Great news charities: Google wants to give you $10,000 a month to advertise your business.
$10,000 a month to promote your business, using the world’s biggest search engine as a platform.
What’s the catch? There isn't one.
Seriously, we've looked into this and there isn't any nasty small print. The only restrictive stipulation is that the money has to be spent on Google’s advertising platform AdWords. But this is definitely no bad thing, given that the Pay Per Click (PPC) platform is the biggest in the world, earning global brands millions in revenue every year.
As a non-profit organisation, spreading the good word as far and as wide as possible is essential, not only to increase cause awareness, but to recruit volunteers, share campaign stories and encourage public participation.
Of course, with funds typically at a premium, freeing up money from donations to invest in advertising isn't always possible and may mean taking away from other areas in need of cash injection.
With money spread thinly, $10,000 (or as much as $40,000 if you qualify for Grantspro) on the table from Google is a pretty generous offer in anyone’s book - especially when funds are replenished every month.
It’s all made possible with Google Ad Grants – the non-profit edition of Google AdWords, set up to allow non-profit organisations the chance to promote initiatives on the Google search engine. Here’s a introductory video all about the scheme:
Am I Eligible?
Probably, as long as your charity is NOT any of these:
- Government entity or organisation
- Hospital or medical group
- School
- Childcare centre
- Academic institution
- University
While academic institutions and universities do not qualify, any related philanthropic arm is eligible.
If your charity meets the following criteria, you’ll be good to go:
- is based in the United Kingdom (or any one of more 50 eligible countries);
- holds valid charity status; and
- has a live website filled with good content
Once you've applied for Google Nonprofits and begun receiving your $10,000 a month in AdWords funding, Google requests that you adhere to the following guidelines in order to stay qualified:
- Link your ads to one (and only one) website domain, which should be the same one that was approved in your initial application.
- Actively manage your AdWords account by logging in once a month and making at least one change to your account every 90 days.
- Your ads and keywords should match your organization’s programs and services.
- Strictly commercial advertising is prohibited. If you’re promoting products or services, 100% of the proceeds must go directly to supporting your program.
- Your ads must not link to pages that are primarily composed of links to other websites.
- Your ads may not offer financial products (like mortgages or credit cards), nor can they request donations of cars, boats, or other property.
- Your site can’t display Google AdSense ads or affiliate advertising links.
Using your Grant
Your Google Grant can be used in a variety of ways: to reach people that are searching for non-profit organisations like yours or educate people hearing about your cause for the first time, to increase donations or to find some much need help.
AdWords will help you get your message out to the people that matter, placing your ads in the most prominent positions in the Google search engine, at the top and to the right of search results. Like so:
When putting your funding to good use, Google does have a few guidelines that you’ll need to bear in mind. None of which we’d really class as restrictions:
- Your ads will be entirely text-based (no videos or images).
- They’ll appear only on Google search results pages.
- All campaigns must be keyword-targeted.
- Your maximum cost-per-click (CPC) will be $2.00.
- You’ll receive $10,000 of in-kind AdWords advertising each month.
Ads must also be mission-based, which is entirely fair. Google gives examples as to what they mean by this:
How We Want to Help
By giving you access to $10,000 a month, Google is helping your charity in its mission to change the world. We want to help too.
Google Grants provides you with two options to manage your account: the full Google AdWords platform or AdWords Express.
If you’d like to automate the advertising process, AdWords Express allows you to simply choose your audience, write a small bit of text about your charity, set a budget and let the programme manage the entire thing.
If you’d like to get a bit more in-depth with your campaigns, tailoring and optimising ads for the best return on investment, the full AdWords platform is the way to go.
Of course, if you've no previous experience of using AdWords, jumping in and setting up multiple campaigns isn't going to be easy – the AdWords learning curve is a steep one.
This is where Pea Soup wants to help.
If you run a charity that has been accepted for a Google Grant, we’d like to help you make the most of your $10,000 a month. And like Google, there’s no catch.
We just want your non-profit to have the best possible chance of success.
Our PPC team will work with you on everything from the researching of keywords to the crafting of ads.
We’ll even take a look at your Google Analytics to track conversions tell you how to optimise campaigns to ensure ads get the best results.
Why are we doing this? No reason other than we want to be nice and to help you make the most of Google’s generosity. And while we're not going to be able to help everyone (we don't have the biggest team in the world!), we'll certainly work with as many of you as we can.
If you’d like to apply for Google Grants, you can do so in five simple steps here.
If you've been successful with your application and would like Pea Soup to help you with the creation and management of campaigns to ensure optimum results, all for free, call us on 01642 309434 or leave us a messagehere.
