Google for Nonprofits Blog: November 2013

For Nonprofits Blog

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Optimizing your Google Ad Grants account to reach donors

Thursday, November 21, 2013

According to a Google and Millward Brown Digital study, 76 percent of donors said they go online to research a nonprofit organization after recalling seeing an ad online. Google Ad Grants, the nonprofit edition of AdWords, allows you to reach those people with ads on Google.com. To help you create effective ads and keywords for the holiday giving season, we recently hung out with Google Ad Grants experts who shared the tips below.
Create strong ads.

Highlight tangible impact and include a clear call-to-action in ad copy. Show users the effect their donation can have on your cause in your ad. If you’re a cat shelter, consider using language like “$30 = 1 vaccination for a cat in our shelter.” Then, tell users the next step with a call-to-action like “Donate now!” or “Volunteer today!”.

Use multiple ad variations in each ad group. Experiment with different ad copy and messaging. AdWords will automatically optimize your ads for you by showing the ad that performs best more often.

Create ad copy that is relevant to your keywords. If your ad group’s keywords are focused on holiday donations, create ads that clearly mention holiday donations. This will make your ads clearly relevant to users who see them when searching for terms related to your keywords.

Optimize your keywords.

Make your keywords relevant to your mission. Use keywords that are 2-3 words long to reach people that are interested in your cause. Keywords like “nonprofit” or “donate” are too general. Instead, if you’re an art center, use keywords like “community art center donations” or “art education nonprofit.”

Consider using negative keywords. If you have keywords that are relevant to both your organization and other industries or topics, you can use negative keywords to block traffic that you don't want. For example, if you offer youth tutoring, you may want to add negative keywords like “college” and “adult”, so that people looking for help with college courses or adult education don’t see your ad. To learn more about adding negative keywords, check out this article.

See what users are searching for when they click your ad with the AdWords Search Terms Report. You can see exactly what users who clicked on your ad searched for in Google through this report. This is great way to get ideas for new keywords to add to your account. Instructions on viewing this report are available here.

If you’d like to learn more about using Google Ad Grants to spread the word about your nonprofit this giving season, watch the full Hangout here or check out our AdWords help resources. And if you’d like to learn more about using online tools to get the most out of giving season, continue to visit our Google+ page, Twitter and blog for more best practices tagged #givingseason.
Posted by Katie Kellogg, Google for Nonprofits team