The Ad Grant is free budget attached to a rulebook. Break a rule and the account does not get a warning phone call — it gets paused, usually at the worst possible moment. Here is every rule that can pause you, what it means in practice, and how to stay clear of it.
Policies change. This reflects the rules as we apply them day to day, but always check the current Google for Nonprofits policy page before making a decision you cannot reverse.
Account structure
- At least two active ad groups per campaign, each with a tight keyword theme.
- At least two active ads per ad group, so Google has something to rotate.
- At least two sitelink extensions on the account.
- Geotargeting must be set. An account targeting "all countries" is a red flag.
These are minimums, not a design. An account built exactly to the minimum will pass review and still fail to spend.
The 5% click-through rate floor
This is the rule that catches most nonprofits. If the account's click-through rate stays below 5% for two consecutive months, the account is deactivated.
Click-through rate is not a vanity metric here — it is a survival metric. What protects it:
- Tightly themed ad groups, so the ad text echoes the search.
- Aggressive negative keywords, reviewed weekly from the search terms report.
- Pausing keywords that generate impressions but no clicks, rather than hoping they improve.
- Resisting the urge to add broad terms because impressions look nice.
If you are reinstated after a CTR deactivation, the account starts under scrutiny. Rebuild the structure — do not just pause a few keywords and hope.
Keyword rules
- No single-word keywords. Narrow exceptions exist, such as your own brand name or a recognised medical condition.
- No overly generic keywords — terms like "free videos", "e-books", "today's news" or "jobs" that say nothing about your mission.
- Quality Score of 3 or higher. Keywords below that must be removed or improved.
Bidding
Manual bidding is capped at $2.00 per click. The cap is lifted for campaigns using Maximize Conversions, Target CPA or Target ROAS — which is why almost every healthy grant account runs Smart Bidding. Smart Bidding requires conversion tracking, so the two rules are linked.
Conversion tracking
Valid conversion tracking is required, and accounts are expected to record meaningful conversions rather than a token pageview event. This is both a policy requirement and the thing that makes everything else work.
Campaign types
The Ad Grant is Search only. No Display, no Video, no Shopping, no App campaigns. Grant ads also appear below paid results on the page, so you are competing for attention as well as position. If you need Display or YouTube, that is paid spend, not grant spend.
Website rules
- You must own the domain you send traffic to, and it must be served over HTTPS.
- No commercial advertising on the pages you advertise — no AdSense, no affiliate links.
- The site must describe your mission clearly. Any commercial activity has to be plainly in service of it.
- Landing pages must actually match the ad. Sending every keyword to the homepage is both bad practice and a quality problem.
Eligibility, and staying eligible
- Current, valid charity status in a country Google for Nonprofits supports.
- Government entities, hospitals and medical groups, and schools are generally not eligible for the Ad Grant (educational institutions have a separate programme).
- You must complete the annual programme survey. Missing it can cost you the grant for purely administrative reasons — put it in the calendar.
- Log in regularly. Dormant accounts get flagged.
If you have already been paused
- Find the actual trigger — CTR, keyword quality, structure, or the survey. Do not guess.
- Fix the underlying cause across the whole account, not just the flagged item.
- Submit the reinstatement request with a clear description of what changed.
- Watch click-through rate weekly for the next two months. That is the window that matters.
The uncomfortable summary
Every one of these rules pushes in the same direction: Google wants grant accounts to be small, specific and well-measured rather than broad and cheap. An account built that way passes compliance as a side effect of being good. An account built to "just pass" tends to fail both.