# 5 tips to optimise your charity’s Google Grant PPC account

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2012/12/06/5-tips-optimise-your-charitys-google-grant-ppc-account/
- Published: 2012-12-06T10:39:46+00:00
- Author: Guest Blogger

**You’ve got your [Google Grant](https://fundraising.co.uk/2016/11/15/google-grants-for-charities/)
application done and you’re running a few campaigns. What next?**

Here are five ways to optimise your charity’s Google Grant AdWords account so you
can start increasing those conversions.

## Keep to your charity’s goals

Whether it’s raising your cause’s awareness, a newsletter sign-up or donations made,
sticking to your objectives is key to success with the [Google Grant scheme](http://www.google.co.uk/grants).

## Advertisement

It’s fundamental but when running PPC campaigns it’s easy to get distracted with
new ideas. When the lightning bulbs appear above your head, write the ideas down
and save it till you’ve achieved your current goals first.

## Write quality ad text

First thing you should do is search on Google for similar charities or causes and
see what their ads look like. You’ll learn plenty straight away. Here’s an ad we’re
running for our client QUIT:

![Quit Smoking advert](https://www.fundraising.co.uk/files/images/quit-smoking-ad-
passiondigital-blog.png)

Make sure your ad copy contains your keywords as when the words in the ad are the
same as the words searched for, those words are shown in bold, which is known to
increase CTR. The QUIT ad above appeared for the search query “how to quit smoking”.

Incorporate a call to action (CTA) in your ad copy. In the example above, “Call 
today!” is a clear call to action because it’s an instantly achievable goal. The
user can call straight away and if you add a Call Extension to your ads you can 
track each call that comes direct from your Google Grant campaigns.

## Optimise your landing pages

Once someone has clicked on your ad the page they land on needs to make it as easy
as possible for them to complete your goals.

I think it’s best to give users a reason to complete a goal, rather than ask people
to sign-up without knowing anything about your cause. You wouldn’t buy a car without
gathering information about it. The ideal situation would be to point them to a 
page which offers informative content and a form submission all in one go. Here’s
a great example:

![Startup Weekend](https://www.fundraising.co.uk/files/images/startup-weekend-passionaldigital-
blog.jpg)

## Adding negative keywords

These are search queries that are triggering your ad that have little or no relevance
to your cause. Let’s say your charity supports child adoption in London. You might
have “child adoption” as a keyword set on phrase match and if someone searches “
child adoption from india”, your ad may show. Adding ‘India’ as a negative keyword
will prevent that from happening.

It’s difficult to know every keyword that will trigger your ad to be shown and while
it’s good to find out what keywords are wasting impressions it’s also great to know
what relevant keywords you might be missing out on. Have a good look at the keywords
that are triggering your ads, you might be surprised!

## Use Google Analytics for more insight

AdWords and Analytics are good friends. Not only is analytics great for seeing who
uses your site and how, it’s good for seeing how your PPC campaigns are performing.
Use the Advanced Segments to see data exclusively from users who came from your 
PPC campaigns. You can then see how they behave on your site, where in the world
they are, and how many of them turn into goal conversions.

The great thing about Google Grants is that the bid is always a max of $1 so it’s
one less thing you have to worry about. We’ve found it really beneficial for charities
in achieving their goals. Always remember to monitor your campaigns closely and 
don’t be afraid to get stuck in and try new things. With it being a grant, you can
try strategies you ordinarily might not want to risk with your own money on a paid
account.

_This blog was written by Mike Grindy who is passionate about digital marketing 
hence his agency is called [Passion Digital!](http://www.passiondigital.co.uk) The
team there manage Google Grant accounts for QUIT, Charities Aid Foundation and TACT.
If you need any help with yours, get in touch._

 * **[Google announces winners of first $23 million Global Impact Awards](https://fundraising.co.uk/2012/12/07/google-announces-winners-first-23m-global-impact-awards/)**(
   7 December 2012)
 * **[Google Analytics for charities, in handy tweet-sized tips](https://fundraising.co.uk/2013/02/25/google-analytics-charities-handy-tweetsized-tips/)**(
   25 February 2013)
 * **[Comic Relief uses Google+ Hangouts for online comedy events](https://fundraising.co.uk/2013/08/09/comic-relief-uses-google-plus-hangouts-online-comedy-events/)**(
   9 August 2013)
