Google Ad Grants New Year’s Resolutions

9 Google Ad Grants New Year’s Resolutions for Nonprofit Communications and Marketing Staff

With a new year freshly underway, now is a great time to set goals and strategies for your Google Ad Grants account. Sticking with your New Year’s resolutions may be tough, but by setting some small goals and objectives you can make the most of your $10,000 per month grant throughout the coming year.
To help you see tangible results that are better than the year before, we’ve provided 9 resolutions that if followed can help you improve the performance of your Google Ad Grant. You’ll be more active in your account, you will make the critical changes that can improve your placement and performance on Google, and in turn you will bring more targeted visitors to your site.
All of this means that you will be helping more people find the services and programs your organization offers, better connect with the people who care about your cause, and improve your overall digital marketing efforts.

Here are 9 Resolutions that will help you get the most out of your Google Grant:

I will actively log into my AdWords account at least once per week.

• The most common issue we see in Google Grants management is that non-profit staff do not consistently log in to their accounts.
• You can start small. Commit to logging into your account once a week and spending 15 to 30 minutes managing your campaigns, ads, and keywords. If you are serious about improving your understanding of AdWords this is the minimum commitment you should make.

I will connect my AdWords account to Google Analytics.

• You can’t manage what you don’t measure. This is an old management adage that holds true for digital marketing and specifically AdWords. Analytics is where you can set goals and conversions for AdWords so you can measure the impact of your efforts.
• The good news is that Google makes this a very easy step for you to take. Just follow the instructions in their help article titled: Link Google Analytics and AdWords.

I will set goals for my Google Ad Grants account.

• Having meaningful goals for your AdWords account is imperative if you want to improve upon your previous year’s successes and failures.
• Some examples of goals you can track newsletter sign-ups, online donations, or something as simple as new visitors to your website.

I will A/B test my ad copy.

• Don’t assume you are able to write a perfect ad the first time. Instead, run two ads concurrently with slight variations in the ad copy and see which ad performs better.
• Testing ad copy and making small improvements to your click through rates can give you significant yields over the course of a year and will also help you understand the language that connects with your audience.

I will add negative keywords to my campaigns.

• Negative keywords allow you to exclude search terms from your campaigns. This feature can help you focus on the keywords that matter to the people searching for your programs and services.
• Not using negative keywords can mean the difference between your ads showing up for a query of “homeless shelter” vs “animal shelter” – make sure your ads are shown to the right audience.

I will remove or improve low scoring keywords.

• Keywords score poorly for a few reasons, but the main reason being that the keyword you’ve selected doesn’t line up well with your ad and landing page.
• Review your keywords with a score of 3 or lower. These keywords should be deleted or added to a new ad group which is better aligned with the keyword to improve the score.

I will review my landing pages for relevance.

• It is important that you make the best effort to get people to the right page on your website. If a user is taken to a page that doesn’t quickly speak to their search query there is a good chance they will leave your site and may not come back.
• A common error we see is that ads send people to the organization’s home page. Take the opportunity to send donors to your donate page, and people searching for programs and services to the corresponding pages on your site – your visitors will thank you for it.

I will set geographic targeting for my campaigns.

• Geographic targeting allows you to restrict the area that your ads are shown in – by country, region, city, or postal code. Make sure your ads are being shown to people that you serve or offer relevant information to.
• If your organization has a walk-in program in a specific city there is not point in showing those ads to people across the country. An added benefit of having a tight geographic focus is that you’ll have a better understanding of how many people in your area are searching for your programs or services online.

I will add sitelinks to my campaigns.

• Sitelinks give you an added opportunity to include more context and information below your text ads with links that point to internal pages of your website. For example, you could include a sitelink for “Donate Today” that points back to your donation page.
• Sitelinks will also help you dominate the search results page as they take up a lot of space when they are shown below your ads.

By committing to these 9 Google Ad Grants New Year’s resolutions, you are taking the first step to an improved impact for your organization in 2017!

Do you not have enough time in your day to actively manage your Google Ad Grant account?

The reality is that a lot of nonprofit staff do not have enough time in their schedules to actively log in and manage their accounts. If this is your situation, don’t miss out on making an impact for your organization. We offer Google Ad Grants management packages specifically tailored to nonprofit and charitable organizations.
If you would like to learn more about our work with nonprofit organizations and how we can help you get the most out of your Google Grant, please contact us.