How museums can make the most of Google Ad Grants
Exclusively for nonprofits, including museums, Google’s Ad Grants scheme provides $10,000 per month to spend on Google search ads.
Read on to find out about what the Ad Grants scheme, who it’s for, how to apply, and how One Further can help your museum make the most out of your free ad spend.
In this article we’ll cover:
What are Google Ad Grants?
Google Ad Grants is a fantastically useful programme whereby nonprofit organisations, such as museums, can receive $10,000 of in-kind ad spend every month from Google.
Work at a theatre? Ad Grants can help you too!
The ads are shown on Google search network, so they’ll be seen by people who have searched for specific terms. That means you can put your organisation front and centre at the exact moment people are doing searches for keywords that are relevant to your organisation, subject matter, artforms, and activities.
There are some caveats. Google want to make sure that beneficiaries of the programme don’t take it for granted and let their accounts fall into disrepair so they’ve put in some stipulations and limits. For instance:
your account must be properly configured, with a good account structure, use of features such as sitelinks, conversion tracking in place, no keywords with a quality score less than 2, and a click through rate that stays above 5%,
your ads should, for the most part, be geo-targeted so as to focus on a specific location relevant to your organisation,
you can’t advertise on single keywords, or overly generic phrases, and
you’re limited to bidding up to $2 per click unless you use some of Google automated bidding strategies
There are a few others too, but by now you might be starting to appreciate why it can be difficult for many institutions to spend their full $10k allocation every month (and why it’s not uncommon for organisations to lose access to this channel). With that being the case, you’ll need to be smart to make the most of your Ad Grant.
How can museums use Google Ad Grants?
The main reason for museums to use Google Ads is that they aren’t ranking at the top of Google search results for relevant keywords or phrases.
We can categorise the types of terms that people search in relation to museums in a few different ways, but here are four to get you started.
1. Brand terms (and other unique terms)
You might choose to bid for your ads to show when people search for phrases that are unique to your museum - your name, the name of your venues and locations, and any prominent staff such as founders, directors, or curators.
Now, in most cases, when someone Googles the name of your museum you should be already be showing up in the top spot (or very nearby). In which case, why bother spending money advertising on your brand name?
There are a few reasons why it might be a good idea. Your name might not be very unique, or it might be confused with others, so this might be a good way to increase your prominence.
You also might need to get your click through rate up because of your bidding strategy with other terms, and this is a good way to do that. Or perhaps you’re just struggling to spend your $10k/month and can’t think of any other way to make use of it.
Generally, as much as possible, you’ll want to decrease the percentage of your Ad Grant that’s spent on brand terms and allocate it to the other categories of keywords.
2. Generic terms
It’s worth bearing in mind how people search when looking for things to do:
Earlier in the buying cycle they might do general research - eg ‘museums near me’ or ‘museums in [insert city name]’.
Later on, they might search for something specific that they’ve discovered elsewhere. This time they’re more likely to search for the name of the museum or venue. Perhaps this time they’ll also append keywords like ‘address’, ‘opening hours’, or facilities they’re interested in.
Getting ads in front of people in the former category could be a very worthwhile use of your Ad Grant dollars. Bear in mind that there’s more likely to be competition for these terms (so you might be outbid by others).
You should also be aware of Google’s requirements that your ads and keywords must be mission-based. Overly generic keywords are not permitted and they specifically reference “names of other organizations, places, historical events, or people on their own”. As you can see, there’s a tightrope to be walked here.
3. Exhibitions, events, and activities
Again, here we split keywords into two similar types. There are those exhibitions and events that are very specific to a particular museum, and those that are more ‘generic’ (for want of a better word) and likely to be offered by other organisations.
In the former case we will want to check (using Google Search Console) that the museum already occupies the top spots in Google searches. Where necessary we will look to plug the gaps.
Where there are more ‘generic’ events and activities (often things like walks, tours, workshops, and courses) there’s an opportunity to catch someone’s interest with a search ad. This is one of the areas that we would focus on when setting up campaigns for a museum with a Google Ad Grant.
4. Content and collections
There’s a good chance that your website will contain articles, videos, learning resources, information about the places and objects under your care, and more. A Google Ad Grant can greatly increase the visibility of these.
These parts of your website are also likely to be of interest to people well beyond your usual catchment area. We often recommend using a separate campaign for this and increasing the geographical area.
You might have a very large collection and have no interest in creating separate adverts for every object and record. That’s where dynamic search ads come in. These allow you to create a campaign that applies to a chunk of your site - you let Google work out what the content is about (they’re pretty good at that) and you create a generic advert that would apply to any of those pages. You then let Google show that ad when it sees someone searching for something relevant.
One concern that we hear from clients is that they want their Ad Grant to produce a positive return on ad spend, and that driving traffic to content and collections won’t achieve that.
We encourage organisations to take a longer view of things and consider the Ad Grant to be something that will give a significant boost to their wider content strategy. When everything is structured well, the increased visibility can result in knock-on benefits such as email signups, product upsells, additional links from third parties, and improved search engine optimisation.
5. Ecommerce
You can use a Google Ad Grant to promote products and services, but it’s worth checking the terms of the Ad Grant website policy. Specifically:
If your organisation charges for products or services, your website must describe how your organisation uses funds, for example, by disclosing an annual report
Your organisation must serve the public in some way, rather than only those who pay for a service
This shouldn’t be too difficult for museums to show, but we’ve sometimes seen applications for Ad Grants queried on this basis before.
How to apply for Google Ad Grants
First of all, check that you’re eligible for an Ad Grant in the first place. As a rule of thumb, if you’re a registered charity then you should be fine. Sadly, museums that are run by universities or local councils are usually not eligible.
The rest is pretty straightforward. Here’s how to apply if you’re in the UK:
Make sure you’ve got a work email address for use with a Google account (there’s a good chance you already have a Google work account)
Apply for Google for Nonprofits, which offers eligible organisations free access to Google products
Once that’s approved, apply for an Ad Grant account from your nonprofits dashboard
It shouldn’t take too long to hear about the success of your application
This process is a lot simpler than it used to be, fortunately.
How we can help
As Google Partners and with our specialist understanding of museums and the wider cultural sector, we’re uniquely qualified to help your museum reach new visitors and raise awareness for your organisation using Google Ad Grants.
We can help in a couple of ways.
1. We can manage it for you
As a Google Partner agency with extensive knowledge and experience of the museum sector, we can be the safe pair of hands that looks after your Google Ad Grant.
We will make sure your campaigns meet each of Google’s requirements and secure the most possible value from the available budget. We’ll also keep on top of changes to Google Ads so you don’t have to (some people find this very attractive).
Our pricing is very competitive too! In fact, if you sell tickets to events you’ll often find that revenue from the Ad Grant ads easily covers the costs of having us manage it.
2. Keeping it in-house? We can still help
For many organisations, outsourcing Ad Grant management is the obvious choice. The returns from the free ad spend easily justify the management fees.
If you want to handle day-to-day management you might still benefit from an outside perspective from time to time. We can help with:
Ad Grant Jumpstart - we’ll take charge of your account for three months, get everything set up and in place, then hand it back to you ready to go.
Audits and check-ups - we’ll review your account to catch any errors and make sure your budget isn’t getting chewed up by poor quality campaigns. We won’t just look for problems, but will make additional suggestions for building up your account performance too.
Training - our beginner or advanced training sessions help bring teams up to speed on Google Ads and Ad Grants. These can be delivered remotely and are tailored to an individual museum’s needs.