojis on Facebook but the more important difference is high-intent, low-intent, or a mix of both.

Low-intent platforms are ones where users are typically shown content rather than searching for it (like a news feed). The problems your organization solves aren't usually top-of-mind for people on these platforms so you may need to use more educational content before advocating for an action along with more eye-catching content to stop the scroll and get attention.

Facebook is a classic example of this and users will get on Facebook to "research" a "friend" from high school, see what their family is up to or just be entertained by funny photos but if your organization shows up and appeals to them, you can interrupt what they're doing and get their attention.

High-intent platforms are ones where users are looking for something specific and only want to be shown something that matches their search. The people on these platforms have higher awareness of problems and usually searching for a solution that you can offer directly.

Google is a great example and because the intent is high, you can change your ask to match.

For example, if someone is searching for "volunteer to help animals" in Google, you want to match your page to their intent and give them exactly what they want: a chance to volunteer.

Lastly, mixed-intent platforms are those where some users have high-intent and others are just checking out what the algorithm gives them.

The best example here is YouTube which generates massive views through it's recommendation algorithm but is also the worlds second largest search engine. Depending on your topic, you may be focused more on capturing search intent, tapping into the algorithm, or ideally both on platforms like YouTube.

In many cases, intent can be a spectrum with many platforms falling somewhere in the middle:

We'll cover more on offers, asks, and actions on step three when we introduce the Advocacy Ladder but for now it's important to ask yourself:

"Is my chosen channel high intent where I need to give them exactly what they're looking for or lower intent where more interesting or eye-catching content will be more effective?"

Let's say you're looking for volunteers. If Facebook is your chosen channel, you'd want to create a visually appealing post with short bullet points showcasing the options for volunteers in your organization. But if you're using Google Search you'd want to send people directly to a more in-depth page that covers all your volunteer options and the next steps for getting started.

#2 Acquire An Audience

Just getting attention isn't, unfortunately, enough and we also need to find a way to connect with this person again in the future.

Someone will need to interact with your organization around 7 times before they take action. It's not a perfect rule but it does highlight the need to keep the conversation going.

But most people get to a website and then you never see them again. They forget about your organization, your mission, and they lose motivation before taking action. That leaves you stuck at one quick interaction.

We can change that by acquiring contact information from our new connection and building an audience of people that we can connect with again. We have several ways of doing this including:

Using cookies to "flag" our visitors so we can follow up with on other platforms
Building our following through subscribers, follows, and more
Acquiring email addresses so we can contact our new connections
Completing a transaction which allows us to collect contact information
And more

Out of all your options, email is usually the best, but also the hardest get. You can use email opt-ins like this:

Or you can grow your audience on your socials with fun and easy-to-engage with posts like this:

All these can work and in some cases, you'll use multiple. The important part is to know how your marketing plan turns connections into an audience.

#3 Advocate For Your Cause

It's time to advocate for your cause and educate your new audience on how they can help so you can move towards your ideal action.

That could be asking for donations, finding event attendees, finding adopters for cats, or anything else your organization needs. The important here is actually advocating and asking for action. I've worked with several nonprofits that do a great job building an audience but aren't consistently advocating for their cause so they can move their mission forward.

We can use the Advocacy Ladder to make sure we're moving things in the right direction.

The Advocacy Ladder

Your advocacy and asks should be moving your audience towards actions that are more and more valuable to organization (and also higher commitment). Those who want to be a bigger part of your mission will jump at the opportunity and those who are happy where they're at will stay in place.

Here's the Advocacy Ladder and some of steps may look a little different for your specific organization:

Following the Advocacy Ladder, we should be asking our email subscribers for higher commitment actions like donating or closely related actions like signing a pledge but asking our subscribers to simply view a page is too far down the Advocacy Ladder and represents a move in the wrong direction for the relationship.

The reverse is also true, and if someone is viewing a page for the first time, we'd want to start by asking to connect via email or have them sign a free pledge before moving straight to donate. That doesn't mean we can't also ask for donations (and we should be) but we also want to give our visitors a smooth path up the ladder too.

When it comes to implementing this stage of the C-A-A-T Marketing Framework, we need to be asking ourselves if our plan has a way to move people up the ladder smoothly. If not, we could be keeping things stagnant by offering no opportunities for our audience to build a relationship or only offering high commitment steps like donations.

Higher Intent Accelerates Your Climb Up the Advocacy Ladder

Before we move on to step 4, we need to add one more layer: the relationship between intent and the Advocacy Ladder. When you're using high-intent channels, you can jump up the ladder faster and sometimes this even means blending your advocacy, ask, and audience building into one step.

For example, if you're using a high intent channel like Google Ads and someone is searching for "volunteer at animal shelter". In that case, you can directly let them know about the work you're doing, how they can help, and ask them to submit a volunteer application. Your mechanism for acquiring an audience and advocating are blended into one step where you get them to complete an action (apply) and collection their information via the application.

On the other hand, if you're looking for volunteers on Facebook, where intent is much lower, you may need to focus on building the relationship first through lower advocacy actions first and then start promoting for your volunteer program.

Does That Mean High Intent Channels Are Better?

With that in mind, it might sound like high intent channels are the only way to go right?

Not exactly.

While higher intent channels, like Google search, let you move up the advocacy ladder towards some higher value actions, it also narrows the relationship. If you don't match what the high-intent user is looking for, they're going to leave.

As a result, your marketing funnel is relatively narrow like this:

With lower intent channels, like Facebook, you can move people in multiple directions over time.

Here's a visual example of what that would look like:

Simply put, the higher intent the channel the more you need to get to the point to acquire your new audience as a connection. With lower intent channels, you're focused more on building the relationship more slowly while still advocating for your cause. Both are effective and best will depend on your goals.

#4 Track, Report, and Improve

Now that we have our marketing plan in place, it's time to track our results and report on what's working so we can improve our marketing plan over time.

At a minimum, we need to be tracking which channels (Google search, Facebook, YouTube, etc) produce what results and Google Analytics 4 is typically the best way to do this. Reach out if you need help getting Google Analytics 4 in place for your organization.

From there, we want to know what those results cost us so we can figure out where to allocate our budget for the best return. Starting with a simple example, let's say you're trying to get people to register for an event, here's the line of thinking you'd apply:

That's it! It sounds complicated, but the hardest part is usually implementing the tracking. Once you know that registration clicks are worth $10, you can hold marketing teams accountable and easily understand whether results from different channels are good or bad.

However, we can also take things further and add a time element to our analysis. Let's say that your 5,000 person email list generated $100,000 in donations within the last 12 months including your big donation event. That means the average email subscriber is worth $20 per year ($100,000 dollars / 5,000 people).

With these numbers, you now know that getting email subscribers for $2 each is great! If you're paying $18, then that's not so great but if you expand your time horizon to two, three, or five years then it starts to look better. Of course, most organizations need better cash flow than waiting years to see a return on marketing so select the timeframe that makes sense for your nonprofit.

It's also worth noting that this example simplifies things and doesn't account for the value of legacy donations that could come from your email list, email subscribers that attend events, make purchases, use your services, and much more. But it does give you enough data to know whether or not you're seeing a measurable return from your marketing strategy or not.

Nonprofit Facebook Marketing Plan Using The C-A-A-T Framework

Now let's put all together and look at some examples starting with a lower intent channel like Facebook.

Set Our Goal

We want to use Facebook to get more donations. I know, it's simple but just clarifying that will level up your nonprofit's marketing. Most organizations simply post on social media "because that's what you do" without any strategy behind it. By setting a goal and using the C-A-A-T Framework to figure out how to get there, you're way ahead of the curve!

#1 Connect

We're going to use an easy-to-engage with post to generate page likes through limited organic reach but more likely via paid promotion. Here's an example post we could use that's a great starting point to a new relationship.

#2 Acquire

We're getting more page follows in order to build our audience through more easy-to-engage posts.

#3 Advocate

At this point, your audience has seen your post several times so we're moving closer to those 7 positive interactions. At this stage, we can advocate for our cause and ask for an action that's higher up the Advocacy Ladder like donating. This post does a great job matching our channel with a short, easy-to-understand story, and great images.

#4 Track and Report

Now it's time to track and report on what worked. At the basic level, we'd want to know how many donations occurred from the post.

Even better, we'd want to know how much was donated so we can understand how valuable Facebook is for us and how much attention (and budget) it should get.

Nonprofit Google Ads Marketing Plan Using The C-A-A-T Framework

Now let's look at a higher-intent channel to see how advocacy and audience get blended.

Set Our Goal

We want to use the Google Ad Grant to get more registrations for our nonprofit that connects deployed military with people who want to send them care packages. This is one of the many strategies you can use to maximize your Google Ad Grant and you can read more about that in this article.

It's also something we can do for you and our agency specializes in Google Ad Grant management or you can learn how to use the Google Ad Grant in our course.

#1 Connect

We're going to use Google search ads to to show up for the very high-intent search phrase "how to send care packages to troops". Our ad shows up right at the top and makes it clear that this this a great match to what they're searching for.

#2 Acquire and #3 Advocate

Because the intent is so high and specific, we can immediately advocate for an action, in this case registering with our nonprofit so we can help them send a care package.

#4 Track and Report

Once again, it's time to track and report. Not only is this best practice, but tracking conversions is required to even use the Google Ad Grant. We'll be able to track how many people register and assign a value for our nonprofit.

That's It!

The C-A-A-T Framework is designed to make planning your nonprofit marketing simple whether you're an agency using the Google Ad Grant or an entire marketing team attempting a huge multi-channel campaign.

But I'd love to hear what you think. Feel free to reach out or comment below with any questions or how you've been able to apply the C-A-A-T marketing template.

10 Ways To Maximize Your Google Ad Grant

Logan Mastrianna — Tue, 16 Apr 2024 00:00:00 GMT

According to Google, the average Google Ad Grant account spends just $300 of the $10,000 available each month.

That means they're leaving $116,400 in free grant money on the table every year.

Unfortunately, most non-profit organizations don't know how to really maximize the Google Ad Grant. Today, we're going to change that.

I'm going to cover 10 strategies you can use to get the most out of your Google Ad Grant. We're not going to get stuck in the details of where to click or how to write an ad (that's for another time). Instead, we're focusing on the strategies you can use to maximize your monthly grant budget.

Here's what we're going to cover:

Before We Get Started

We are going to focus on higher level strategy, and not so much on tactics within the Google Ads account, but you will absolutely need conversion-based bidding (which will require Google Analytics 4) to make these strategies work. Without that, you'll be stuck bidding just $2 per click and your account will be quite limited when it comes to some of the more advanced strategies on this list.

1. Branded Campaigns

A branded campaign simply means running ads for your own brand name and close variations of it. It's first on our list because I can't think of a single organization that shouldn't be running a branded campaign.

While branded campaigns are hotly debated in paid accounts (understandably, some people have a problem paying Google to show up for their own brand name) it makes perfect sense in grant accounts. Especially if you're not already utilizing the entire 10k per month.

Here's an example of a branded search for the Cat Care Society in Lakewood, Colorado:

Notice how Cat Care's website takes up almost the entire screen between paid and organic results. Thanks to the Google Ads sitelink extensions, they also get even more control over how they appear in search results and are able to show their best pages when someone searches for their brand.

Controlling the search results is a critical part of reputation management.

Unfortunately, someone will have something negative to say about your organization at some point but the more you can control your own search results the more you can keep the focus on the good work you're doing.

Branded campaigns also have a very high click-through-rate (CTR) which can help you achieve the required 5% account minimum if you're having trouble. This particular branded campaign for Cat Care Society has a CTR of 51.25% which is typical for these types of campaigns. That can make a big difference in your account if you're hovering around single digit click-through-rates.

If you've been studying Google's Ad Grant requirements then you also know that you're not allowed to bid on keywords that are a single word. However, if your brand name is a single word you get a pass and Google explains that, "Single-word keywords that are too broad to reflect the mission of nonprofits are restricted, except in cases of owned brand terms, medical conditions, basic keywords relating directly to supporting a charity, or due to the sensitive nature of the causes that charities support."

2. Promoting Your Content

We started with the straightforward branded campaign and now it's time to get a little more advanced with content.

Content is the starting point to a relationship with your organization, after all, people have to know you before they can support you and your best content should make for the perfect introduction! Content will make sense for just about every non-profit, especially those with a national presence or aspirations to go national.

Here's an example of a content campaign from Cat Care Society that shows up for the search term "black cat myths":

Content like this does several things:

It helps promote Cat Care Society's mission of helping cats by challenging the often negative perception of black cats.
It can help someone decide to adopt a black cat, possibly turning to Cat Care Society to do it.
It can help create brand awareness, if the Cat Care Society keeps showing up whenever you ask a cat-related question you'll take notice.
It can help build a list by collecting an email address before the reader leaves (more on why this is so important in the next section).

Then there's this article on supporting feral cats through the winter:

While this piece of content may be less likely to turn into an adoption, it still very clearly supports the Cat Care Society's mission of helping cats, in this case through education. They also get the benefits of awareness and potential list building.

Your content can be the starting point that leads to a much longer, or even lifetime, relationship with someone where they move from reading your content for a few minutes to donating, advocating for your cause, using your services, and much more.

But there are two common problems I typically see people run into when it comes to creating content for Google Ad Grants. First, is not fully understanding awareness and second is feeling lost on the process of content creation.

Understand Awareness To Maximize Content

If everyone already knew about your organization then marketing would be easy.

Heck, in that scenario you could stop at a branded campaign since everyone already knows you and will be typing your non-profit's name into Google search.

But the reality is, most people are likely unaware of your organization, your mission, and you. Content can help us change that but we need to meet people where they are, instead of waiting for them to only come to us.

Let's look at an example.

Project MEGSSS offers math education to gifted middle school students beyond what's available to them at their school. However, a lot of parents may not be aware of Project MEGSSS or that programs like this exist. Instead, they're much further up the awareness funnel searching for phrases like "how to help my gifted middle schooler" or "how to prepare my student for STEM career", etc.

Creating content that answers these questions will not only help people understand that Project MEGSSS exists, but also make them aware of the solution they offer and how it connects to what they're looking for.

Here's this idea represented visually:

When maximizing your Google ad grant, you should absolutely be targeting people at the bottom of this funnel. But you should also think about how people find your organization and how you can meet them where they're at.

What If I Don't Have Any Content?

Creating and promoting content can seem intimidating but you don't need 100s of articles to pull this strategy off. Instead, start with what you have:

Is there any existing literature you share with the public that you could turn into an article or post? You could start with something like a list of resources but anything that would be helpful to a wider audience will help.
You know your organization, are there frequently asked questions that you could easily turn into an article? These questions will be quick for you or someone on your team to answer and you can target these questions directly as keywords in your Google Ads account.
Are you already getting traffic for any article? Check what you're already ranking for in Google search console and add those as keywords to your Google Ad Grant account.

However, we're trying to maximize our Google Ad Grant account which means we're not stopping at just getting traffic to our content. We want to bring these new people into our non-profit's ecosystem and we can do that by capturing their email address or some other way of staying in contact.

So to make the most out of a content strategy, we should have a meaningful conversion connected to it (like email subscriptions, click to share on social, etc) which also leads us to our next strategy: list building.

3. List Building

Most people get to a website and bounce.

Poof! They're gone.

You'll likely never see them again and they'll unfortunately forget about you and your organization.

But if you can collect their email address before they go or find another way to connect with them, that all changes and then you're building an audience.

Here's an example of an email opt-in from Search Engine Journal but you've seen these kind of opt-ins before:

It's simple, doesn't have the strongest call-to-action but it is visible enough to get collect emails. The important part here is to have something that allows you to reconnect with your audience. That list also becomes the foundation for lookalike targeting if you ever start running Meta ads alongside the Grant.

Start with an in-content call to action or something in the sidebar and give the visitors a reason to share their email. If you're just getting started, don't overthink this and you can optimize it later but ask yourself "would I sign up for this?" Then track email sign ups as a conversion in Google Analytics and Google Ads. The important part is to get started! An email list will make all your marketing more effective and allow you to promote events, services, collect donations and much more.

What If I Don't Have An Email List?

That's okay! Add that to your list of priorities (and put it near the top).

But for now you can track clicks to social, joining a group or anything else that lets you reconnect with visitors in some way!

Using something other than email is not perfect, but it's one step closer to maximizing your grant compared to not doing anything at all with your traffic! Whatever you choose, make sure you're tracking it as a conversion so you understand what's working and so you can give Google Ads the data it needs.

4. Donations

I don't need to tell you why donations are important and it's one of the first things people think about when it comes to new Google Ad Grant accounts.

However, it's not always so easy and because of the way grant accounts work (you're bidding after paid ads), you're unlikely to ever show up for search terms like "donate my car" or "donate to non-profit".

Instead, you're going to find much more success targeting phrases that are specific to your organization. Here's an example from a campaign for The Foundation for Sickle Cell Disease Research and they're showing an ad for the very specific search term "donate for sickle cell":

But this direct approach is often not the best way to get donations for your organization and donation requests should be built into your content, emails, and just about everything else you do. While these campaigns will bring in some donations, most people will need 3 to 7 positive interactions with your non-profit before they donate.

Every email, social media post, text, and site visit is an opportunity for them to learn more about your mission and eventually take action to support it. So make sure you're working donations into every part of strategy.

5. Volunteers

Finding volunteers locally can be relatively straight forward, especially for organizations like animal shelters or food banks where it's well known that they need volunteers. People are searching for phrases like "volunteer for animal shelter" or "volunteer at food bank".

But in other cases, we may need to turn back to our awareness funnel to reach more people. This is can especially be true if you're non-profit provides support to a large group of people or a specific regions. In these cases, people may want to volunteer but not know how.

For example, someone searching "how to volunteer to help homeless" may not know all their options or they're looking for ways to volunteer beyond what's typical. Here's what that progression would look like in our awareness funnel:

Again, if you're looking for local volunteers this approach isn't necessary, but if you're national or have a unique way to utilize volunteers using content to move up the funnel can be a great strategy.

Give yourself plenty of time for results. Google Ad Grants accounts (and Google Ads in general) are not good for quick launch, short term campaigns so focus on positions that you need regularly rather than on positions that you need only once.

6. Jobs

You can target specific job positions in your organization, but as I just noted with volunteers, this is best for positions that are frequently open and that you need several of like frontline staff compared to executive roles.

You'll also want to target specific job positions in your organization and not general targeting like "non profit jobs" which won't work as well and aren't likely to show in results.

Here's an example and while this isn't focused on non-profits, it does highlight that ads can appear above the jobs widget which is a huge benefit and one of the main reasons to use Google Ads for finding applicants at all:

These are tougher campaigns to get right but for larger organizations with a lot of turnover, it can be a huge help.

7. Events

If you have events, you can use your Google Ad Grant to get more attendees.

However, your event needs to have some search demand behind it for this to work. For example the Cat Care Society has an event called "Tails of the Painted Cats" where cat sculptures (and some dogs) are painted in amazing ways and then auctioned off. You can see what I'm talking about here:

This type of event isn't going to have search volume and the closest you'll get is something like "charity auction" or similar. Which will be tough to show up for in a grant account.

Instead, you can promote this event via your email list, on your website, on your social media accounts, or with display advertising. And promoting events is just one of the many reasons we want to be building our lists and growing our audience!

On the other hand, The Foundation For Sickle Cell Disease Research has an annual medical conference where they share the latest information on treatments, genetic advances and more:

This type of event will have some search volume in the form of "medical conference" and similar. It will do especially well locally and focusing on additional benefits to attendees like continuing education credits and similar can make it even more effective.

Events are a great way to maximize your Google Ad Grant but just ask yourself what someone would search to find it before building a new campaign.

8. Petitions and Issues

In some cases, there will be people actively searching for petitions to sign. These could be things like "petition against animal cruelty" or "petition to stop animal testing". In other cases, you could promote your petition as the solution for the search.

For example, when I search for "how to stop puppy mills" I end up with search results like this:

We can see that Lady Freethinker (the second result) is telling us right in the ad that signing a petition is a good way to take action.

When we get to her website, we're told what the petition is, we're given the option to sign it and shown a bit of social proof. You can see that in the image below but if you want a closer look you can also check out the page here.

This is a great example of understanding the intent of the search and sending the user to the right page. It's also a great example of a scenario when there can be more than one right way to match intent of the search.

Best Friends Animal Society has another ad in the same search results but instead of going straight for a petition, their page focuses on education and gives the reader several different actions to take including supporting legislation, learning even more about puppy mills and also signing a petition.

Is one approach better than the other?

Nope! As long as you're matching the action you want users to take to the intent of their search, you'll find success.

9. Sales

You can use the Google Ad Grant to promote your products as long as you're sending people to your own domain or subdomain (that means no Amazon or Tee Spring shops).

Of course, e-commerce shouldn't be the only thing you're using your ad grant for (and you'll run into Google Ad Grant compliance issues if that's the case) but if you have a shop, this a great technique for maximizing your grant and gives you the opportunity see a return on investment faster than you would with a long term list building or content campaign.

However, if you're only selling branded products, you might have a harder time getting sales. But if your non-profit is selling items that people would buy on their own (like funny t-shirts) this can be a great option.

10. Services

Services are last on our list because it's probably the first thing most organizations think about when they consider a Google Ad Grant (that and donations). If you're operating nationally, this is pretty straightforward and you want to show your service offer to as many people as possible.

However, if your services are local (like cat adoptions or a medical facility) I recommend expanding your location targeting beyond what you might expect.

When it comes to organic (non-paid) search and local services, proximity to the person searching is the most important factor. In the extreme sense, this is obvious and if your animal shelter is in Delaware it's not going to show up when someone in California searches Google for "animal shelter". But this also applies at a smaller scale too.

In the image below, we can see the Google rankings for Cat Care Society when someone searches for "cat adoption". They're located in the center of the map (where they arrow is) and you can see that they're in position 3 or 4 in areas close to their location. But when you start looking at rankings further out from their location, you can see that they show up in position 20+ which means no one is going to find them.

But would someone drive 25 minutes across Denver to find the perfect cat?

Yes! Absolutely and we even documented this in our case study.

This is a flaw (one of many) with how Google's organic search results work. This system works great if you're looking for a coffee shop since you probably don't want to drive 25 minutes for a latte. But doesn't work as well for more unique or specialized services.

However, you can use the Google Ad Grant to fix this flaw by expanding your location targeting much further than what you would rank for with organic Google search alone.

Exactly how far you expand your reach will depend on your specific non-profit's mission, but in this case, we've set the location targeting up to 100 miles for Cat Care Society and while that could be on the high end, there are plenty of people who would drive 100 miles for the cat they fell in love with.

Okay...Now What?

We've covered a lot of information here and now you have plenty of ideas on how you can start maximizing your Google Ad Grant.

But where do you start? Here's the order I'd start in for most non-profits:

Brand and Services

Starting here makes sense because you likely know these areas the best and it's a great foundation for your Google Ad Grant account. If you have any branded searches, it will also help you start strong with some easy impressions and clicks.

Volunteers

If your organization uses volunteers, this is another great place to start. You're unlikely to compete with as many paid Google ads accounts (compared to something like donations) and finding more volunteers can make a huge impact on many non-profits.

Content and List Building

This can be more difficult for many non-profits which is why we didn't start here. However, this is where you can really start to scale your daily ad spend but just make sure you're building your list at the same time.

Donations

You can add a campaign for generating donations directly but these campaigns can be tricky to get right (which is why we didn't start here) and you may have a hard time getting any traction depending on your niche due to competition.

Events, Petitions, and Sales

These three don't make sense for every organization, so they're further down the list.

Jobs

Jobs are another strategy that can be difficult to perfect. It's also not the best for every organization and usually other channels like job aggregators do a better job. But if you're maxing out all your other strategies and have openings then it can be worth exploring!

That's It!

These are far from the only strategies you can use, but they are the ones that will apply to most non-profit organizations.

If you have a question, feel free to leave a comment below. And if you want to work with me directly, I offer a 6-week live training program where you can learn to manage your own grant account or we can handle it all for you. You can book a call and learn more here.