Many Hopes - Google Ad Grant Case Study

Introduction To Many Hopes

Many Hopes is an organization that rescues children from injustice and equips them to be adults who can help others. Many Hopes calls this “Survivor Driven Change” and it’s amazing to see the children rescued from terrible conditions go back and rescue more children.

Many Hopes works around the world with a focus on Central and South America along with Africa. Each area has a local partner that provides region-specific support from locals, which is somewhat unique approach for this type of nonprofit.

Google Ad Grant Goals

Many Hopes wanted to use the Google Ad Grant to generate as much awareness as possible about their organization with a special focus on their most active locations in South America and Africa.

While we typically suggest more specific goals like building a list, the Google Ad Grant is still a great tool for generating awareness- especially if you’re trying to target an international audience.

Overall Results

Many Hopes had a Google Ad Grant that went from $9,000 or more in monthly grant utilization down to just $100 a month. But with a massive account overhaul, we were able to turn things around.

Over the last 30 days, the Google Ad Grant account has utilized 95% of the grant, generated more than 4,000 impressions, and raised more than $2,000 in donations (Conv. value in the metric in the image below):

While impressions aren’t typically a focus of our Google Ad Grant case studies, we’re highlighting it here since the goal was awareness. We also had 50+ other conversions during this 30 day period that included views of Many Hope’s short film and other conversions showing deeper engagement with the website.

Logan knows his Google Ads Grant! I have been working in the digital marketing space for 10 years, many of which actively managing Google Ads account. When our nonprofit relaunched G. Ads Grant, Logan managed to help us with all the little nuances that a Grant account vs. a normal one has. His response time and communication style is excellent. I fully recommend Logan for any nonprofit!

Alex Smith, Head of Digital Marketing at Many Hopes

Process and Strategy

Let’s explain what went into the overhaul that helped transform this account.

Account Review & Bidding Strategy

Many Hopes had a Google Ad Grant account that was previously performing well and utilizing 90% or more of the total grant every month.

But starting in July 2023, the account spend steadily dropped until they were utilizing only around $100 (or less) a month:

The first thing we had to do was figure out why and one of the biggest factors was a change in cost-per-click over time. Many Hopes had some campaigns using a Maximize Clicks bidding strategy and while that isn’t technically compliant, it was working for them as many of the keywords they were targeting had a cost per click that was below the $2.00 bid cap.

However, as more competition entered the space, cost per click increased and Many Hopes got a steadily reduced impression share. The fix was adding conversion-based bidding with meaningful conversions supporting it.

Additionally, the account was heavily segmented into half a dozen campaigns that weren’t sharing conversions. This meant that even when conversion-based bidding strategies were used they weren’t getting the data they needed to make an impact.

Keyword Selection & Account Structure

With most Google Ad Grant accounts, we have a series of services that we’re trying to promote or several audiences that we want to target (like in this example). But when it came to Many Hopes, we were targeting a very broad audience with a focus on awareness.

That means we’re looking at keywords at the top of the awareness funnel like “NGO in Africa”, “NGO in Kenya”, or “Children’s Charity”. While these can be great keywords, they’re often quite competitive so we focused on heavily segmented ad groups so that we could create very specific ads supported by specific landing pages that were all about the individual location.

As a result, we were able to improve Quality Score massively across the account:

Higher Quality Score means improved Ad Rank and a better chance of our ads showing- this combined with conversion-based bidding helped scale the account quickly. You can see just how quickly the account scaled here and the daily spend went from $16.88 to $329 over a period of one day:

Donations

In addition to enhanced awareness, the account was also able to generate almost $2,500 in donations. These came from a combination of top of funnel search terms (like “charity for children”) but also for branded searches.

Brand campaigns are an excellent way to utilize the Google Ad Grant and while it can seem strange to “pay” for your own brand name, doing so allows you to send users exactly where you want them to go and control more of the search results.

In this case, that meant sending people searching for Many Hopes to donation pages which led to great results.

Moving Forward

Many Hopes now has a Google Ad Grant account that is consistently utilizing the maximum daily spend of $329 while generating both impressions and donations.

While Google Ad Grant accounts are typically slow to get started, Many Hopes is the exception with huge turnaround from $16.88 to $329 in just one day. But that’s what can happen when you take a previously active account and publish a complete account overhaul in a single day (via Google Ad Editor).

If you want to see similar results for your organization, you can work with Digital Tabby to manage your Google Ad Grant and it all starts by booking a call. If you want to work on your Google Ad Grant on your own, we’re always publishing new helpful content on our YouTube channel.