- Jul 5, 2011
- 2,536
- 1,314
A few days ago several members of the forum wrote me asking me some questions about my experience with Google Ad Grant Accounts, so I decided to post it here in case others have the same doubts and can refer to this public thread.
For those unaware Google has a program where it gives you 10,000 USD as long as you provide the documentation that you are a non for profit organization (it has a few more restrictions, but this is the overall idea), this money is to advertise your mission, so here is my experience with the program:
a) The process is relatively easy and straightforward to apply for it.
b) First catch you can ONLY advertise on the domain that applied for the Google grant, so you can apply on one domain and use it in any domain you want. IF you talk to an established non for profit to apply for it this may be a problem because you have to modify their pages to promote anything you want, a subdomain will be the easiest way to circumvent this BUT sometimes Google will identify the subdomain as another domain and won't allow you to promote anything. if you control the non for profit is less of a problem... relatively.
c) The real issue is that AT ALL TIMES you need to have a quality score of 5 or more (and I think a minimum CTR as well, but I can't remember this part)... that is easy, right? WRONG!! because any time you try to do a split test, or changes the keywords to get more leads or whatever... you may drop AND your account is automatically paused.... you need to talk to the Google AdWords team and explain things, they review everything AGAIN and the process may take hours.... this may be fine for some people BUT when you want to escalate things and test... is a pain in the you know where.
d) Now if you are working with a non for profit, the best way to make money is to charge them some money to liberate the Grant, and then another amount to manage the account, BUT here comes another set of limitations from a tax perspective.... that is longer and more complex than I think most of you are interested in, but if you have other questions I will be happy to share my experience.
Cheers.
For those unaware Google has a program where it gives you 10,000 USD as long as you provide the documentation that you are a non for profit organization (it has a few more restrictions, but this is the overall idea), this money is to advertise your mission, so here is my experience with the program:
a) The process is relatively easy and straightforward to apply for it.
b) First catch you can ONLY advertise on the domain that applied for the Google grant, so you can apply on one domain and use it in any domain you want. IF you talk to an established non for profit to apply for it this may be a problem because you have to modify their pages to promote anything you want, a subdomain will be the easiest way to circumvent this BUT sometimes Google will identify the subdomain as another domain and won't allow you to promote anything. if you control the non for profit is less of a problem... relatively.
c) The real issue is that AT ALL TIMES you need to have a quality score of 5 or more (and I think a minimum CTR as well, but I can't remember this part)... that is easy, right? WRONG!! because any time you try to do a split test, or changes the keywords to get more leads or whatever... you may drop AND your account is automatically paused.... you need to talk to the Google AdWords team and explain things, they review everything AGAIN and the process may take hours.... this may be fine for some people BUT when you want to escalate things and test... is a pain in the you know where.
d) Now if you are working with a non for profit, the best way to make money is to charge them some money to liberate the Grant, and then another amount to manage the account, BUT here comes another set of limitations from a tax perspective.... that is longer and more complex than I think most of you are interested in, but if you have other questions I will be happy to share my experience.
Cheers.
