13 Easy Steps To Keep Your Google Ad Grant Account Compliant With Google's Policies

Handing out USD 10,000 each month to thousands of charities around the world, Google wants to make sure that this money is spent wisely. As with most freebies, there are certain rules you need to follow and your Grant account is no exception.

Google has an extensive grant policy compliance guide and failure to comply can result in your Grant being taken away (don’t worry - they usually send you a warning before so you get the chance to fix any issues).

Following these policy requirements is not difficult as long as you are aware of them. Here is a handy checklist to go through on (at least) a monthly basis:

1) Set up conversion tracking

Work out which user actions on your website are important to your organisation, for example, donations, purchases, newsletter signups or any other type of form submissions. These conversion actions can be set up via Google Analytics or Google Tag Manager and then get imported into Google Ads so you can measure the results of your campaigns.

2) Generate at least one conversion per month

This should be easily achievable for your account if your tracking works correctly. If you struggle to generate high-value bottom-funnel conversions (such as donations) often, consider adding lower-value conversion actions like newsletter signups or certain engagements (like video views on your website) as conversions to complete this requirement.

3) Keep your keywords closely related to your organisation’s mission

This means you should bid only on keywords that are relevant to what your organisation is doing.

4) Don’t use overly generic keywords

It may be tempting to add more generic keywords to increase traffic and spending but using very generic keywords in your account is no good. You would risk not only for your ads to be less relevant to the user but could run into policy violations.

5) Don’t use single-word keywords

In line with being specific rather than generic in your choice of keywords, single-word keywords (“donation”) are not allowed. Instead, be more specific and use, for example, “donate to cancer charity”. This will also increase your chance of getting the click and achieving a higher CTR (click-through rate).

6) Make sure you don’t have keywords with a Quality Score of 1 or 2

Quality Scores of 1 or 2 are an indicator of poor ad quality, low keyword relevance and poor landing page experience. Aim for at least 5 or higher. If your QS is low, check that you have the keyword in the headline and test different landing pages that align with the keyword and the message in your ad.

7) Achieve a minimum CTR (click-through rate) of 5% each month on the account level

Individual keywords and campaigns can have lower CTR but on the account level, you need to be above 5%. Failing to do so for 3 consecutive months may result in a warning.

8) Log in to your account at least once a month

That’s an easy one and ideally, you would check your campaigns on a weekly basis.

9) Make account changes at least every 90 days

Not too hard either. Consider making changes like testing new keywords or ad variations or adding negative keywords.

10) Set up a minimum of 2 ad variations per ad group

Multiple ad variations allow for testing different ad messages so you can identify what type of message works best.

11) Set up a minimum of 2 ad groups per campaign

If you follow the one-keyword-per-ad-group structure that’s an easy one too. Separate your campaigns by topic and build related keyword clusters for each campaign.

12) Set up a minimum of 2 sitelink extensions

Sitelinks are a type of ad extension that add extra bits of information to your ad. Not only do they improve your overall ad quality but also make your ad take up more space and increase the chance of being clicked on. While we’re on the topic of ad extensions - try to use as many as possible (callouts, structured snippets, image extensions etc) to further improve ad quality.

13) Respond to the Google Ads Grant Program survey

Not kidding, ignoring these surveys can get you in trouble too. Just keep an eye on your email inbox and respond in a timely matter if the survey comes in.

Keep in mind that these policies can change at any time, so it’s a good idea to regularly check Google’s Compliance Guide to stay up to date.