If you have been on the church tech scene on the Internet for the last month, you would have seen a lot of different articles popping up about how your church could get a sweet $10,000 per month of free Google Adwords for your church website. Churchsites.co promoted it, NilsSmith shared it, and even Josh Burns of Social Media Academy did a whole webinar on it.
This is nothing new. I had actually written about this two years ago on my old personal site how I had helped my missionary organization effectively use this for over a year and half and SIGNIFICANTLY boosted our online presence.
But I actually made a claim to Josh on Twitter that I think many churches should NOT sign up for this.
Here were my exact words:
Did you know your church can get $10k of free Google Ads per month?
Crazy. I just walked #SocialChurch Academy Members through the process
— Josh Burns (@jburno) April 21, 2015
http://twitter.com/gumbystation/status/590570040459661312
But before I get into the why of Google Adwords may not be great for your church, let me recap what all the hype is about and actually show you how to grow that to $40,000/month.
$10,000/month In Free Google Adwords
Let me call it what it is, the Google Grant is Google’s attempt at inflating their advertising prices and still getting tax write offs. If your church creates advertisements as a free tax write off (and what does it really cost them but free ads on their site occasionally and making their product, Google Search, more functional), then it also has the side benefit of making the whole advertising world more profitable because your advertising will drive up prices for non-profits that may want to buy advertisements. Now the minimum cost per advertisement will be $2 per ad posted and clicked through.
But it’s a good thing for your church. When I worked with Youth for Christ, we utilized this grant immediately when I got into my position and our traffic to the website increased 10 fold.
So what are the requirements for you to get this free advertisements?
- A daily budget limit of $329 USD, which is equivalent to about $10,000 per month
- A maximum cost-per-click (CPC) limit of $2.00 USD
- Only run keyword-targeted campaigns
- Only run text ads that appear on Google search result pages
But wait, there’s more!
Up To $40,000/month Even!
If you thought $10,000/month was good, what if they tripled that offer to $40,000/month? Basically, they want to reward great advertisements that get regularly clicked through (instead of terrible ads that get click through rates of less than 1%, basically they are paying you to make their service look even better).
This option is not something you cannot instantly get with Google. Here are the requirements, but they are not difficult to do:
- Have conversion tracking installed and be successfully tracking at least one conversion. The conversion cannot simply be a page view of your homepage, but be tracking a substantial action such as a newsletter or volunteer sign-up.
- Have hit your monthly budget cap (at least $9900) for at least two different months over the last six months (they don’t need to be consecutive months).
- Have maintained an average account level clickthrough-rate (CTR) of 1% or higher over the past 6 month period.
- Submit the online application detailing how you will use the increased advertising grant money.
- Be in good standing with the Google Ad Grants program and abide by our program policies and guidelines.
- Have an authorized representative of the organization who manages the account at minimum on a bi-weekly basis.
- Complete an annual survey and agree to share impact or conversion data.
Unfortunately there is a catch. There is always a catch.
Here’s the Problem
I’m just going to give it to you straight.
If you fail to meet the expectations assigned above, they can and will pull your grant and reserve the right to withhold it in the future.
What does that mean? If you decide to casually use it and hope to bump up your traffic a little, but do not use the service to it’s fullest, you may lose the service forever.
Google only wants strong users that are going to give their service influence and power. Bad advertisements and wasted grant money will actually bring down their service and it behooves them to drop you quickly and completely.
The Lesson
Churches are notorious for rushing into things, and sadly, this may cost churches thousands or tens of thousands of pageviews a month (can you imagine increasing your congregation by 500-1,000 people a month with a good Google Grant?), all because you rushed into it without a plan.
We need to think through our decisions better. We need to have a plan. And we need to be good stewards of our resources. This is a commandment directly from God with VERY grim results if we fail to follow through.
My recommendation?
You either get a full time staff person dedicated to digital ministry and has a focus on Google Adwords or you use Nils Smith’s Searchable.Church for help.
PewPotato says
One other issue for churches – the non-discrimination clause:
“My organization does not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity in hiring/employment practices.”
Eric Dye says
I think ‘orientation’ and ‘gender identity’ do not always indicate an ungodly lifestyle. Churches should be careful to note the differences, so this does not have to be a problem.
Sue says
this is the reason our NPO has not taken advantage of the grant program. We must agree that we will not discriminate in the hiring process which means we would be willing to hire a transgender or someone in a homosexual lifestyle.
Wouldn’t this be a problem for most churches? It’s not about our attitude of grace or even acceptance, but our willingness to hire. I good conscience I could agree to that statement–but I would love input if I am misinterpereting the statement.
Jeremy Smith says
Sue,
It depends upon how you do the hiring. If you do not hire them due to their gender, then yes. But nonprofit Christian organizations can in good conscience and faith do both.
Eric Dye says
My point is that churches shouldn’t have a problem hiring Christians who have a gay sexual orientation (thus not being in violation with Google’s terms), but should have every right to discipline or fire someone for violating the church’s religious beliefs and standards—which would more than likely include those unrepentantly practicing homosexuality or extramarital affairs.
Does that makes sense?
Jeremy Smith says
Good point.
Sean says
Being that I just took on the role of marketing at our church, guess its up to me to ensure we keep it!
I think the title is tad misleading because with your reasoning (that if you don’t commit and know the hidden costs, it could do more harm than good) can apply to any area of church ministry…
“Why You Church Should Avoid Video Announcements/starting a contemporary service/offering childcare…”
“Why Your Church Should Avoid Meerkat/Periscope/Twitter/Linkedin…”
Don’t get me wrong, although I think its misleading- I still clicked so fast I almost had to replace my phone screen lol. This is the first I’m hearing about the grants and thrilled you mentioned it (and with an attention grabbing headline!)
And you’re right that this will inflate prices for other ad-bidders, more demand, same supply. These programs will definitely benefit those who use it and harm those who don’t. But not using the program won’t fix that.
Also can I say: TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS?!?! A MONTH?!?! WHATDAWHAT???? I don’t know what most churches’ ad budgets are, but that is a 1,000,000% increase in our current online advertising budget.
Jeremy Smith says
It may be misleading for a church that has someone in charge of marketing, but I think the majority of churches 70% or more) should not be getting Google Grants. I don’t want them to use it because they may permanently lose access to Google Grants because they don’t meet the expectations by Google. It sounds like you will be able to keep up with it (and should consider going for the $40k/month when you get there. Other churches though may shoot themselves in the foot.
Nils Smith says
Great article and I appreciate so much the mention!
Jeremy Smith says
Great service!
Beatrice says
So what is the actual cost in this?
I could see a problem with not being prepared for the exposure and increased visitors. Think big bad be prepared for sure.
Jeremy Smith says
The cost is the energy and maybe wages of someone who is going to run this, that’s it.
Matt G says
Good article. Your headline got me worried there for a bit!
If anyone needs help managing a Google Grant, please check my profile link and either we can help you out, or I can put you in touch with a volunteer who will work on managing your grant.
All the best.
Jeremy Smith says
Ha. It was intended to scare, but specifically for those who were looking for a free and easy handout.
Jason King says
I’d like to add an update to this, because Jeremy’s advice applies now more than ever.
In June 2017 Google imposed a quality filter on Google Ad Grant accounts. Those which weren’t well structured, or which pointed to poor websites, were hit badly, with impressions dropping, sometimes to almost nothing. Their stated reason for doing this was that the average charity’s Adwords account was achieving much poorer results than the average business, and Google are on a mission to improve quality across the internet.
They’ve been tightening up on policies, requiring anyone asking for donations to display their charity registration details on landing pages.
And even removing GrantsPro from nonprofits that weren’t being “on-mission” with their keywords.
The ad grants are massively useful, and easy to apply for, but you must treat it with the professionalism it deserves. Get a professional in to run your Adwords account, or at least put in the time and effort to learn to do digital advertising well.