Google for Nonprofits Blog: Grantees

More Support For Grantees

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Help CenterGoogle Grants Help Forumthe new look and feethe blue iconthe Google iconwe announced free phone supportcustomer IDthis listPosted by Jessica Vaughan, Google Grants Team

Nonprofit Industry Benchmark Report For Mental Health And Crisis Intervention

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

monthly benchmarking seriesNTEE nonprofit categorieswere most likely to track “new volunteers”"reaching new constituents"main mission objective"raising awareness" as the main marketing objective35% of their total site visits from their Grants AdWords account2,100 conversions9.5%use an agency, SEO or SEMPosted by Jessica Vaughan, Google Grants Team

Introducing Learn With Google

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

(Cross posted on the Inside AdWords Blog)

School is back in session and here at Google, we’ve been looking for ways to help you learn how to grow your business online. Many of you have been looking for one central place to go to get smart about online tools and strategies, and we hear you. That’s why we’re pleased to introduce Learn with Google, a new educational site designed to be a one-stop shop for businesses to learn about Google products and services like AdWords, Google Apps, Places, Analytics, and more. Whether you’re looking to grow your business or just be more productive, we hope that this collection of short videos, handouts, and resources will arm you with best practices and tips that you can use right away.

(click for full-size image)

On the site, you’ll learn about:

Starting Your Business Online: Learn why having an online presence is critical for growing your business and how to create an online marketing plan. Discover how local marketing tactics can help you reach customers near you.

Marketing Your Business Online: Master the basics of online marketing and AdWords to get more for your money. Learn how to choose the right keywords, write compelling ads, and optimize your advertising spend.

Running Your Business Online: Learn how the Google Apps suite of online communications and productivity tools, like Gmail and Google Docs, can make your team more collaborative and your business more efficient.

To get started, check out the videos, worksheets, and checklists at Learn with Google. From there, we’ll recommend other tips and how-to’s that will help you grow your business online. We’ll be adding more content and improving the site over time, so be sure to check back often.

Posted by Barbara Yang, Product Marketing Manager, Small Business Team

Non-Profit Industry Benchmark Report For Animal Related Orgs

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

monthly benchmarking seriesNTEE non-profit categories.most likely to track “adoptions”"reaching new constituents" main mission objective"raising awareness"main marketing objective35% of their total site visits from their Grants AdWords account11,000 conversions4%use an agency, SEO or SEMPosted by Jessica Vaughan, Google Grants Team

Non-ASCII Characters Now Supported In Display And Destination URLs

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

(Cross-posted from the Inside AdWords Blog)

If you write your ads in any language other than English, you may have wished that you could make your display URL consistent with the rest of your ad by showing your internationalized domain name. Today, we’re announcing that we now support non-ASCII characters, including non-Latin characters and Latin characters with accents and diacritics, in display and destination URLs.

When you create an ad in AdWords, you can now enter Unicode characters in the display and destination URL fields. To ensure that users will be able to reach your site, we’ll verify that the URL works properly in both Unicode and Punycode.

We also want to make sure that users are not shown URLs in any language other than their own, so we’ll render the display URL in Unicode characters only if its language matches the user’s Google interface language. In all other cases, it’ll be shown in Punycode.

Remember that all of our AdWords policies regarding display and destination URLs still apply. In particular, the domain of the display and destination URLs must match, so if you use non-ASCII characters in the display URL, make sure to do the same in the destination URL.

Additionally, if you include multi-byte characters, please note that the character limits may vary. For more information, please visit our Help Center.

Posted by Lisa Shieh, AdWords Team

Nonprofit Industry Benchmark Report For Health Care

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

monthly benchmarking seriesNTEE non-profit categories.
most likely to track “donations”"reaching new constituents"main mission objective"raising awareness"main marketing objective20% of their total site visitsfrom their Grants AdWords account6,500 conversions10%se an agency, SEO or SEMPosted by Jessica Vaughan, Google Grants Team

Non-Profit Industry Benchmark Report For Education

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

monthly benchmarking series.NTEE non-profit categories.

Getting Started With Google Grants

Thursday, April 21, 2011

I’ve Been Awarded a Google Grant! Yay! Now What?

First, congrats! If your organization has been accepted to Google Grants, you’ve joined a growing group of nonprofits that are harnessing the power of online advertising to reach people across the globe. With Google AdWords in-kind advertising, your nonprofit can do many things: promote your website, raise awareness for your cause, recruit volunteers, attract new donors, market fundraising events and more.

That all sounds great, but you are new to online advertising. How do you actually use AdWords to achieve these goals? Sit tight and have no fear. The Google Grants Team has some handy tips just for you!

1. Structure, Structure, Structure

Structuring your AdWords account effectively can have a big impact on the success of your AdWords campaigns. Your account is broken down into three levels: account, campaigns, and ad groups. Each campaign should focus on one main service or offering you want to promote. Handy Tip: Look at your website and organize your account structure to match your website structure. Let us show you what we mean:

With this organized structure, you can easily see which campaigns are performing well and which need help! For example, you may notice that your Volunteer Campaign has a good clickthrough rate (CTR) and a high number of sign-ups, but you do not see the same results in your Donations Campaign. This alerts you that you may need to adjust your keywords, ad text or the landing page that you are directing users to for this campaign.

2. Keywords are Key!

Keywords are the heart of your search-based advertising campaigns. When selecting keywords, think like a user. If you were a user looking to volunteer at an animal shelter, you might search on ‘animal shelter volunteer’, ‘volunteer with dogs’, or ‘help animal shelter’. Brainstorm all of your keyword ideas, and then organize those keywords in themed lists.

Each of those themed lists will be their own Ad Group. That way, the ad text can specifically match the keywords in that group. Now when a user searches on ‘volunteer with animals’, your ad will say ‘volunteer with animals‘, which is highly relevant to the words the user searched on and will entice them to click on your ad.

Handy Tip: Getting stuck? Need more keyword ideas? Use the Keyword Tool!

3. Make Your Ads Sing!

Your goal is to attract users to your website. In order to do that, your ads should be simple, enticing, and relevant to what users are searching for. Follow our handy ad text optimization tips to make your ads sing!

Keywords in Ad Text: Include keywords in your ad text, especially in your title. Whenever a user types that keyword and sees your ad, the keyword will appear in bold font within your ad. This helps draw the user’s attention to your ad.

Call-to-Action: Include a call-to-action such as ‘sign up now’ or ‘donate online’. This encourages users to click on your ad and ensures they understand exactly what you expect them to do when they reach your landing page.

Clear Message: Use clear and specific ad text that highlights the benefits of your product or service or why your organization is unique .

Choose the Best Destination URL: Take the user to the specific landing page that has the information or service described in your ad. For example, if your ad is asking for a donation, take the user to the landing page where they can find out how to donate. If users do not find what is promised as soon as they arrive, they are more likely to leave your website.

Posted by Nikki Lopez, Google Grants Team

Recommendations When You Want Them: The +1 Button

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

the +1 button+1 webmaster sitethis website.Posted by AnnMarie Hill, Google Grants Team

Battling "Below First Page Bid" Status

Thursday, April 7, 2011

at some pointAd RankQuality ScoreDiagnosis 1: Chosen keyword is too general.
Remedy: Focus only on what works.

Add Negative Keywords to eliminate irrelevant impressions and improve your clickthrough rate. You can generate ideas for negative keywords by using the Search Term Report.

Use the Keyword Tool to find more specific keywords. These are typically more relevant to the user’s query and have a higher clickthrough rate than a more general keyword.

Experiment with different keyword match types by limiting matching on your keywords to a smaller set of user queries. On average, phrase match and exact match keywords can outperform broad match ones by limiting when your ads show to more relevant variations of your keywords.

Diagnosis 2: Keyword Quality Score is low.
Remedy: Refresh, refine, and experiment with existing ads & keywords.Quality Score

Prevent poorly performing ads with low clickthrough rate from showing by pausing them.

Experiment with new ads that contain your keyword in them so that searchers know that you’re relevant to what they are looking for. Try using keyword insertion ads to accomplish this more efficiently.

Reorganize your campaigns into tightly themed ad groups. Creating different ad groups focused on a specific theme helps to ensure that your ad text is as relevant as possible to your keywords, which is important for Quality Score. For example, ad text which refers to donations shouldn’t be associated with keywords about volunteering. Do this within the AdWords interface or using AdWords Editor.

Change the display URL of the ad to something more specific, using a more descriptive URL for each of your ad groups.

Add negative keywords and utilize keyword match types to make sure that your ads show on only the most relevant searches.

Diagnosis 3: Competition is high.
Remedy: Focus on reaching your exact audience with a message relevant to them.

Location target away! You can create a basic campaign, then customize it for each location that you target so that users in your target audience can see how relevant your ads are to them.

Create ads that have your keywords in them - use keyword insertion ads to dynamically generate relevant ads.

Boost clicks and clickthrough rate with the Ad Extensions which are the best fit for the goals of each campaign! For example, Ad Sitelinks extensions can give you more real estate on Search and give users the option of a variety of different landing pages; Location Extensions will show your organization’s geographic location in the ad text to help you focus on local searches.

Happy 8th Birthday, Google Grants!

Friday, April 1, 2011

As we celebrate our 8th birthday, we feel truly inspired by all the incredible work you do and the way you use Google Grants to achieve your missions, reach your constituents, raise awareness about your cause and succeed in the world of online marketing. So, we’d like to celebrate our birthday by sharing eight great pieces of Grantee wisdom from this year’s pool of extraordinary testimonials. Thank you for making Google Grants a part of your organization.Friendship Circle We have used Google Grants to promote Friendship Circle's many different programs and activities. In addition we are using Google Grants to point people to our blog. Tzvi Schectman - Family Coordinator, Friendship CirclespcaLA Constantly monitor and use your Google AdWords. Use the tools provided by Google - especially keyword generators. Run reports. Change things that aren't working. Run ads for everything you have to offer! Miriam Davenport - Sr. Director of Development, spcaLANatural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) Use keyword insertion! I finally just tried it and I'm seeing immediate results (higher click-through rates). Kim Ranney - Online Marketing Manager, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC)International Finance Corporation Active management of the Google Grants campaigns is crucial. In addition, all traffic is not necessarily quality traffic. It's important to manage the campaigns in such a way that you're continuously targeting/reaching high-quality leads, rather than just barnstorming. Seth Fleisher - Product Manager, SME Toolkit, International Finance CorporationThe Writer's Center Setting a schedule to update/manage your AdWords can prove helpful, as well as designating a specific staff member for the task. Kyle Semmel - Publications & Communications Manager / Interim Director, The Writer's CenterIndian Land Tenure Foundation Make sure to link your AdWords account with Google Analytics so you can easily track the effectiveness of your ads based on the goals for your website. Pay attention to the popular, high performing keywords. Make sure your ads are designed to maximize these keywords and make sure that the content on your website matches what a user would expect to find using these search terms. If a user is lured in by an ad for one thing and finds something entirely different on your website, this will increase bounce rates and potentially damage your credibility. Erin Dennis - Communications Specialist, Indian Land Tenure FoundationArtist Organized Art, Inc. Take advantage of local, regional and global targeting. Use the AdWords client side tools. Optimize your campaigns. Develop your agendas in terms of campaigns and use the "opportunities" Google is regularly finding for you... it's literally the benefit of a team of really, really smart people advancing your organization's cause. Joshua Selman - President, Artist Organized Art, Inc. Big Cat Rescue The best way to make the most of your Google Grant is to check in every day to see what is happening via Google Alerts and customizing your AdWords to meet those changing needs. Carole Baskin - CEO, Big Cat Rescue Posted by Jessica Vaughan, Google Grants Team

Google Grants Information For Japan Disaster Relief

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Google Crisis Response site

Direct Relief International has committed $600K in cash and $15M in medical inventory to the relief efforts in Japan as well as partnering with Japanese American Citizens League to create the Japan Relief and Recovery Fund to support relief and recovery efforts. Read more or donate to help.

Save the Children is establishing a base of operations in Sendai to help vulnerable children and their families. Read more or donate to help.

The Red Cross has dispatched disaster management specialists to partner with local Japanese Red Cross efforts as well as an initial contribution of $10M to assist with relief efforts. Read more or donate to help.

Mercy Corps has sent emergency supplies to families evacuated from the area of Kesennuma. Read more or donate to help.

managing your AdWords account to scale with traffic increasescontact our team

Mobile For Nonprofits

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

here

American Cancer Society: How Mobile Plays a Key Role in Donor Outreach

The Definitive Mobile 101 Primer

Mobile Giving or Mobile Marketing – or Both?

World Childhood Foundation USA: Managing Donations from SMS and a Mobile Web Site

How to Create Effective Mobile Advertising Campaigns That Engage Donors and Prospects

American Red Cross: How the Most Successful Mobile Fundraiser Changed Charitable Giving Forever

Sesame Workshop: Tapping Mobile's Strengths to Leverage Content

Google Grants Mobile Ads Strategies

Break out a mobile specific campaign so you can write targeted ad text. A user searching on mobile is on the go and ready to take immediate action.
Utilize Ad Sitelinks to show different links and bring users to different pages of your site such as “Donate Here,” “Learn More Here,” “About Us,” or “Sign up to Volunteer.”
Add your phone extension so users can click to call and be connected immediately to your non-profit.
If you have local chapters add location extensions in Ad extensions to show users where they can find your nonprofit in the area.
If you have a mobile app, promote the app with click to download.
Check your landing pages on a mobile device to see if users can navigate your site. Consider building a mobile site or mobile app in the future.
Measure performance of mobile campaigns in AdWords by segmenting traffic by device or use Analytics to gain insights on all mobile traffic to your site.

See more possibilities on mobile for Google Search at this video.

Posted by Lisa Fong, AdWords Team

Show Ads That Are Most Likely To Receive Conversions More Often

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Cross Posted On The Inside AdWords Blog

We’re excited to announce the launch of a new ad rotation setting in AdWords that will allow you to optimize for conversions. Previously, you had two options:

Optimize for clicks: Ads that are expected to provide more clicks are shown more often
Rotate: Ads are shown more evenly

Now, with a third option, you can choose to show ads that are expected to provide more conversions more often.

We’ve always encouraged you to test multiple ads in each ad group, and we’ve offered our help by showing ads with the highest clickthrough rates more often. However, some of you have told us that the ad with the highest clickthrough rate isn’t always the ad with the highest conversion rate and that you’d like to be able to optimize for conversions rather than clicks. We are now allowing you to do just that!

To use the new setting, you’ll need to have Conversion Tracking in your account, as we use the data from that tool to determine which ad is the most likely to receive conversions. When we don’t have enough data to make a decision, we’ll show the ad that is the most likely to receive clicks. If you have Conversion Tracking, the Optimize for conversions option will be available in the Ad delivery: Ad rotation, frequency capping section under Advanced settings on the Settings tab of any campaign. Once enabled, it will apply to all ads that appear on Google and our search and display partners’ sites.

By providing another way to define the “best-performing” ad, we hope to make it easier for you to experiment with your ads and learn which ones are the most successful in helping you reach your advertising goals. For more information on ad rotation settings, please visit the AdWords Help Center.

Posted by Lisa Shieh, AdWords Team

Announcing The 2011 Nonprofit Video Awards

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

the DoGooder Nonprofit Video Awardswww.youtube.com/nonprofitvideoawards.the YouTube Nonprofit ProgramPosted by Ramya Raghavan, YouTube Team

New Regions And Cities Available For Targeting On AdWords

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Cross posted on the Inside AdWords Blog34 countries

The countries with new city and region targeting options in AdWords are:

Argentina (region targeting only), Austria, Brazil, China (coming soon), Colombia, Czech Republic, Finland (coming soon), Hungary (coming soon), Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Poland, South Korea, Switzerland, Ukraine

Location targeting helps you tailor your ads toward specific markets, analyze your AdWords campaigns by market, and optimize your campaigns for higher return-on-investment (ROI). Now, you can go a level deeper and optimize the performance of your AdWords campaign at the city level.

For example, let’s say your organization operates in Mexico. You conduct a campaign level analysis and learn that you’re getting more conversions from big cities, such as Mexico City, than from rural areas. Here are a few steps that you can take to optimize your AdWords campaign:

1. Run an AdWords geographic report or Analytics report to determine where your users are located and where you’re getting your most valuable traffic.

2. Adjust your campaign setup:

Run a campaign targeting cities bringing in the most traffic and increase the bids on the keywords in that campaign to maximize your impressions in those cities.
Consider setting up a regionally (or nationally) targeted campaign with potentially lower bids on the same keywords to capture additional traffic from outside your top-performing cities.

3. Adjust bids accordingly to optimize for the highest campaign ROI.

We hope that with the expansion of city targeting, advertisers in more countries will be able to reach their local users more effectively. Visit the AdWords Help Center to learn more about getting started with this feature.

Posted by Gordon Zhu, AdWords Team

Managing Your Account With Limited Time

Thursday, February 10, 2011

1. Keyword Insertionguide2. Broad Match ModifierBroad Match Modifier3. Conversion OptimizerConversion trackingConversion Optimizer4. Custom AlertsCustom Alerts5. Automated RulesAutomated Rules

Raise CPCs by a certain amount for all keywords that fall below position 4

Activate ads late Sunday night for a promotion that begins the following morning

Increase your daily budget during the weekdays when you have customer support

Posted by Carla Swiryn, AdWords Team

Your Keywords And Quality Score

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

‘Quality Score’cost-per-click (CPC).Viewing Your Quality ScoreYou can find representations of your keywords’ Quality Scores in three places: your account statistics, the Keyword Analysis field and via an account report. Please see below for details on each method.

1. To find representation of your keywords’ Quality Scores in your account statistics:
a. Sign in to your AdWords account at https://adwords.google.com.
b. Select the appropriate campaign and ad group.
c. Click the Keywords tab.
d. Click Columns at the top of the ad group table.
e. Select Quality Score from the drop-down menu.
f. Click Save when you’re finished. Each keyword’s Quality Score will be measured and displayed on a scale of 1-10.

2. To view the Keyword Analysis field for any keyword, follow these steps:
a. Sign in to your AdWords account at https://adwords.google.com.
b. Click on a campaign.
c. Click on an ad group.
d. Select the Keywords tab.
e. Click the icon in the Status column next to any keyword.

3. To view Quality Score via an account report, run a Keyword Performance report and make sure to select the Keyword Quality Score Detail checkbox. This option appears in the Add or Remove Columns section under Advanced Settings.

Moving Your Keywords & Quality Score

A keyword’s Quality Score may change after you move it to another ad group. However, the keyword’s performance history will not change. This is true regardless of whether you delete and re-add the keyword or transfer the keyword using AdWords Editor.

Here are two ways that a keyword’s Quality Score can change after moving to a new ad group:

1. A keyword’s Quality Score is influenced by its relevance to the ads in its ad group. If you move a keyword to an ad group with more relevant ads, therefore, its Quality Score may improve. Similarly, the Quality Score may decrease if the ads are less relevant. For example, if the keyword ‘camp volunteer’ is in an ad group with ads seeking volunteers for camp it is likely to have a higher Quality Score than if the keyword was in an ad group with ads promoting camp registration.

2. In addition, moving a keyword to an ad group with more relevant ads can improve a keyword’s clickthrough rate (CTR) going forward. This, over time, will improve its Quality Score.

Improving Your Quality Score

The best way to improve your keywords’ Quality Scores is by optimizing your account. This entails making sure that each of your ad groups contain descriptive ads all promoting the same thing, and that each keyword in the ad group closely relates to the ad. For more information on optimizing your account check out these tips for success and the AdWords Optimization Center.

Posted by Janelle Kuhlman, Google Grants Team

Request For Grantee Photos

Thursday, February 3, 2011

this formPosted by Janelle Kuhlman, Google Grants Team

Increase donations with gift matching

Thursday, January 20, 2011

Direct Relief

Soup to nuts - what was the cost and time investment to get this up and running?www.hepdata.comWhat's the process for purchasing the module and installing it?What process did you use for building out the company donation match database?How much have you seen donations from company matches go up since you installed it?On a scale of 1-10, how helpful has this tool been for increasing donations compared to other tools you've used?Anything you think new users should know about it or consider before getting started?Discussion ForumPosted by Jessica Vaughan, Google Grants Team

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