“Testing” your advertising represents nothing less than the difference between success and failure with Google Ad Grants.
Although your ads are the most visible part of Google Ad Grants, the “Story” and keywords are more important.
Here is the winning combination:
- Compelling advertisements
- Combined with effective keywords
- Working in partnership with a powerful story
Stated another way, the advertisements themselves will not be productive without effective keywords and a powerful story.
Here is how the ads, keywords and story work together:
People search for information online using keywords.
Ads related to the keywords are often displayed at the top of the search results page and many times at the bottom, too.
Interested people click on the ads and are directed to a “landing page,” which is a specific web page that correlates with the ad, keywords and story.
The landing page offers more information (text, pictures, videos, etc) related to the ad, keywords and story. Within the context of this introductory training, the landing page also offers the free giveaway in exchange for the visitor’s contact information, which is fundamental to the story.
Those who provide their contact information are then continuously informed and nurtured about your nonprofit story, and as a result, become part of your ever-expanding online community. (The community then becomes a source of advocates, volunteers and fundraising).
Although much can be said about the creation of ads — in fact it represents its own art and science — for now it would be sufficient to understand that if you’ve used the Google Ad Grants Story Triangle to develop the right marketing story for your nonprofit, even mediocre ads can produce enough results to get started.
However, here is the secret sauce to developing better ads with your Google Ad Grants: In the marketing and advertising world, it’s called “split testing.” No matter what wording you use for your initial ads in the beginning, the exact messaging can be improved through this testing process.
In a nutshell, split testing is an ongoing, comparative process of determining which stories, which ads, which giveaways, which fundraising messages, which web pages, which videos, which photos, etc., are the most effective at building your community and generating revenue for your cause.
As an example, right now we are simply going to focus on improving the ads themselves.
Let’s say we have two different ads: “A” and “B.” And let’s say they are both offering the same free giveaway that is related to your unique, nonprofit story. However, they have different wording.
When we run both ads simultaneously, we’ll find that one ad often performs better than the other.
Let’s say ad “B” results in more people joining your community.
Well then, ad “B” becomes a “control” ad and new ads are created to find one that will outperform “B.”
In reality, we are comparing and testing many ads.
This is a continuous process of optimizing messaging for your nonprofit story and in the course of a year, you should be comparing and testing hundreds of ads to generate the largest community for your nonprofit, which will provide better fundraising opportunities.
To get the most out of your Google Ad Grants, be sure to incorporate testing into your ad management.
For more information, click “Contact.”