2020 was not an easy year for anyone, but in the Google Ad Grant world, many accounts were reporting huge year on year increases in traffic. Our Paid Media Consultant, Dan, runs through the many changes Google made to the ad grant scheme over the last two years and what it could mean for the future.

The story starts in January 2018, when new requirements were placed upon Grants to remain active. Of these, both the limitation on single word keywords and the minimum of a 5% account-wide CTR reduced the total traffic available to some accounts, but the biggest change that affected traffic in accounts around this time was initially undocumented by Google.

 

 

The change involved the Ad Grant Quality filter, a rather minor part of the ad auction system. Google describes the Ad Quality feature as being “based, in part, on the general ad quality level of the standard ads in the country where you’re showing your ads”. This seems to be a system by which Google limits how much Ad Grant ads show in comparison to paid ads.

Around the same time as the new policies were implemented (in Nov 2018), Google significantly changed how many ads the Ad Quality filter was limiting in grants. This generally affected the lower priority informational content that makes up the bulk of traffic for many accounts. This caused a significant drop in traffic across the Ad Grant scheme as many accounts lost up to 50% of their daily traffic.

The community were unhappy about the changes, to say the least. The timing of the announcement (after many charity staff had left for Christmas) and the short amount of time given to adjust to the drastically different set of rules was not the best Christmas present Google could have given. The Google Ad Grant scheme realised they would have to start giving rather than taking after this change, and over the next year we would see a drastic turnaround in the prospects of Ad Grant accounts.

Most recently Google has offered extra budget in several periods for Grants during peak performance times such as Christmas. In addition to extra budget, the addition of the maximise conversion bidding strategy being allowed to exceed the $2 bid cap, and the introduction of responsive search ads (which seem to be preferred greatly by the Ad Quality Filter) have allowed us to improve traffic levels across many accounts.

In addition, Google have seemed to relax the initial change they made on Nov 2018 to the ad quality filter, causing traffic to climb back up even without any officially announced new changes. You can see the large increase in traffic between the implementation of the policies and the release of Responsive Search Ads as a result of this.

 

The Future of the Ad Grant Scheme

So, what does all of this tell us about the future of the Ad Grant scheme? In our opinion the message is quite clear from Google: adopting new features, such as automated bidding and Responsive Search Ads, will allow you to mitigate or bypass the restrictions being placed on accounts. It is now more important than ever to be quick to adapt to new features and changes being implemented in the Grant scheme, as they often seem to come paired with changes which limit accounts not using them. For example, the ad quality filter change has been mitigated by responsive search ads and being able to bid above the $2 limit allowed higher priority content to bring in more traffic during times of increased budget.

In recent times we have seen changes to search term reporting and keyword match types, reducing how specifically we can target user searches. However, we have been granted access to demographic targeting, which was up until now not allowed within Grant accounts. This will once again require a change in how you operate a Grant account, focussing less on what people are searching and more on who those people are. Moving into the future, it is important to remain up to date on what changes are happening in the Ad Grant scheme and coming up with ways to maximise the benefit these new changes can give to your accounts.

 

If you have any questions on future implications for your ad grant, or are interested in working with us to apply for your non-profit organisation’s own Google Ad Grant, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Why not follow us on Twitter for the latest updates to the Google Ad Grant scheme?

Ad Grant Policy Changes

 

The dramatic new policies rocked the Ad Grant world in December and have required changes to be made to even the best maintained accounts.

We regularly manage well over 30 of these accounts, so we feel we have a really good idea of what this has meant for Ad Grants accounts.

Overall, I like the direction the changes are pushing Ad Grants accounts and have improved the quality of overall traffic. However, there have been some significant teething troubles that have yet to be resolved, which I think can be summed up in two points:

 

1. Lack of transparency

a) Regarding account performance

b) Regarding application of the new policies

2. Poor support

 

 

Lack of transparency

 

a) Regarding account performance

 

The Ad Grants landscape is changing, and with the new policies it is understandable that performance metrics need to be improved.

However, this is made tricky by some changes made behind the scenes in Ads.

For instance, search impression share is falling away consistency (and is now <10% across all our accounts). We would expect that impression share would increase, as with the lowest quality traffic being removed, overall ad rank should improve. However, it seems like the opposite is the case, and that Ad Grant accounts are being penalised more (compared to paid accounts).

 

*Google Ads does not provide impression share data lower than 10%, which is why the line becomes completely horizontal

We’ve also seen a notable drop in clicks across our accounts. While it is to be expected that clicks are lower than they were previously (given the new stricter policies) there are a few dates where clicks have suffered a dramatic drop. The most recent of these was on April 27^th, and affected every one of our accounts (although some more than others).

 

 

We have now received confirmation that this was indeed a change relating to the mysterious Ad Grants quality filter. According to Google, accounts are likely to see fewer total clicks, but the number of conversions should be the same. This is big news, as we’ve never had any confirmation that the Ad Grants algorithm is something that can be changed.

This confirms the major take away from our side is that clicks are decreasing (even for all well managed accounts). With this in mind, we think that identifying different KPIs to clicks should be prioritised by charities going forward, as the pure volume of clicks just isn’t there anymore.

 

b) Regarding application of the new policies

 

It has been made clear, that any account under any threat of being suspended for these policies would be given a warning. However, in the last few months, this has not been adhered to. There have been countless reports of accounts being cancelled out of the blue, and with no reason given as to why this has happened. A few weeks ago we had 5(!) accounts suspended like this on the same day.

If this happens to you then there is no need to panic, if you’re one of our clients then we will let you know by email immediately, and phone Google to get the account re-enabled. If we don’t work with you, then please get in contact and we’d love to be able to help you to enable your account again.

Thankfully, all of our accounts have been re-enabled relatively quickly this time. The reason for these suspensions? I was told (for all five) that ‘I need to look at my keywords, because they aren’t targeted enough’. When pushed for some specifics – the support rep wouldn’t elaborate. This doesn’t help anyone – there’s no way of knowing which (of the possible thousands) of the keywords Google are not happy with.

This brings us onto the other problem with these changes, how to get help regarding these new policies.

 

Poor Support

 

Google have communicated that we should be get in contact with Ads support with our questions.

The problem with this is that there is no dedicated Ad Grants support, only one number to call for everything to do with Ads. The support team seem to have an extremely limited knowledge of the Ad Grants programme (in all honesty it seems like they’ve never heard of it before and are just following a list of instructions).

This results in plain bad advice, or more alarmingly, completely wrong advice!

To get the most out of your call, I would advise explaining your problem in detail, making sure to specify you are working with an Ad Grants account.

If you are not sure with their suggestions, then please ask them to explain the changes they’d like you to make in relation to the policies. If you are not sure, then don’t feel pressured!

If you don’t feel like you’re getting anywhere, then it’s usually easier to politely hang up and try again. Hopefully you can talk to someone more useful.

As an agency, we have experience managing many different Ad Grant accounts, which gives us a great advantage when talking with support. I can’t imagine how horrible it must be for anyone managing their own account in house.

It’s also worth mentioning that the Ad Grants team have increased their presence on the community forum, which is a good step forward. However, it’s still not enough, as plenty of questions remain unanswered.

Going forward, I think there should be two major next steps:

 

1. Re-evaluate your KPI for the Ad Grant accounts:

Clicks are going down across most accounts, and based on the year so far, I don’t see this increasing soon. With the new policies focussing on quality of traffic over quantity, it’s a great opportunity to redefine your KPIs.

 

2. Be conservative with your choices

With the amount of account suspensions, we are seeing, we would advise only keeping the activity in your account that you are 100% sure doesn’t not violate the polices. You should then focus on this quality traffic – and your new KPI you have hopefully defined.

It’s much better to be able to use the Grant account that not at all!

 

 

Get In Touch

Did you agree with our view on Google’s recent Ad Grant policy changes? Let us know on Twitter @upriseUPSEM or if we can assist with getting the most out of your Google Ad Grant, please send us an email at [email protected] or get in touch via our contact page.

Capitalising on New Year, New Me

 

We might be munching on mince pies, searching for secret Santa presents and listening to Mariah Carey (who else), but at Uprise Up we’re also working on many of our charity clients’ 2017 event fundraising campaigns, making sure everything is perfectly in place to make the most of the seasonal boost in event sign ups that occur each January.

Whilst December traditionally sees an uptake in charitable donations, it is the start of a new year (goodbye 2016 it’s been, well…) that heralds a rash of enthusiasm for making resolutions to change lifestyles, get fit and make a difference which often results in a commitment to a fundraising event as a personal goal.

From marathons, half marathons and 5ks to extreme Tough Mudder style events not for the faint hearted, not to mention overseas treks, swimming events, cycling, and more there’s an event for everyone and a considerable number of our non profit clients are vying to secure supporters who will sign up to their events and fundraise.

At Uprise Up we are experts at applying and managing charity grant accounts* but with a $2 keyword bid restriction and huge competition for event keywords it can be difficult to reach the desired audience and capture sign ups. With a limited window of opportunity nobody wants to miss out but the good news is there are solutions.

So just what do we recommend? Search is the first place to start from a ROI perspective but as there will only ever be a limited number of relevant search queries, the next place to look is to a Display campaign.

With Display campaigns, we see the strongest ROI using Remarketing lists, targeting an audience who has already visited your website with your sign-up event message. This is a particularly effective when used in conjunction with Paid Search by upweighting keyword bids to the same audience.  So reaching that prospect who is looking for the very thing you are offering at that particular moment, who is familiar with your cause and likely has a close emotional tie.

Other targeting options we’d recommend would be contextual targeting, keywords targeting, demographic targeting, lookalike audiences and affinity audiences. We can’t emphasise enough the importance of optimising the campaign throughout its duration for best results.

With the functionality to put together great quality Responsive Ads in AdWords itself we don’t even need our clients to provide their own banner creative. We’ve found Responsive Ads performing strongly with equal if not better results than the clients’ own creative in many instances.

We’d love to discuss how we can help you with your fundraising campaigns. Get in touch at [email protected] or give us a call. Here’s to 2017 – may we all stick to our resolutions!

* charities can apply for a Google Grant Account where they receive the value of $10k to use every month on AdWords – all our clients are enrolled in a GrantsPro Account with a $40k value to use every month.

No New Grantspro Applications

 

As of the end of last week, it appears that Google are currently not accepting new Grantspro applications. It’s very frustrating that Google do not engage charities in any communication about forthcoming developments so we have no clear message from them at this time. However, they have made similar suspensions in the past and here at upriseUP we suspect this will be another temporary measure. Our theory is that they might be making amends to the algorithm (possible making tweaks post migrating ads from the right hand side which seems to have had the side-effect of bolstering grant ad position until now).

What is a Grantspro account? Grantspro accounts have an increased level of AdWords spend; $40,000 per month compared to $10,000 per month for a standard Grant Account. There are eligibility criteria to meet including, but not limited to, tracking conversions and hitting budget. Incidentally, to date upriseUP have maximised on traffic for all of our account and all UK accounts are now achieving the increased grant – apart from the last one that we tried to put through this morning! So this is not only achievable but should actually be an aim for all recipients of the Google Grant.

Currently there is a holding message stating ‘The Ads Grants team is no longer accepting Grantspro applications’. Having secured the increased grant for the majority of our clients and looking to apply on the behalf of others this is obviously far from ideal.

We have seen fears that the Grantspro programme is ‘winding down’. The following Google statement “The Ad Grants team is no longer accepting applications for the Grantspro program as part of new efforts to streamline the program. This update aside, the program will continue to remain open and free to all eligible non-profits” is not entirely clear. We are hopeful though that applications will open again in the next few weeks.

We’ll be scrutinising results and any Google announcements and will keep clients and subscribers to our news email informed.