Being able to use Google Ad Grants effectively
Whether you are a large or small charity, in today’s digital age it is increasingly important to have an online presence if you are going to capture the attention of your target audience and drive engagement. However, very few charities can afford to employ a marketing function, and this makes it extremely difficult to keep on top of constant changes within the digital sphere such as new communication platforms, AI and cloud computing.
Keeping on top of marketing trends is also just one piece of the puzzle. Understanding exactly how your charity can benefit from using specific digital marketing tools such as social media, paid ads and CRO (conversion rate optimisation), without having the expertise within the charity to manage them, is even more complicated.
Funding is available to help
One tool that can be particularly useful for charities looking to excel in their marketing efforts is using Google Ad Grants. Applying for this funding, which provides charities of all sizes with up to $10,000 (£8,000) per month of in-kind search advertising, can be the make or break for the search visibility of a charity online.
In today’s on-demand age, people want to undertake minimal manual searching and have information easily accessible to them.
The grant enables charities to boost their online advertising and key messages at no extra cost to them. These ads will then appear next to Google search results when people search for other charities or specific topics or key words connected to your charity
This helps to ensure that both your website and social media pages are in a prominent position on the search page, resulting in a better website click through rate and an overall increase in website traffic.
Inspiring a target audience
While the idea of utilising these tools to help your charity stand out from the crowd might feel like a step into the unknown, they can be fundamental in improving online engagement and audience numbers. For us, at Active Nation, the results were huge, especially once we figured out our digital advertising strategy and how to easily manage our online ads.
Our overall mission as a charity is to inspire a healthier nation and encourage people to get moving through inclusive programmes and educating communities on how to take charge of their physical and mental health. We believe that even the smallest steps towards a more active lifestyle can lead to significant improvements in physical fitness, mental clarity and overall quality of life.
From a marketing perspective, our main goal is to increase brand awareness to ensure more people hear about our work and engage with our services. We want to create a supportive community and to be the number one health and wellbeing charity in the UK which motivates, educates, and empowers individuals to lead healthier lives.
The social media challenge
Like so many other charities, improving our visibility on social media has been crucial. Organic social media is great for building communities and expanding brand awareness, however as the reach data relies on engagement, it is not always enough on its own.
Using paid ads alongside an organic social media strategy can help to expand the reach of a charity’s posts and profile, also driving sales, leads and site traffic by getting the charity in front of the people actively searching for its products or service.
However we knew that in order to get the most out of our Google Ads we would benefit from further logistical and marketing support to manage them.
We therefore sought the help of The Access Group’s not for profit division and their Access Charity Ads Grant team who helped us to understand where exactly to allocate the budget and how to best optimise our ads. With their support we were also able to effectively manage our ad spend and improve our overall marketing strategy to ensure we made the most impact.
This included updating landing pages, refining ad copy and ensuring our ad campaigns were bespoke and aligned with Active Nation’s goals to boost our digital reach, drive online memberships and increase footfall to our venues. By continuously reviewing the performance of ads and amending campaigns when needed, it meant that very little of our monthly £7,000 Google Ad Grant went to waste. They’ve been our digital experts, constantly fine-tuning our strategy. This level of attention ensures that the campaigns evolve alongside market changes, staying relevant and impactful.
The impact
Since working with the Access Charity Ad Grants team, we’ve seen a 50% increase in online memberships, 9.7 million ad views and over 547,000 website clicks. Not only has our online membership doubled, but footfall at Active Nation venues has also increased by 12.6% proving the effectiveness of well targeted ad campaigns.
Access Charity Ad Grants helped us run multiple campaigns simultaneously, targeting specific regions and activities, which helped us achieve what we initially set out to do. We benefited from their real-time reporting and performance tracking as we were able to make data-driven decisions and adjust campaigns on the fly. We could see the peaks and troughs in traffic and ensure we were always optimising our efforts to reach the right audience at the right time.
It hasn’t been a “one size fits all” approach and has been a really invaluable tool for us.
Maximising every penny
Alongside improving the overall effectiveness of our campaigns, the expert support meant that we were spending enough on our digital ads to ensure our eligibility for the grant continued. Although the grant is available for all charities to apply for, they need to ensure they are spending enough each month to show that they are utilising the funding correctly, otherwise they can lose it altogether.
Without this expert knowledge and carefully tailored guidance, we may have accidentally underspent and put ourselves at risk of having our grant revoked completely.
Transformative results
Volunteers, fundraisers and donors now gain the majority of their information either from websites, adverts and notable social media campaigns, so all charities and organisations, big or small, need to be able to stand out from the crowd.
However, charities and not for profit organisations already have a lot to think about, from supporting their service users and retaining volunteers to keeping donations coming in. As much as they would like to, many simply can’t afford to hire marketing and advertising experts, therefore any support that will help obtain strong results in terms of driving engagement is vital.
Given how difficult it can be to cut through the noise and competition from other organisations, it’s reassuring to know that specialised external support is available to help charities amplify their voices and ultimately reach their marketing goals.
We at Active Nation have seen first-hand just how impactful Google Ad Grants can be and how working with outside help to manage them has helped us to grow as a charity. It’s been game changing.
For the first time ever we have increased memberships, visitor numbers and donations, and more people were hearing about our work and programmes. The impact has not just been positive for our charity but has also been positive for the health and fitness of our communities.
