Maximizing Your Google Grant: Strategies for Nonprofits to Drive More Donations
Who doesn’t love free money?
Google provides nonprofits with up to $10,000 of advertising spend each month, but many nonprofits struggle to effectively spend their Google Grant's monthly allotment, missing out on valuable opportunities to drive donations and support their missions.
How can you ensure your organization is getting the most out of this program and not leaving free money on the table? Great question! We are sharing some of our favorite strategies and best practices to ensure just that.
1. Align Your Bidding Strategies to Your Goals
For Smart Bidding (Google’s automated bid strategies that optimize using AI), Google suggests using the "Maximum conversion values" option if you’re tracking donations and the "Maximize conversions" option for other goals like leads or petition signatures. This allows higher bids for important placements and improves overall bidding effectiveness.
Some examples for when to use various Smart Bidding strategies include:
Target CPA (Cost Per Acquisition): Optimize for donations by setting target CPA goals.
Target ROAS (Return on Ad Spend): Use this if you track conversion value to maximize donation revenue.
Maximize Conversion Value: Focuses on obtaining the highest donation value per dollar spent.
Maximize Conversions: Aims to increase the total number of donations.
Create a dedicated landing page for each of your Google Ad campaigns.
Pro-Tip! Avoid overloading this page with too much information about your organization. Ensure it clearly aligns with the action the ad prompts visitors to take.
2. Maximize the Reach and Efficiency with Effective Keyword Strategies
By using a combination of long-tail keywords and different match types, you can target a more defined audience while managing costs.
Use long-tail keywords: Keywords that are longer, more specific phrases like “donation animal rescue nonprofit Virginia” will reach a more targeted, defined audience and keep costs low.
Mix match types: Employ a mix of broad match, phrase match, and exact match keywords to balance reach and precision. This will help ensure that the full range of searches (from identical to related) are connecting to your keywords.
Refine keywords: Continuously update your keyword lists based on insights from the Search Terms Report to exclude non-performing and irrelevant keywords to keep your Quality Score strong, which will in turn keep your account at peak performance.
3. Experiment With Spend Options
Experiment setting up all campaigns to a max spend instead of summing up the daily max spend. Google will automatically cap spend, ensuring you utilize your entire budget more effectively by giving each campaign more leeway.
Pro Tip: It’s a misconception that Google Grants won’t allow bids higher than $2.00. This restriction applies only if all bids are set manually. Using the Smart Bidding function allows you to exceed the manual limit of $2.00 per bid.
4. Utilize Ad Extensions
Ad extensions can significantly improve the visibility and engagement of your ads by providing additional information and interaction options directly in the search results.
Sitelink Extensions: Direct users to specific high-conversion pages like "Our Impact" and "Success Stories."
Call Extensions: Enable direct communication by adding a click-to-call feature.
Location Extensions: Use for geo-targeted campaigns to attract local donors.
Structured Snippets: Highlight key aspects of your organization’s work, such as “Programs,” “Events,” and “Volunteer Opportunities.”
6. Optimize Ad Content
Enhancing your ad content with advanced techniques can make your ads more relevant and engaging, increasing the likelihood of conversions.
Dynamic Keyword Insertion (DKI): Tailor ads to user search queries dynamically.
Ad Customizers: Use for countdowns in time-sensitive campaigns, like match campaigns.
Audience Segmentation: Tailor ad messaging for different donor personas, such as past donors versus potential new donors.
7. Maintain Regular Monitoring and Optimization
Consistent monitoring and optimization are crucial to maintaining the effectiveness of your Google Grants campaigns. Regular audits and automated rules can help you stay on top of performance metrics and compliance.
Frequent Audits: Use the Search Terms Report to identify high-performing and underperforming keywords.
Compliance Checks: Utilize the Ad Grants Account Review Dashboard for compliance and optimization opportunities.
Automated Rules: Implement to adjust bids based on performance metrics like CTR, conversion rate, and cost per conversion.
8. Integrate Multi-channel Engagement Strategies
Integrating your Google Ads with other marketing channels and tools can create a more cohesive and effective donor journey, from initial interest to final donation.
Remarketing Lists for Search Ads (RLSA): Re-engage past visitors with tailored messages.
CRM Integration: Sync Google Ads with your CRM to track and optimize the full donor journey from ad click to donation.
From optimizing landing pages and using smart bidding techniques to deploying comprehensive keyword strategies and utilizing ad extensions, these tips will help ensure your campaigns are effective and impactful. Get ready to maximize the potential of your Google Grant!
The digital landscape is always evolving, and incorporating best practices like these are critical to your program’s success. Connect with us to see how we can help transform your digital fundraising strategies!
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