When you’re ready to step things up...If you thought $10,000 was good...Make your Ad Grants account more Grantspro-ductive... As we mentioned in our last blog post on Google Ad Grants (which you can find here), there is the possibility to increase your monthly budget over $10,000. A Grantspro account quadruples your potential spend to a whopping $40,000 per month! More than enough to help you reach a wider audience. Today we’ll go over the things you need to do before you can apply to the Grantspro programme.

Spend your current budget

First of all, you need to show that you could take advantage of the higher budget by reaching your ad spent limit. You can hit this cap by spending at least $9,900/month for two out of the previous six months. Use this as an opportunity to double-check that the existing account is firing on all cylinders. Ensure your bids are all set to $2.00, and your keywords aren’t too restrictive.Another thing to keep in mind is that your $10,000/month actually breaks down into a strict $329/day budget. If you don’t spend all that budget in a day, it doesn’t roll on to the next. The same applies to Grantspro accounts - your new daily budget would be $1,315! In particular, take a look at your weekend spend – a weekend-only campaign with a broader set of keywords could help push you up to the limit.

Make it broad, but relevant

However, you still need to make sure your ads are relevant, as your average click through rate during those past six months must be at least 1%. This can be tricky, especially when you consider that grants ads are placed below paid-for ones and a lower ad position is likely to have a lower CTR. Keep your keywords focused, long-tailed, and continually A/B test new versions of ad copy.

Track, track, track

As with all AdWords accounts, it’s important to set up conversion tracking. In this case, it’s a Grantspro requirement. It is also essential that you track a significant action, rather than a simple page view of your homepage. For example, you could track newsletter sign-ups, online donations, or sales in a charity gift shop – this in turn rewards you with information about which are the more effective parts of your AdWords campaign. Armed with this knowledge, you’ll be in the best position to squeeze every optimised drop of performance out of it.In addition to the above, you need to make sure your account is in good standing, you’ve completed Google’s annual grants survey, and you have someone actively manage the account at least once a fortnight.

Applying for Grantspro

With all the above boxes ticked, you can proceed to your Grantspro application. Here, Google will ask you to answer a series of questions, such as how your Ad Grant has impacted your organisation so far, and how you plan to spend the increased budget. Show Google how the increased traffic from search ads relates to your organisations mission and goals, and highlight what you’ve managed to achieve through AdWords so far.And that’s it! Google aim to review and respond to applications within 30 days, after which you’ll (hopefully) be able to start getting to grips with your shiny new $40,000 monthly budget.

How can Search Star help?

As a Google Not-for-Profits Featured Provider, our aim is that each of our expert PPC optimisers should manage a Google Ad Grant account for at least one charity. This work will be provided absolutely free of charge and is intended to help maximise the value of the Grants programme. It also means we get to work for great causes we really care about.If you need a hand bringing your Ad Grants account up to scratch, get in touch and we’ll help you steps things up a gear.