Google Grants: What Ads You Can and Can’t Run

Google Ads Grants provide nonprofits with a fantastic opportunity to promote their missions and causes through free advertising. However, there are specific guidelines and restrictions on the types of ads you can and cannot run with Google Grants. Understanding these rules is crucial to ensuring your campaigns are compliant and effective.

Allowed Ads with Google Grants

Google Grants allow a variety of ad types that can help nonprofits achieve their goals. Here’s what you can run:

1. Text Ads:

– Overview: Google Grants strictly permit text-based ads. These ads appear on Google’s search results pages and consist of headlines, descriptions, and URLs.

– Best Uses: Text ads are ideal for promoting events, driving traffic to informational pages, encouraging donations, and raising awareness of your nonprofit’s mission.

2. Cause-Related Campaigns:

– Overview: Ads that directly support your nonprofit’s mission are allowed. This includes campaigns focused on fundraising, volunteer recruitment, promoting services, and educating the public.

– Best Uses: Use these ads to highlight specific causes, promote campaigns, or direct users to pages where they can take meaningful action, such as donating or signing up for newsletters.

3. Location-Based Ads:

– Overview: Ads targeting specific geographic areas are permitted, which can be beneficial if your nonprofit operates locally or has region-specific initiatives.

– Best Uses: Promote local events, services, or programmes that are relevant to the communities you serve.

4. Sitelink Extensions:

– Overview: Although Google Grants ads are text-only, you can enhance them with site link extensions. These allow you to include additional links within your ad, directing users to specific pages on your website.

– Best Uses: Direct users to multiple relevant areas of your site, such as donation pages, contact forms, or detailed information about your programmes.

Ads Not Allowed with Google Grants

While Google Grants offer many opportunities, there are clear restrictions on what types of ads are not permitted. Here’s what you cannot run:

1. Commercial Ads:

– Overview: Google Grants cannot be used for ads that primarily focus on selling products, services, or commercial activities unrelated to your nonprofit’s mission.

– Why Not?: The primary goal of Google Grants is to support nonprofit initiatives, not to generate profit or commercial gain.

2. Keyword Bidding Beyond the Cap:

– Overview: Google Grants impose a $2.00 cost-per-click (CPC) cap on keywords. If your keywords exceed this bid limit, your ads won’t be eligible to run.

– Why Not?: This rule ensures that nonprofits stay within the grant’s budgetary constraints while maintaining access to cost-effective advertising.

3. Overly Generic Keywords:

– Overview: Ads that use overly generic or broad keywords are not allowed. This includes terms like “donate,” “volunteer,” or “nonprofit.”

– Why Not?: Google requires that keywords be closely related to your nonprofit’s mission and the specific content of your ads. Overly broad keywords may lead to irrelevant clicks and lower ad performance.

4. Display and Video Ads:

– Overview: Google Grants strictly limits ads to the Search Network, meaning you cannot run display or video ads with your grant account.

– Why Not?: The grant is designed to help nonprofits gain visibility on Google’s search results pages, not through other formats like display or video.

5. Ads Leading to Pages with Limited Content:

– Overview: Ads must lead to landing pages with substantial, original content that is directly related to your nonprofit’s mission and the ad itself.

– Why Not?: Google aims to provide users with a positive experience by directing them to valuable content. Pages with little or irrelevant content can negatively impact your ad performance and Quality Score.

Conclusion

Understanding what kinds of ads you can and cannot run with Google Grants is essential to maximising the effectiveness of your campaigns. By adhering to these guidelines, you can create impactful ads that drive engagement, support your mission, and make the most of your grant.

We’ve been supporting Muslim charities with their digital marketing needs for almost 12 years. We’ve been managing their Google Grant for about the same time, so have more than a little understanding about how best to leverage this to make it work for them. It does take time and effort – which charities don’t always have – to get it right and stay on top of it. Get in touch to see how we can help you.