A common complaint among Google Ad Grant recipients is how difficult it is to spend the full $10,000 monthly budget that Google allots. There are many extra constraints placed on Ad Grant accounts that don’t exist on regular paid ads accounts. These rules are what makes it challenging to spend anywhere near the full $10,000 that Google allots per month.
Google is giving non-profits a significant amount of money to spend on ads every month, and they want to make sure you aren’t wasting it. But don’t worry – if you are pulling your hair out trying to figure out how to spend more of this $10,000, here is a quick method to try. This method comes from Jason King, an expert on all things Google Ad Grant.
1. Pick a conversion that generates a lot of data for Google
In order to circumvent the $2.00 max CPC limit, you need to enable the Maximize Conversions bidding strategy. On top of this, if you can pick a conversion action that generates a lot of data for Google, the algorithm will optimize faster and your account will soon be spending more money. Think creatively about what all of your goals are. It can be difficult (read: expensive) for Google to get donations from an Ad Grant campaign, so perhaps that isn’t the best conversion goal for your campaign. Same with phone calls or petition sign-ups, although those are a bit easier than straight donations. What about newsletter sign-ups? Or something as simple as pageviews or time on site? Think of your Ad Grant account as a vehicle to increase awareness for your cause, and suddenly you have many more conversion options at your disposal.
2. Make sure your conversion tracking is ironclad
This might go without saying, but if your conversion tracking isn’t working, then Google doesn’t have any data to use in its optimization algorithms. Work with your marketing team and web developers to make sure your tracking tags are always functioning. You want to be in the know if there is even the slightest design change on your landing page. Even a small blip in the flow of data can cause a major setback in optimization.
3. Set a really high target cost per acquisition (tCPA)
The final step in this process is to set a high target CPA for your Maximize Conversion campaigns. Lately, I have been setting tCPAs 20-50x higher than the actual cost/conversion. Setting your tCPA this high will also lead to higher cost/conversion, but as long as you’re achieving your conversion goal, that is perfectly fine. Over time, you can decrease the tCPA to something more reasonable. The objective of this process is to jumpstart your Google Ad Grant account to start spending more freely and more often.
This is just a quick method to try when all else fails on your Google Ad Grant account. Remember that it is equally important to keep your Ad Rank high no matter what type of ad account you have. If you are having issues with your Google Ad Grant account and want an extra set of eyes on it, send me an email!