Google AdGrants - The promotion for non-profit organizations

The placement of ads in search engines has become an important part of the marketing mix for companies and organizations. This is due to a number of factors: target group selection, high ROI, exact verifiability, continuous optimization, and the possibility of directly addressing interested parties with a specific intention. With the Google AdGrants program, Google, the largest provider of search advertising, offers its own solution for non-profit programs.

What is Google AdGrants?

Google AdGrants is a special version of Google Ads for non-profit organizations and charitable causes. Those who meet the relevant requirements are provided with an advertising budget of up to $10,000 USD per month by Google. This is to ensure that corresponding organizations with rather frugal budgets do not get lost in the mass of ads, but receive enough visibility to be able to send the charitable message. 

The regular Google AdWords interface serves as the basis here, all known functions are therefore retained. 

Who can apply for Google AdGrants?

Applying for AdGrants support is possible for any organization as long as it meets the eligibility guidelines defined by Google. The basic requirement is the status as a registered non-profit organization including the corresponding recognition by TECHSOUP or a TechSoup partner. TechSoup is an international network of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that provide technical support and assistance to other nonprofit organizations. German organizations must therefore register with TechSoup's German representative, STIFTER-HELFEN.DE.

In addition, organizations must be associations, foundations, or non-profit legal entities that have a charitable, benevolent, or ecclesiastical status and/or are charitable and non-profit. Public authorities or governmental institutions, hospitals and health care organizations as well as schools, educational institutions and universities are excluded from participation.

What are the requirements for Google AdGrants?

Not only is participation in the Google AdGrants program complicated, but the setup and support of the ads also follows strict rules that can very quickly result in account deletion if not followed. The specifications are meant to ensure that the ads achieve maximum visibility. Additionally, the perfect target audience should be addressed, who should receive the ads in the best possible way and perform worthwhile actions on the website. 

Below we have listed the most important specifications for setting up a Google AdGrants campaign:

• USD is used as currency regardless of location
• Only text ads, no display ads or video ads
• Display only in Google search results, not on partner sites 
• Maximum cost-per-click of $2.00
• Minimum of two ad groups required
• A minimum of 2 ads must be served per ad group
• Ads must be supported with at least 2 sitelinks
• Conversion tracking must be enabled
• The click-through rate, i.e. the ratio of impressions to actual clicks on the ads, must always be above 5%.

Of course, the Website itself and all target pages must be filled with high-quality, own content and the site must be on a good technical level. The redirection to questionable content is immediately punished. So Google also expects an absolutely presentable page for the investment.e.

How can companies benefit from Google AdGrants?

If a company meets all the requirements regarding specifications and account setup, the resulting benefits are immense. Instead of laboriously investing its own budget in ads, Google sponsors the campaigns with a monthly advertising budget of $10,000 USD. Consequently, the company has $329 USD per day at its disposal! Such sums are otherwise only used by the bigger brands. 

Although there is no official announcement about it, we can assume that AdGrants ads are supported not only by the budget, but also by the Google algorithm. If you add the CTR target of 5% to it, you will get a very high traffic to your website without having to invest any budget.

However, it is mandatory to check the account regularly and always optimize it perfectly. Account owners are warned with a 14-day lead time as soon as the account no longer meets the requirements to AdGrants - but after that, you only have until the end of the month to fix the errors before the account is deleted and the registration and setup process has to be started again.

Conclusion

Google AdGrants is an extremely effective yet free way for nonprofits to gain tremendous reach, traffic and conversions on their website through ads. However, setup and support are time-consuming. So, if you are thinking of applying for Google AdGrants, contact us. We will help you every step of the way.