Applying for a Google Ad Grant
Updated: 25 March 2021
Search engine marketing is a very powerful tool, allowing you to advertise your product or service at the exact time that someone is searching for it. However, traditional pay-per-click (PPC) marketing requires investment in order to bid on keywords and get your ads shown. This investment, however large or small, might be enough of a barrier to stop your digital marketing endeavours in their tracks, especially for smaller charities and non-profit organisations.
However, Google offer a Google Ad Grant of $10,000 a month to registered charities and non-profits to spend on advertising on the Google Search Network, allowing you to drive traffic to your site, attract potentially donors, raise awareness, promote campaigns and so much more.
If you are a registered charity and aren’t already utilising the Google Ad Grant programme, here is a guide designed to get your enrolled in the Google Ad Grant programme to help you get started with search engine marketing.
How To Apply
To receive the Google Ad Grant, Google requires you to be signed up for the Google for Nonprofits programme. Google for Nonprofits is available to 50+ countries and gives non-profits access to free resources and products that can help take your mission further.
Be A Registered Charity
In order to enrol with in the Google for Nonprofit programme you need to be registered as a charitable organisation. There may be specific criteria you need to fulfil to be recognised as a charitable organisation, for example: in the UK you must be registered with HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) as a charity for tax relief. For full details of all the individual countries requirements, see Google Non-profits support.
Register With Charity Digital
Secondly, you need to be registered with Charity Digital. Charity Digital is a global network that is partnered with Google that provide tech support and other technological tools to non-profit organisations.
You will need to complete the free signup process in order to receive your Charity Digital ‘validation token’ that is required when applying for the Google for Nonpofits programme.
You will need information related to your charity for the signup process, namely your charity number, email address, address and phone number. You can check the Charity Commissions site if you are unsure of your details.
Sign Up For Google For Nonprofits
Once you’ve got your validation token you will be able to use this to enrol on the Google for Nonprofits programme. Again, for this step you will need your organisation name, phone number, website and contact details.
Provided your application is approved, you are now successfully enrolled in Google for Non-Profits!
Set Up A Google Ads Account
In order to receive the $10,000 Google Ad Grant, you will need to set up an Ads account. During the setup of the account there are some steps to take into consideration.
- You need to set your currency to USD, regardless of your location. As the Google Ad Grant is in USD, the currency settings need to match. Currency setting cannot be changed once they have been set, so it is important that you get this step right first time.
- It is important that you ignore any prompts to enter billing information as the Google Ad Grant cannot be given to accounts with billing information added.
- You will need to set up at least one campaign, one active unpaused ad, and at least one keyword in order to be considered eligible. Your campaign must be set to the Search Network only, and the destination URL for your ad must be a location on your charities site.
Take note of your Ads Customer ID that you are assigned, which is visible in the top right hand corner of the Ads menu.
Enrol for Google Ad Grant
Once you have been successfully enrolled into the Google for Nonprofits programme and have set up a Google Ads account, you can now apply for the Google Ad Grant.
Login to your Google for Nonprofits account and click activate under Google Ad Grants. Complete the application form and you should hear back from Google by email within 10 days – it is often quicker. We’ve known Google to approve Grant applications in less than 24 hours”
We can help
If you would like any more information, or help with applying for a Google Ad Grant, then please get in touch. We are Google qualified and specialise in the charity sector. We also have a proven track record and considerable success in Ads development, both with paid and grant accounts, and did we mention? We’re pretty good at it too.
Applying for a Google Ad Grant: eBook
To make the process even easier, we’ve published a free eBook with all the steps you need to take to apply for your own Google Ad Grant!
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