Prefer automated campaign management?
Switch to Smart campaigns for quick and easy set-up, minimal ongoing management, and automated performance insights. You'll save time and your account will not be subject to Ad Grants’ performance and conversion tracking requirements. Follow the Google Ad Grants activation guide to set up your account.
Part 2: Account set-up
If your organization has not been approved through the Ad Grants pre-qualification process, follow the steps in Part 1 of this activation guide before setting up your Ad Grants account as outlined below.
Only once you’ve received an email stating your pre-qualification has been approved, complete the following steps exactly as written to properly set up your account. Otherwise, you may need to start over and create a new account.
Step 1 of 4: Set up conversion tracking
Conversion tracking is a free tool that shows you what happens after someone interacts with your ads -- whether they donated, purchased, called your support line, signed up for your newsletter, or downloaded your app. When someone completes an action that you've defined as valuable, these completed actions are called conversions.
Google Ad Grants policy requires active and accurate conversion tracking.
Track at least 1 conversion per month
At least one of the conversion types below must be set up as described and when the account is active, must accrue at least 1 conversion per month to comply with our policy.
Track meaningful actions
Conversion types such as time spent on site or homepage visits may be added to your account, but must be excluded from “Conversions” and use the category of ‘Other.’
If your conversion rate is high, please confirm that it's due to strong performance for a meaningful conversion.
Depending on the type of goal that you wish to track, the set up is different, so the first step in setting up conversion tracking is choosing your goal. Based on the action you wish to track, skip to the relevant section below.
Track a monetary transaction
Track any monetary transaction on your site or on a third party payment platform from donations, ticket sales, charity shop sales, fee based event bookings, service payments, appointments, membership growth to fundraising initiative signups.
Select your preferred set up from the following three most popular ways to establish tracking.
Import transactions from Google Analytics (recommended)
1. Set up Google Analytics and create goals
- Install Google Analytics or sign in to an existing account. Use the same admin login for your Google Ads account and your Google Analytics account.
- Set up one of the following:
- Ecommerce to view transaction data
- Destination goal tracking of the payment confirmation page
- Event tracking on the final stage payment confirmation button if you direct people to a third party payment processor and cannot get the confirmation or value passed back
- Link your Google Ads and Analytics accounts.
2. Import Google Analytics goals into Google Ads
Once you have goals created in Google Analytics, import them into your Google Ads account to use the conversion data to optimize your account.
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Sign in to your Google Ads account. Sign in with the same username that you used to create your Ad Grants account in Part 1.
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In the upper right corner, click the tool icon
, and under "Measurement," click Conversions.
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Click the plus button
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Select Import, select Google Analytics, then click Continue.
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Select the goal or transaction meeting the following requirements that you want to import, then click Import and continue.
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Click Done.
, and under "Measurement," click Conversions.
.Once you've imported your Analytics goals, edit them to save the following settings.
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Click the name of the imported goal you want to edit.
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In the bottom right corner, click Edit Settings.
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Click Category. Select "Purchase/Sale" from the dropdown for the conversion action that reports a transaction with a monetary value.
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Click Value. Use the setting “Use the value from Analytics” once you have accurately established value tracking in Analytics. Deselect/select “Use the same currency as in Analytics.”
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Click Count. Select “Every,” which is best for transactions, when every conversion likely adds value for your nonprofit. “One” is best for leads, such as a sign-up form on your website, when only one conversion per ad click likely adds value for your organization.
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Click Conversion window. Select how long to track conversions after an ad interaction from the drop-down. 90 days is recommended to capture longer purchasing cycles, like donations.
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Click View-through conversion window. Select how long to track view-through conversions from the drop-down. 30 days is recommended to capture longer purchasing cycles, like donations.
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Click Include in “Conversions.” Select “Yes” to include tracking for monetary transactions in your "Conversions" reporting column and use this data to influence your Smart Bidding strategy.
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Click Attribution model and select an appropriate model. We recommend “Time decay.”
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Click Save for each section and Done at the bottom of the window.
Use Google Ads conversion tracking for your website
Although we recommend creating goals in Google Analytics and importing them into Google Ads. You can also create them directly from the Google Ads tool by taking the following steps.
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Sign in to your Google Ads account with the same username that you used to create your Ad Grants account in Part 1.
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In the upper right corner, click the tool icon
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Click the plus button
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Select Website.
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Next to “Conversion name,” enter a name for the conversion you’d like to track, such as “Once off donation,” “Monthly donation,” “Ticket purchase,” “Online store purchase.” This will help you recognize this conversion action later in conversion reports.
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Next to “Category,” select Purchase/Sale from the dropdown.
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Next to “Value,” select how to track the value of each conversion.
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Select “Use different values for each conversion” if the total amount could be different each time the same conversion happens, e.g. if you’re tracking purchases of products or tickets with different prices. Later, when you add your conversion tracking tag, you’ll need to customize your tag to track transaction-specific values.
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Select “Use the same value for each conversion” if you plan to set up multiple conversion actions for each transaction and each transaction tracks a specific value. For example, set up a conversion action with a value of $10 if someone donates $10 by tracking a visit to the confirmation page: www.example.com/thankyou10. In order to track a donation of $20, a second conversion action with a value of $20 should be set up to track a visit to the confirmation page: www.example.com/thankyou20.
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Next to “Count,” select “Every,” which is best for transactions, when every conversion likely adds value for your nonprofit. “One” is best for leads, such as a sign-up form on your website, when only one conversion per ad click likely adds value for your organization.
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Click Conversion window. Select how long to track conversions after an ad interaction from the drop-down. 90 days is recommended to capture longer purchasing cycles, like donations.
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Click View-through conversion window. Select how long to track view-through conversions from the drop-down. 30 days is recommended to capture longer purchasing cycles, like donations.
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Click Include in “Conversions.” Select “Yes” to include data for this important conversion action tracking monetary transactions in your "Conversions" reporting column and use it to influence your Smart Bidding strategy.
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Click “Attribution model” and select an appropriate model. We recommend “Time decay.”
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Click Create and continue.
You’ll now see a screen that shows you’ve created your conversion action. Follow the instructions in Step 2 to set up your tag. The tag must be implemented for conversion tracking to be deemed complete and your account eligible to be activated.
Import transactions from a third party platform (e.g. Paypal, Classy, Ticketmaster).
Tracking the value of leads
If you are tracking a lead and you are confident of the end value to your nonprofit, add that value and use the category "Purchase/Sale".
Track a sign-up, service user, lead, form submitted or key document download
Track any meaningful action taken on your site. Once the action is completed, the user should reach a confirmation or thank you page. Track this page using web page tracking. If you don't have a confirmation page, track the click of the action button.
Use Google Analytics to track the thank you page or a click of a button
1. Set up Google Analytics and create goals
Set up goals in Analytics to view metrics like bounce rate, average session duration, and pages per session for your Ad Grants campaigns that cannot be accessed in Google Ads.
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Install Google Analytics or sign in to an existing account. Use the same admin login for your Google Ads account and your Google Analytics account.
- Set up one of the following:
- Destination goal track the confirmation or thank you page.
- Event tracking on the action button.
- Link your Google Ads and Analytics accounts.
2. Import Google Analytics goals into Google Ads
Once you have goals created in Google Analytics, import them into your Google Ads account to use the conversion data to optimize your account.
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Sign in to your Google Ads account. Sign in with the same username that you used to create your Ad Grants account in Part 1.
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In the upper right corner, click the tool icon
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Click the plus button
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Select Import, select Google Analytics, then click Continue.
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Select the goal or transaction meeting the following requirements that you want to import, then click Import and continue.
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Ensure that the goal that is tracking an online transaction is a Destination goal tracking a visit to the confirmation page.
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If you don’t have a confirmation page, or if you direct people off your site to complete the action and can’t get the confirmation passed back, set up Event tracking and track a click on the final stage submission button. Events are user interactions with content that can be tracked independently from a web page or a screen load. Downloads, mobile ad clicks, gadgets, Flash elements, AJAX embedded elements, and video plays are all examples of actions you might want to track as Events.
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Click Done.
Once you've imported your Analytics goals, edit them to save the following settings.
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Click the name of the imported goal you want to edit.
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In the bottom right corner, click Edit Settings.
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Next to “Category,” select Signup or Lead depending on the conversion action. Note: Don’t select Purchase/Sale unless you are tracking a valid monetary value for that action.
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Next to “Count,” select “One,” which is usually the best for signups and leads, when only one conversion per ad click likely adds value for your organization. In some more rare cases “Every” may be more suitable, when every conversion likely adds value for your nonprofit.
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Click Conversion window. Select how long to track conversions after an ad interaction from the drop-down. 90 days is recommended in many cases when that matches the time needed to convert a visitor to a supporter or service user of your nonprofit.
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Click View-through conversion window. Select how long to track view-through conversions from the drop-down. 30 days is recommended to capture longer conversion cycles, like for volunteer signups.
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Click Include in “Conversions.” Select “Yes” to include data for this important conversion action in your "Conversions" reporting column and use it to influence your Smart Bidding strategy.
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Click Attribution model and select an appropriate model. We recommend “Time decay.”
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Click Save for each section and Done at the bottom of the window.
Import goals from a third party tracking platform
Track engagement with your website content
Use Google Analytics or a third party tracking program to track website engagement signals.
Use Google Analytics for easy to set up engagement goals
We recommend Smart Goals from Google Analytics. Smart Goals use machine learning to examine dozens of signals about your website sessions to determine which of those are most likely to result in conversions. Each session is assigned a score, with the "best" sessions being translated into Smart Goals. Some examples of the signals included in the Smart Goals model are Session duration, Pages per session, Location, Device and Browser.
We recommend adding another Lead, Signup or Purchase/Sale goal along with Smart Goals.
If the linked Google Ads account falls below 250 clicks over the past 30 days, Smart Goals will be deactivated until the clicks rise again to 500 or more.
Instructions:
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After enabling a Smart Goal in Analytics, import it into Google Ads along with another goal to ensure you secure at least 1 conversion per month when your account begins to serve.
Track hotline or support line phone calls
Track when someone calls you from a phone number in your ads or from a phone number on your website, or when they click your phone number on your mobile website. Learn more about phone call conversion tracking.
Instructions:
Ad Grants Requirement.
Minimum 30 seconds call length
Track when a customer installs your app or completes an in-app action
Track when someone installs your app or completes an in-app action, such as a donation or signup, after clicking on your ad. Learn more about mobile app conversion tracking.
Instructions:
Tips
Use Google Tag Manager to add or edit tracking codes
Google Tag Manager is a tag management system (TMS) that allows you to quickly and easily update tracking codes and related code fragments collectively known as tags on your website or mobile app. Once the small segment of Tag Manager code has been added to your project, you can safely and easily deploy analytics and measurement tag configurations from a web-based user interface.
Track multiple conversions but monitor your conversion rate
Do you want to track multiple kinds of conversions from the list above? Just set up a different conversion action for each distinctive goal you want to track. For example, you can set up one conversion action to track donations on your website, and another to track calls from your ads.
In Google Ads, some conversions can be excluded from "Conversions" and view only, and others can be included in "Conversions" and used for Smart Bidding strategy signals. Ensure that only the most meaningful actions are included in "Conversions". A good indicator is whether the Conv. Rate is greater than 15%, If so, consider excluding some actions from Conversions, like an engagement goal.
Swap control for easier management with Smart Campaigns
Google Ads expert mode provides you with full control over your ad campaigns. The alternative is setting up Smart campaigns. Smart campaigns save you time with automated settings and your account will not be subject to Ad Grants’ performance and conversion tracking requirements.
Step 2 of 4: Create a campaign
Is your conversion tracking set up and verified?
Check your conversion tracking status to verify that conversion tracking is set up and working properly as described above before creating your first campaign.
If you're unable or unwilling to set up conversion tracking, please switch to Smart Campaigns for quick and easy set-up, minimal ongoing management, and automated performance insights. You'll save time and your account will not be subject to Ad Grants’ performance and conversion tracking requirements. Follow the Google Ad Grants activation guide to set up your account.
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Click the back arrow in the top left corner. Then click Campaigns.
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On the "Campaigns" page, click +New campaign.
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Under “Select the goal that would make this campaign successful to you,” click Create a campaign without a goal’s guidance.
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Under “Select a campaign type,” click Search.
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Under “Select the results you want to get from this campaign,” select the goals most closely aligned to the action you want users to take when they see your ad.
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If you select Website visits, enter your website.
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If you select Phone calls, enter your phone number.
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If you select App downloads, enter your app’s platform and name.
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Click Continue.
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Enter a campaign name. A campaign name can remind you what the campaign is about. For example, "Drive donations" or "Recruit volunteers."
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Under "Networks," deselect the checkboxes for Include Google search partners and Include Google Display Network.
- Under "Locations," select the relevant locations to show your ads, by selecting Enter another location and entering the name of a city or region in the search box.
Note
Use specific geo-targeting to show ads in locations where users will find your nonprofit's information and services useful.
If you primarily serve your local community, your ads should be shown only in your town or local area, such as food banks and houses of worship.
If you are an organization that has different services locally and nationally, separate campaigns by geographic area to ensure that users can benefit from your services in their geographic location.
If you would like to brand your organization in a wider geographic area, such as a museum that would like visitors from across the country to visit, one campaign may be geo-targeted widely that indicate your service and city name, such as 'art museums in Toronto', while most of your campaigns would show ads in the Toronto area.
If you do humanitarian relief in Nepal but your primary online goal is to raise donations and your donors are in the United States, show your ads in the the US.
Rarely is it relevant to show ads worldwide.
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Under "Languages," select the languages you want to write and show your ads in.
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Under "Budget," enter 329 USD or less. You'll have 329 USD per day to use across all of your campaigns.
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Under "Bidding," click select a bid strategy directly. Under “Select your bid strategy,” select Maximize conversions, Target CPA, or Target ROAS bidding in the drop-down menu.
Note
Any additional campaigns created in your account must use one of the following bidding strategies: Maximize conversions, Target CPA, or Target ROAS.
Maximize conversions is easy to set up, and automatically sets bids to help you get as many conversions as possible within the campaign budget. Target CPA is a bit more advanced, but is useful for Grantees that are already spending their entire budget. Target ROAS is an even more advanced option and requires a minimum threshold of conversions. Any additional campaigns created in your account must also include a conversion tracking and use one of the following bidding strategies: Maximize conversions, Target CPA, or Target ROAS.
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Under "Sitelink extensions," click the down arrow next to "Add additional links to your ad."
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Click +New sitelink extension.
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Enter at least 2 unique text sitelinks.Sitelinks take people to specific pages on your site (not your homepage), such as your calendar of events, one of several programs, or your donate page. When someone clicks on your sitelinks, they skip right to what they want. Two sitelinks with different URLs are required, but you may create as many as make sense for your organization. Click Add sitelink to add more sitelinks.
- Click Save.
Tip
Add callout extensions to your campaign to show more detailed information about your organization, mission, and services.
Callout extensions are an extra line of ad text, broken up into short, 25 character snippets of text. This extension highlights unique aspects of your organization or services.
- Click Save and continue.
Step 3 of 4: Create ad groups with keywords
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Under "Set up ad groups," enter a name for your ad group. An ad group shows the same ads for a closely related set of keywords. For example, each exhibit in a museum would likely merit its own ad group so the ad references that exhibit.
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Enter or paste keywords. Keywords are closely related to search terms that people search for on Google and are often more than a single word, so add multiple phrases that you want to show your ad for if someone types it into google.com. For example, "where to donate clothing" and "memberships to environmental clubs."
Note
Your keywords must reflect your nonprofit’s programs and services. Using generic keywords such as "news," "video," or "children" isn't allowed because they're not relevant enough for a good user experience.
You can identify relevant and mission-based keywords from a variety of sources:
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Start with your organization’s website. Take a look at the various sections and pages. It may be helpful to mirror your keywords and campaigns after the various pages of your website.
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Think about your upcoming planned programs and campaigns for your organization overall. Your marketing calendar can be a source of inspiration when creating keywords.
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If your organization uses Google Analytics (a free tool to understand how visitors interact with your website), check out your site referral paths to identify current search terms that drive traffic or actions on your site. Then you can add them as keywords.
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Google trends is a free tool that lets you see what the world is searching for by region, topic, or timeline. You can use Google Trends to identify significant jumps in search traffic that might be relevant to your cause or mission.
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Click +New ad group.
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Repeat steps 1 - 2 to add at least 2 ad groups, each with a set of closely related keywords.
Note
At least 2 ad groups are required because each ad group will show unique ads, which should be relevant to the set of keywords you choose. For example, if someone searches for "where to donate clothing" on google.com, your ad should be specific to the keywords in your ad group and say something related like "donate clothing to a local shelter."
- Click Save and continue.
- Under "Create ads," click +New ad to create at least 2 active ads for each ad group. All ads should use the same URL that was submitted for pre-qualification.
Tips
Highlight what makes your organization unique. 100% tax deductible donations? Offer pick-up for large donations? Tell people! Highlight features or areas that make your organization stand out.
Call-to-action. Tell your users what they can do. Don’t ask them a question - be the answer. Are you looking for volunteers? Tell users what kind of service they could provide. Do you offer a hotline? Tell users how they can contact you. Calls to action like volunteer, donate today, sign up, call us, or learn more, make clear what the next steps are.
Use the space available to you. Expanded headline fields increase the clickable space of your ads, and allow you to communicate more to someone who’s searching before they decide whether to click through to your site.
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Click Done.
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Click Save and continue to review your campaign.
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Review your campaign and click Continue to campaign.
Set up strategies that help you comply with Ad Grants policies
Pause low quality keywords with an automated rule
To help you comply with policies on low quality keywords, set up an automated rule so the system regularly pauses keywords with a quality score of 1 or 2 when the condition is met.
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Click Keywords in the page menu to reach the keywords page, and click the 3-dot icon.
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Select Create an automated rule.
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For Type of rule select Pause keywords.
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For the Apply to keywords selection choose All enabled keywords.
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For the Condition selection choose Quality Score, then < and 3. Ensure the checkbox for Include keywords with quality scores of “—” is deselected.
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For Frequency set Daily, time as 11:00PM and using data from Same day.
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Choose if you wish to receive an email notification, enter a rule name and click Save Rule.
Add negative keywords
Negative keywords let you exclude search terms from your campaigns and help you focus on only the keywords that matter to your organization. For example, if your organization bids on “learn to speak english videos,” we recommend adding an exact match negative keyword like “video” to prevent your ad from showing for searches too broad to reflect your mission.
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Click the Tools icon in the top-right corner.
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Under “Shared Library,” click Negative keyword lists.
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Click the blue + icon.
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Under “list name” enter: “Ad Grants Negative Keywords.”
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Paste your list of keywords in the box under “Add negative keywords.”
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Click Save.
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Select the checkbox next to the list and click Apply to campaigns.
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Select the checkboxes next to all campaigns listed.
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Click Apply.
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Update the list as needed with new negative keywords.
Step 4 of 4: Submit your account for review
Make sure that your account has been pre-qualified and meets all of the criteria above before you submit your account for review.
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In the top-right corner of your account, locate your customer ID. Your Google Ads customer ID is in the format of xxx-xxx-xxxx.
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Sign into Google for Nonprofits.
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Click Activate under Google Ad Grants.
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Under “Part 2: Account Review,” enter your customer ID.
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Click Activate.
Your account will be reviewed to make sure it complies with policies and you'll usually receive an email within 10 business days.
Learn how to get the most out of your Ad Grants account
Important
The Ad Grants team communicates with those enrolled in the program through email and in-product notifications. To receive invitations to local workshops and for personalized account help, opt into “Customized help & performance suggestions emails” and “Special offers.”
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Click on the Tools icon in the upper right corner of your account.
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Click Preferences.
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The “Notification topics” column shows the different email notification types. In the “Email settings column,” click the toggle for “Customized help & performance suggestions emails” and “Special offers.”
The Ad Grants team offers educational live streams and videos, volunteer support from partner universities through the Online Challenge Program, and help from the Ad Grants contributors in the Ad Grants Community.
Interested in professional account management?
The Google Ad Grants Certified Professionals Community was designed to enhance the Ad Grants experience for professionals and Grantees alike. This community recognizes the network of agencies, consultants and trainers who look after nonprofits globally, and connects Grantees to recommended professionals through our Certified Professionals Directory.