Home / Blog
Ad Grant Guides
Without The Fluff.
What we actually find inside nonprofit Google Ads accounts, and what to do about it. Written for the person who has to run the account, not for other marketers.
Latest
Three Guides
Worth Your Hour.
Application
Domain verification for the Ad Grant
Ten minutes of DNS that blocks the whole application. The three methods, which to choose, and how to find who controls your DNS.
Application
Setting up Google for Nonprofits the first time
The account the grant lives inside. Who should own it, what you need to hand, and the setup mistakes that surface years later.
Application
The pages Google requires before approval
Five pages a reviewer expects, six technical conditions, and a one-week plan to clear all of them before you apply.
Application
Why Ad Grant applications get rejected
Rejections come from three stages and the wording tells you which. Two are fixable in a week; the third is not fixable at all.
Application
Goodstack verification, and what goes wrong
Most applications stall here, and almost none of the failures are about eligibility. The five mismatches that fail, and the documents to have ready.
Application
Applying for the Ad Grant, step by step
Four stages, each rejecting people for a different reason. What to fix before you start, and why you should build the account before submitting it.
Bidding
Should you ever use manual CPC?
Manual bidding accepts the $2.00 cap and loses most auctions. The four situations where it is still right, and how to set bids properly if you must.
Bidding
The learning period, and why you must not touch it
Change a bid strategy and performance dips before it improves. What restarts the clock, what does not, and how to judge the result at three weeks.
Strategy
The grant is maxed out. Now what?
Spending the full $10,000 changes the economics. How to confirm it is really maxed, extract more from it, and when paid search starts to pay.
Bidding
Budget pacing across the month
The grant does not roll over. How to split $329 a day across campaigns, the mid-month check, and why over-allocating is the right move.
Measurement
Auction insights, and who you are really competing with
The advertisers in your searches are usually not the charities you consider peers. How to read the report and turn it into decisions.
Measurement
Impression share: the metric that explains underspend
It separates losing auctions from having no auctions to lose. Two companion columns decide which problem you have, and they need opposite fixes.
Bidding
Target CPA or Maximize Conversions?
Target CPA adds a constraint. On donated budget that expires monthly, that constraint is usually the wrong thing to add — with the exceptions.
Bidding
Maximize Conversions on a grant account
The right bid strategy for almost every grant account — what it does, the one way it fails badly, and what the first three weeks look like.
Compliance
Keeping up with Ad Grant policy changes
Ad Grant rules move, and enforcement tightens on old ones. Where changes appear, a quarterly review routine, and how to build past the thresholds.
Compliance
If you lose charitable status, you lose the grant
The Ad Grant depends on recognised charitable status. How it gets lost, what happens to the account, and the order to fix it in.
Compliance
Selling things without losing the grant
Tickets, shops and programme fees are allowed. Ad networks and affiliate links are not. Where Google actually draws the line, and what a reviewer looks for.
Compliance
Sitelinks are required. They are also free CTR
Two sitelinks minimum per campaign. Most accounts add two, point both at the homepage, and waste the cheapest CTR gain a grant account has.
Compliance
Two ad groups, two ads, and why that is not enough
Two ad groups, two ads, two sitelinks. Meeting the minimum takes an afternoon and does not make the account work. What the structure should be instead.
Compliance
Geotargeting rules, and the setting everyone gets wrong
Grant campaigns must target where you actually work. The default location option quietly breaks that — and fixing it lifts click-through rate.
Compliance
Paused for inactivity, without doing anything wrong
An Ad Grant account nobody logs into gets deactivated. What counts as active, the monthly routine that prevents it, and how to get reactivated.
Compliance
The annual programme survey nobody remembers
Once a year Google emails a programme survey. Ignore it and the grant is deactivated — the one rule that has nothing to do with performance.
Eligibility
Is your nonprofit eligible for the Ad Grant?
Legal status, country and website. Most rejections are the website — and that is the only one of the three you can fix in a week.
Compliance
Single-word keywords, and the exceptions
Ad Grants ban single-word and overly generic keywords. The two exceptions, the Quality Score 3 rule, and how to find every breach in five minutes.
Bidding
The $2.00 bid cap, and how to remove it
Manual bidding caps Ad Grant clicks at $2.00. Smart Bidding lifts it — but only after conversion tracking is genuinely working.
Compliance
The 5% click-through rate rule, explained properly
Miss 5% click-through rate for two months and the grant is gone. What is measured, the structural cause, and the seven fixes that work.
Compliance
How to get an Ad Grant account reinstated
Reinstatement is a demonstration, not an argument. What to fix before filing, what the appeal should say, and where to file it.
Compliance
Your Google Ad Grant account is suspended
The five things that actually suspend an Ad Grant account, how to tell which one hit you, and what to do in the first hour.
Ad Grant
Why most Google Ad Grants never spend past $2,000
The four structural problems in almost every underspending Google Ad Grant account, and the order they have to be fixed in.
Ad Grant
The Google Ad Grant policy checklist
Every Google Ad Grant rule that can pause your account, in plain language, with what a compliant account actually looks like.
Ad Grant
Conversion tracking a board will believe
How to set up GA4 events so nonprofit reporting maps to donations and programme outcomes instead of pageviews.