How Non-Profits Can Make The Most Out Of Google Grants

Non-Profits have the opportunity to use Google Grants to advertise across Google. This is a great free tool that all Non-Profits should be utilizing to target their audience. 

Did you know that Google offers a $10,000 monthly grant to non-profit organization for advertising on Google? The program is called Google Grants and we want to show you a few ways to make the most of your, essentially free, advertising money. However, there are restrictions to using this grant, such as having a $2.00 maximum cost per click and campaigns can only be used in the Search network. With over 3 billion Google searches every day, you have the potential to reach thousands of website visitors each month without spending a dime.

Here are a few tips on how to have a successful Google Grants account:

1. Target The Right Audience

While you do have $10,000 a month to spend on Google Advertising, you want to make sure that you are targeting the correct audience and not targeting audiences that would not benefit from seeing your ad. Targeting by a specific radius around your non-profit organization can help determine where you will get the most conversions from. Another way to determine the target audience is to look at past donation campaigns, ticket sales or any other way your organization may be collecting demographic information.

2. Develop a Strategic Keyword List

When creating your keyword list, it is important that you take advantage of all keyword matching options as well as being specific to the content that is on the landing page that visitors will be sent to. Luckily, there are tools available through Google that can help you determine what keywords to use. By using broad, phrase, and exact match keywords will help trigger your ads to be seen. These matching options are important to attract a variety of potential customers.

• Broad Match Modifier using plus signs (ex: +dog +show) and shows the contained modified terms and close variations (ex: plural terms) in any order, but it will not show synonyms (ex: puppy).
• Phrase Match uses quotes around the keywords (ex: “dog show”) so your ad will show when that keyword in included in the search in that specific order (ex: dog show times, information about the dog show).
• Exact Match uses square brackets around the keywords (ex: [dog show]) and will only show when that keyword is searched. If a search is made using more words continued with the keywords the ad will not show (ex: dog show times).
• Negative Match removes search terms from your campaigns and helps you focus on the keywords that matter to your customers. Make sure that your negative keywords don't overlap with your regular keywords, because this will cause your ad not to show.

3. Create a Compelling Landing Page

When creating your ads, you want to be able to send visitors to a specific and relevant page. This would include a landing page that has information the user is looking for and a strong call to action. If you do send customers to an irrelevant landing page, they will most likely leave the site and continue their search on another website. This will also impact your quality score and the overall performance of your ads. By sending the user to a relevant page with the information they are seeking, you will ultimately reduce the bounce rate (which is good!) as well as increase the chances for a conversion.

Establish Separate Campaigns With Unique Goals

Each campaign that you create should be separate and unique from the other campaigns that are created. Then there are ad groups within campaigns that allow you to focus on a specific product/service using around 30 similar keywords to keep the targeting focused. Another reason why you should keep campaigns separate is for duration. On Google AdWords, you are able to specify a start and end date that the ads will run. By doing this you can automatically stop ads from showing after the campaign is over.

4. Simplify Your Contact Forms

For any kind of lead generation form, creating a form that is as short as possible will lead to a higher conversion of the user filling out their information. When creating a form, make sure that the information you are asking for is relevant by including fields such as full name, email address and phone number.

Google Grants provides qualifying non-profits with up to $10,000 per month or $120,000 annually at no charge. Though the requirements are stringent, non-profits can take advantage of these free marketing dollars. With Big Marlin Group as your Google Certified AdWords Partner, you can achieve outstanding results and generate new leads – for FREE!

Big Marlin Group is a fully certified Google AdWords preferred partner. We have the in-house knowledge and expertise to build your Google AdWords account from the ground up or take over an existing account to make sure you’re getting the biggest bang for your buck!