How To Apply for Google Ad Grants

Many Nonprofits have heard about Google Ad Grants and the potential to get $10,000 in grants each month, but they are not sure how to apply for Google Ad Grants.  This article will lay out the Google Grants application process and eligibility requirements.

Is Our Organization Eligible for Google Ad Grants?

Google Ad Grants are available in over 50 countries.  In these 50+ countries, most charities and nonprofits are eligible for Google Grants.  In the United States for instance, the main requirement for eligibility is that the organization is a 501(c)(3) organization and that it is registered with the IRS.  There are a few other requirements in that the organization cannot be any of the following types of entities:

• a hospital
• a governmental agency
• a school

In addition, to be eligible, the organization’s website must be hosted on a separate domain and must use an SSL certificate.

If your organization meets these requirements then you are eligible to apply for Google Grants.

How Do You Apply for a Google Grant?

You can apply for Google Ad Grants any time of the year so you can start this process any time.  However, there are some steps that must be completed prior to actually submitting the Google Grant application:

• Set up an account at TechSoup.org
• Request and get a validation token needed for Google for Nonprofits
• Sign Up for Google for Nonprofits
• Set up Google Analytics on your website and create a Google Analytics account

Some of those steps can take a little processing time to get approved.  Once these steps are all done you are ready to submit the Google Grants application.  You can largely fill out questions on the application, but you will also need to set up a Google Ads account and that is the trickiest part of the process due to the number of rules and restrictions that Google Grants require regarding your Google Ads account.  The ones that you will need to focus on the most when you first set up the account are in the following categories:

Performance:

• Your Google Grants account will need to maintain a 5% click-through rate each month. This is a high threshold so you will need to think about how to meet this requirement when you set up this account.
• You will need to have at least one conversion in your Google Ads account each month.  That means that you will need to set up conversion tracking both on your website and in your Google Ads account.  This is normally done by setting up multiple conversion goals in Google Analytics and then using those in Google Ads.  A conversion goal is just a metric in which Google records when a certain action takes place such as a site user filling out an online petition on your website.

Account Structure:

• Each campaign must have 2 or more ad groups.
• Each ad group must have 2 or more ads.
• Ads must include 2 sitelink ad extensions. Sitelinks are hyperlinks that direct users to specific pages of your website.

Keywords:

• Each Keyword is required to have a quality score higher than 2. You will thus want to create an automated rule in Google Ads that will pause any keywords with a quality score of 1 or 2.
• Keywords are not allowed to be comprised of only one word.  Instead, with very few exceptions, keywords must be comprised of at least two words. Keywords also are not allowed to be excessively generic or broad.

The Google Ad Grants application process can be difficult and time-consuming.  As part of Grant Republic’s service, we will go through the process on your behalf submit the Google Grants application on your behalf, and set up your Google Ads account best of all we do not charge anything for filing the application.  If you’d like more information or would like a free consultation, please contact us.  In addition to getting you a Google Ad Grant, we can also help you optimize your Google Ads account and use the Google Ad Grant effectively.  Contact us today!