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July's Discussion Forum Hot Topic
Thursday, July 29, 2010
In the
discussion forum
this month, a few newly accepted Grantees were curious on how to proceed with the AdWords Account Creation process if they already had a paid AdWords account.
Unfortunately, it's not possible to merge a Google Grants account with a paid AdWords account, nor is it possible to convert your paying account into a Google Grants account. Google Grants recipients must create a new AdWords account once accepted into the program.
If you had an AdWords account prior to obtaining a Google Grants account, here are some tips to keep in mind when creating your new account:
Choose a different login email: Use a different email address to create the new account. If you'd like to use the same email address, you'll need to
change
it in your existing AdWords account before closing it out.
Use AdWords Editor: You can use
AdWords Editor
to transfer all your campaigns from your old account to your new account. (You'll need to create your new account and at least one campaign first.)
AdWords Editor is a free
, downloadable application for managing your account. AdWords Editor enables you to copy or move items between campaigns, ad groups, and accounts.
To all those new Grantees, we hope you find value and success from your efforts and experience with the Google Grants program!
Posted by AnnMarie Hill, The Google Grants Team
Resource round-up for July
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
July’s resource round-up includes an aggregation of How-Tos for grant applications, a call for volunteers at NTEN.org, a calendar of events and information about National Philanthropy Day on November 15, tips for rebranding your organization and a social media success story from a local dance group in Virginia.
Grant Application How-Tos
eHow has a collection of articles on the subject of applying for a variety of grants. They even have one called
How to Apply for a Google Grant
. Included in this collection; How to Apply for Home-Based Business Grants, How to Apply for a Nonprofit Grant and How to Apply for a Burning Man Art Grant.
Update your listing on NTEN
Non-profit Technology Network is updating their member directory and need your help testing it out. If you have about 30 minutes to help out this week (7/26-7/30),
send a quick email to karl@nten.org
. Otherwise, just
make sure that your NTEN member information is up to date
.
National Philanthropy Day
The Association of Fundraising Professionals Chapters
are beginning preparations for National Philanthropy Day (November 15th) acknowledgements.
Check their calendar
for celebratory events and gather
materials for your chapter’s own celebration
on their site.
Tips for rebranding your organization
If your organization is considering rebranding,
this USA Today article
with tips and guidance on how to assess whether your org is right for rebranding and how to navigate the obstacles, could be helpful as you get started on the process.
Success with social media
One local dance group in Virginia shares their perspective on using social media like YouTube, Facebook and Twitter to raise awareness about their group on a limited budget.
If you come across resources that would be useful to the greater non-profit community, feel free to post it to the appropriate topic in
our discussion group
so that everyone can benefit. If you'd like to review previous round-ups, you can search for "resource round-up" from the search box at the top of the page.
Posted by Jessica Vaughan, Google Grants Team
Strategic Stages to Account Development: AdWords in the Curriculum Wrap-Up
Thursday, July 22, 2010
As the fall school year approaches,
AdWords in the Curriculum
wrapped up its spring semester at Michigan State University. A class of 13 students working under Professor Clay Vorhees was paired with Michigan-based non profits including
West Michigan Land Conservancy
,
Piast Institute
,
Michigan Weimaraner Rescue
, and the
National Leiomysarcoma Foundation
.
AdWords in the Curriculum students highlighted the strategic aspects of AdWords campaigns which can make campaign builds and optimization an engaging and appealing project to work on.
After an initial meeting, the MSU student teams took a systematic approach to stages for optimizing.
Professor Vorhees explained, “During the optimization efforts, the students adopted a strategic approach to improve the campaigns by conducting
AB tests
that demonstrated the benefits of dynamic
keyword insertion
, developing rational appeals, and calls to action in their ad text. Leveraging these research findings, the student teams re-developed their campaigns after 5 weeks of testing and noticed substantial improvements in account performance.”
Allowing 5 weeks for data gathering and testing can ultimately improve campaign results. Making snap decisions about areas to change after just a week of performance can be risky, since there may be only a handful of impressions and clicks. On the other hand, it is critical to make adjustments to a campaign based on data once trends develop.
When the campaigns were set up and in a position to be optimized, the training began.
“Once optimization was underway, the students turned to teachers and worked with their non-profits virtually, on-site, and via the phone to train the non-profits in the process of monitoring, editing, and optimizing their campaigns. This extended training time with the non-profits proved to be a great success.”
After the semester with AdWords in the Curriculum concluded, all four non-profits are continuing to run campaigns with more than 12,000 visitors driven to the sites on a monthly basis.
Posted by Anita Varma, Google Ann Arbor Team
Grantee tips
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
If you’re looking for help or inspiration to improve your Google Grants AdWords account performance, your grantee peers are regularly offering up their best advice on
our testimonial page.
Recently
Kids First Fund
, an organization focused on helping needy children, shared some background on how their Google Grants AdWords account has helped them secure funds and raise awareness about their mission and how they’ve been able to manage the award within their organization.
"Kids First Fund advertisements appeared on more than 3 million Google search pages during 2009. These messages generated a stunning 35,000+ clicks to visit KidsFirstFund.org. The AdWords program generated exposure for the Kids First Fund among users in the USA, Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom. Once at the Kids First Fund website, donations may be made via
Google’s Checkout service
. The Kids First Fund can identify several donations received through online exposure at Google.com. This includes a $1,000 donation from a US-based foundation and individual donations from around the world including France, Malaysia, and Mozambique."
Advice for other grantees: Be certain to assign someone in the organization the task of managing the account. It's a great opportunity for a person with existing online marketing skills to expand their experience or for a newbie to learn about AdWords.
If you’d like to hear more about what other grantees are doing with their Grants AdWords accounts,
check out the testimonials page
for a growing number of stories. You can also
submit your own story
on our Share Your Story page and help other grantees by sharing what you’ve learned.
Posted by Jessica Vaughan, Google Grants Team
Ad Extensions: Added Them Yet?
Thursday, July 15, 2010
If you’ve been searching on Google.com you’ve probably seen a number of ads including some additional lines of information, such as a phone number, a business address, or even some product images. We’ve added a series of
ad extensions
in recent months to help users find more useful information on Google.
Today, we’d like to highlight some ways in which non-profits can use ad extensions to create more compelling campaigns and attract users to complete a desired activity. Please note that all extensions we discuss below are set at the
campaign
level.
Ad Sitelinks
If you’re running the top-ranked ads for a given keyword, you now have the ability to add different links to specific pages or content on your site. Rather than sending all users to the same landing page, ad sitelinks will display up to four additional links for users to choose from, as in the example below.
For non-profits, this means that you now have the opportunity to point folks not only to your homepage but also to other key areas of your site, such as a volunteer opportunities page, a fundraising page, or a page with information on your current projects.
Location Extensions
You’ve probably heard of or seen location extensions on Google in the past year: these are ads which have business addresses dynamically linked to them. For those who have claimed their
Google Places
listing and synced it with their ads, we recently added the ability to
add multiple address listings
(US only).
How can non-profits leverage this extension? This is a great tool for organizations looking to attract local foot traffic or promote an event to users in a specific region. For example, a food bank based in San Jose, California may be running ads on general keywords like “
San Jose food banks
” and have ad text that calls on folks to “
donate items today!
” Using this extension, the food bank can add its address so that users in San Jose can easily see how far away they’re located, and drop off some goods!
Click-to-Call Phone Extensions
We’re seeing a rapidly increasing number of users search on their mobile phones, and with the click-to-call extension, we’ve given advertisers the ability to connect with potential customers or donors over the phone. If your users have high-end devices with full browsers, you can display your local phone number to nearby users through a location extension that the user can click to dial. For all other phones, you can display your national or vanity phone number for people to get in touch with your non-profit over the phone.
How does this help your organization? This is the ideal way to put potential donors, volunteers, and other stakeholders in touch with your non-profit over the phone. For example, an organization responding to a natural disaster may be accepting donations over the phone; adding the phone extension when someone enters “
donate to XYZ
” on the phone gives the person an opportunity to click on your number, call, and donate immediately.
To learn more about these extensions and other new ad formats (display formats not available to grantees), visit the
Ad Innovations
page.
Posted by Sonja Lee, Account Manager, Online Sales
Google’s economic impact and tips for non-profits
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Recently, Google released its
Economic Impact report
for 2009, detailing the impact that
AdWords
,
AdSense
and
Google Grants
had on businesses in the U.S. The report includes
state-level information
on revenue generated for businesses and donations for non-profits by these products as well as great stories from these enterprises about how they’ve used these tools to reach their goals.
Though most of the stories in the report focus on for-profit entities, they offer helpful perspectives, tactics and ideas for non-profit Grantees as well.
Better World Books,
a new and used bookseller in Indiana,
increased new donors
to their global literacy program by consistently
expanding their global presence by enlisting the use of AdWords.
MobileDemand
, a rugged tablet PC manufacturer in Iowa,
increased leads
and contracts by
targeting niche markets
with the granular targeting capabilities of AdWords.
Shopperschoice.com
, an online sporting goods store in Louisiana,
grew their company and increased their share of voice
by competing effectively
through the detailed reporting available in AdWords.
Crescent Harbor
, who sells light fixtures online in Maine,
grew their family-owned company while staying small
and local by
using AdWords to reach out to national markets.
123Print
, an online one-stop print shop in Maryland, has seen
growth in new areas
by
focusing budgets on emerging markets
they identified with their globally targeted AdWords traffic.
Grandma’s Secrets
, a custom bakery in New York,
managed their budget
effectively by
using geographic targeting in AdWords
to advertise their treats only to users in New York City.
If you’d like more detail on any of these strategies, just click into the case studies to read more. If you'd like to discuss the report with other grantees and non-profits you can start up a thread in the
Grants Non-profit and grantee resources discussion group
.
Speaking of storytelling, some non-profits featured in the report;
Direct Relief
,
Big Cat Rescue
,
Arbor Day Foundation
,
Natural Resources Defense Council
and
TreadLightly!
, already have their stories featured on the
Grants testimonials page
. If you’re a grantee who would like to share a story of how Google Grants has impacted your organization, we’d love to
share it
with other organizations so that the potential of Grants and AdWords can reach new non-profits around the world.
Sign-Up for the Google Grants Workshop by Friday, July 9th
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
In case you haven't already heard, we will be holding a Google Grants workshop at our Mountain View, California campus in early September.
This two-day event
is designed for existing Google Grantee organizations interested in strategies to maximize their AdWords account and
free Google products
to help reach more donors, improve operations, and raise awareness. You can read more about the workshop in
our full blog post
on the topic.
If you are interested in attending, please sign-up
here
for the invitation lottery. The deadline to complete the interest form is Friday, July 9th, so be sure to sign-up soon if you would like to attend the workshop.
Looking forward to Septemb
er!
Posted by Kristie Mun, The Google Grants Team
June’s Discussion Forum Hot Topic
Friday, July 2, 2010
In this month’s edition of “Discussion Forum: Hot Topics”, I’d like to address an issue that’s come up in a few discussion threads over the past month - whether it’s possible to run ads for multiple websites or domains owned by your organization, and, if so, how to do this.
The short answer is that, yes, it’s possible, but it requires some work on your part.
According to the Google Grants
program details page
, your ads must link only to the URL included in your application, as this is the URL approved for your Google Grant. If your organization's focus, website content, and/or URLs change significantly for any other reason, you need to
notify us
about the change.
The same goes for adding multiple domains to your Grants account. If you want to have a domain other than the primary one listed in your application used in your AdWords ad text, you need to notify our team and request approval by filling out the form located at
this link
.
Once you’ve submitted this new information, we’ll notify you of any change in status or additional questions we have.
I hope this helps those of you with multiple domains. Keep your discussions going on
our forums
!
Posted by AnnMarie Hill, Google Grants Team
Submit Your Questions For BP Regarding The Oil Spill
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Today, July 1st, YouTube is teaming up with
PBS NewsHour
for an exclusive interview with Bob Dudley, President and CEO of BP’s Gulf Coast Restoration Organization. In a live session moderated by the PBS NewsHour’s Ray Suarez, Mr. Dudley will respond directly to
the public’s questions
about
the ongoing oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico
.
If your organization is interested in being part of the discussion, we welcome questions from you and your members. You can
ask BP questions
about accountability, the clean-up plan, recovery efforts in the Gulf region, environmental impact, the status of the relief well drilling, the role of the U.S. government, the future of offshore drilling and of BP as a company, or any other topic on your mind.
Participate in the discussion by submitting questions and voting for the best ones using
Google Moderator
on
youtube.com/citizentube
. The top questions will be posed in the live interview today, Thursday, July 1, at 3:30 pm ET/12:30 pm PT on
CitizenTube
. Portions of the interview will also be aired Thursday evening on PBS NewsHour and available on YouTube.
We look forward to your submitted questions for this exclusive interview.
Posted by Kristie Mun, Google Grants Team
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