Google Ads: The best (and easiest) thing non-profits can do to expand their brand

Advertising and marketing for non-profits is scary. Why? Most organizations don’t have in-house marketers who know the tricks of the trade and, even if they did, most don’t have discretionary budgets with marketing allocations.

While this is generally true, there’s actually a very easy and, most importantly, free way for non-profits to advertise and market their brand, their mission, their services and their impact. Google Ads. It’s the best thing any non-profit can do, and here’s why.

It’s free

It’s true. Google runs a program called Google Grants, which provides non-profits $10,000 per month (about $334 per day) in free Google search ads. Yes. Free. Considering how many people use Google search each day, advertising in search results is incredibly powerful.

Why does Google do this? They want to have a positive impact on society, as most non-profits do, but I’m sure the company also gets a giant tax write-off for each dollar they advocate to non-profits. Either way, it works out very well for non-profit organizations!

It reduces fear

Second, advertising through Google reduces the fear and anxiety that many have with digital advertising and marketing. Google’s advertising tool helps you create the ads and even curate your target audiences based on demographics, location, interests, hobbies and more.

In the end, you get the most bang for your buck (even though it’s Google’s bucks) and reach the right audiences for your organization. If you’re a non-profit focused on Washington DC, you can rest assured knowing that your ads won’t shown to people in California.

It’s easy to iterate

Third, Google makes it very easy to iterate and adjust your ads based on their performance. Google’s tool will tell you which of your ads are performing well and which ones need to be updated or changed. This helps ensure that all your ads are optimized and for their best possible performance. This, in turn, lowers the amount you spend on ads and increasing the number of people who can click on your ads.

It produces results

When I instituted a Google Ads plan for my former employer, the Partnership for Public Service, our web analytics skyrocketed.

In our first three months, we generated almost 12,000 clicks to our web content and almost 120,000 impressions of our organization.

After six months, those numbers rose to 27,500 and 272,000, respectively. By the end of six months, we had spent more than $40,000 of Google’s donated ad space.

In two and a half years, when I left the organization to go on my own, our Google Ads account generated 112,000 clicks to our websites from 1.74 million impressions. It cost $215,000, and not one penny of that came out of our pockets; it was all Google’s donated advertising space. These tens of thousands of clicks led to revenue generation, new donors and a larger engaged audience who cared about and supported our mission.

With $10,000 a month of free advertising space and tools to optimize your ads for performance, Google Ads is the best (and easiest) marketing tactic any non-profit organization can do to increase awareness of their organization, bring in new people to their website, recruit new volunteers, secure new donors and expand the organization’s mission.

Let’s work together

If you’d like to significantly increase awareness of your non-profit, get more views and clicks on your content and bring in more volunteers and donors, I’d be happy to help you do that. With a almost a decade of marketing and advertising experience, as well as a proven record of crafting effective Google ads and engaging marketing campaigns, it would be my pleasure to work with you.

Feel free to schedule a free 45-minute consultation with me, where we can discuss how I can help support your non-profit’s goals through an effective and engaging Google Ads account.