How to double donations with Google Ad Grants

The Google Ad Grants scheme is a vital resource for charities and non-profit organisations in the UK. It provides more than £7,500 per month of free Google Ads advertising to eligible organisations, boosting their visibility by appearing in the search results at the exactly the time when someone is searching for topics related to their cause. 

Find out how to apply for a Google Ad Grant

Recipients of Ad Grants have seen their website traffic increase by over 500% and their monthly donation income rise by over 800% as a result of heightened traffic and awareness of their organisations.  

One such charity to benefit from this uplift is Afghanaid, a humanitarian organisation that helps millions of the most vulnerable people in Afghanistan.Through Ad Grants, it was able to successfully double its donations during a difficult time, raising vital funds for its ongoing Crisis Appeal. 

Launched to help those affected by recent events after the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan this year, the Crisis Appeal was able to secure a 100% boost in the number of donations after increasing the amount of free Google Ad grants it was entitled to. Money raised as a result going towards providing emergency shelter, food, hygiene kits and blankets to those in need of humanitarian assistance in Afghanistan.  

While the whole world searched for ways to provide increased levels of support, Afghanaid’s software provider, The Access Group, noticed that Afghanaid was using up its daily free advertising budget from Google within hours. The Access Group then reached out to Google and secured an increase in budget of four times the amount that Afghanaid was previously allocated from the search engine.  

After the increase in advertising spend was secured, Afghanaid welcomed a substantial increase in visits to its website which in turn led to more donations. The boost in valuable ad space also saw it improve its website conversions by 35 percent, as more people looked for ways to help those fleeing their homes in the wake of the conflict.  

Discussing the increase in donations, Natalia Deane, Head of Communications and Giving at Afghanaid, said: “We needed to be the first charity people saw when searching on Google for ways to help those living in Afghanistan, to ensure we could provide as much emergency shelter, food, hygiene and financial help as possible.  

“As a small team, the support that Access has provided has been invaluable for driving more traffic to our Crisis Appeal page and made it as easy as possible for supporters to donate as soon as they hit our website. This in turn means we have been able to scale up our emergency assistance work and reach more people.” 

The use of Ad Grants also led to a 300% increase in the amount the charity was able to spend on other advertising, strengthening their voice in a really competitive space. “In short, we’ve been able to massively increase awareness of the work we do, and increase donations to help the thousands of families affected by the conflict in Afghanistan,” concluded Deane.  

Shaf Mansour, Product Manager at The Access Group Not-for-Profit, said: “Afghanaid has worked with Access for a number of years now, however this year there has been a huge increase in awareness of the excellent work they do following the tragic events in Afghanistan. 

“Google Ad Grants is a great tool for helping charities to reach more supporters, which in turn drives more contributions to help even more people in need. At Access Group, we’re committed to using our expertise to save charities the hassle of managing their own Ad Grants while helping to improve the quality of charity website visitors and giving charities the time to focus on fundraising efforts for their fantastic causes.” 

Helping charities tap into the exposure granted to them by Ad Grants, The Access Group uses its unique AI modelling software to manage the entire Google Ad Grants system for charities, allowing not for profits to focus their efforts on essential fundraising. 
 

From just £220 a month, the Access Group Google Ad Grants management services supports charities by helping to increase online traffic, improving volunteer recruitment and attracting more donations through tailored advertising for each charities’ specific needs.  

With an annual budget of up to £90,000 from Google Ad Grants, the results speak for themselves.