Want Results from Google Ad Grants? Then Don’t Do This

Analysis of 5 Ineffective Ad Grants Landing Pages, and 1 Strong One

Nonprofits and businesses invest a lot of time, effort, and money into launching, managing, and benefiting from their Google Ads accounts. You can spend many hours per month perfecting your ads, researching new keywords, inputting negative keywords, targeting for locations and other demographics, and so much more.

But it’s all a waste if your landing page stinks.

What’s a landing page? It’s the web page people are sent to when they click on your ad. It’s the page they “land” on. And it has two very important jobs:

1) Meet the visitor’s need – the reason they clicked

2) Meet your nonprofit’s goal for that ad campaign – such as signing up for your newsletter, signing a petition, donating, sharing something on social media, taking a survey or quiz

For nonprofits using Google Ad Grants, even though the ads are free, the time you’re spending certainly is not. So if your landing page fails, your Ad Grants campaign will fail. Here, ‘failure’ is defined as not meeting your goals. So, you could have super high click-through rates, but if no one does anything after reaching your site, what was the point?

Google Ad Grants is not the place to pursue vaguely defined ideals such as ‘raising awareness.’ Nonprofits need to use this platform (which gives $10,000 per month in free advertising but is hard to set up and comes with some stipulations) to accomplish tangible and impactful goals such as those listed above.

Brief Look at 5 Ineffective Ad Grants Landing Pages

Some time ago I analyzed five nonprofit landing pages that were connected to their Ad Grants accounts. I searched for the term “end human slavery” in Google, and the following screenshot came up. The Google Ads are all on the right (this was before they moved the ads to the top of the search results). I clicked on each one and studied the landing pages.

Note: I deeply respect nonprofits – I work with them! I am not including these examples to cast a negative light on any organization. The truth is, we can all learn more and do better. So these are not criticisms. They are learning opportunities.

First, a couple of comments about the ads themselves. Someone who types in ‘end human slavery’ likely cares about this issue enough to want to do something about it. It’s a very different term than something like ‘what is human slavery.’ The first implies an intention to act, the second is merely gathering information. Both types of search terms have uses for your nonprofit, but the first is more likely to take action if they land on an effective landing page.

Ads 1, 2, 4, and 5 from UNICEF, End Slavery Now, Polaris Project, and End Crowd clearly imply to the reader that by clicking on these ads, we will be given the chance to get involved and help in some way.

Ad 3 appears to be a list of organizations that work to end human slavery.

So what was on the landing pages?

Landing Page 1 – UNICEF

Description

This landing page featured a pop-up ad telling me I could triple my gift if I sent it before the deadline, which was coming up very soon. If I ignore the popup, the rest of the landing page includes a donate button and a plea to give to help stop human trafficking.

Below that, the page explains how UNICEF fights human trafficking, and then it listed a whole swath of articles I could click on. But I never got a clear pathway to learning about the End Trafficking Project. By the end of the page, I was pretty lost. There is no call to action, and the page is mostly informational in a general sense.

Analysis

The popup is likely ineffective in this case, because the ad promised me the chance to ‘learn more‘ about their project. Thus, I wasn’t expecting to donate right after arriving on this page. I was expecting to learn more.

This is what it means to align your Google Ads with your landing page. They need to communicate similar messages, ideally using similar language. Visitors don’t want to feel tricked by the ad they clicked on. That’s how the term ‘clickbait’ became a new word.

If you’re promising a chance to sign a petition in your ad, don’t ask for money on your landing page. If you’re promising several ways to get involved, don’t just give one way.

Alignment.

Remember the first goal of a landing page? Meet the visitor’s need. Deliver on their expectations. If you don’t give them what they expect to find, they will leave.

All the information down the page does align with the promise in the ad to ‘learn more,’ but I didn’t see a clear presentation about a specific project.

And without a clear call to action, I’m left with little to do that UNICEF will notice. In other words, unless I donate in response to the popup – which was not the point of the Google ad – there was nothing else on this page to capture my contact information or my interest in helping this cause.

Landing Page 2 – Support the Trade

Description

This ad took me to their home page. As is sadly the case with far too many nonprofit home pages, it was unclear, terribly vague, and hard to engage with. It featured many of the eight things to never do on your home page, and few of the four you should do. See all 12 in the nonprofit home page guide.

More importantly, the home page said nothing about the promise of the ad. Let’s be absolutely clear on this:

Your home page is not a landing page.

That’s #4 from Wordstream’s list of 7 ways to ruin a Google Ads campaign.

Analysis

Not much more to say here. Using a home page as a landing page is almost guaranteed to fail, because your home page will not be about the specific promise made in your Ad Grants ads.

In this instance, the ad promised the chance to “Help victims of human slavery.” It is a clear pitch for donations. Therefore, anyone clicking on this ad is either ready to give, or interested in learning more about the organization to decide if they might want to give.

Thus, a high-functioning landing page would offer them that chance to give, and make clear the impact their gift will have.

They also might want to offer a chance to join their newsletter for those who decide not to give at this time but who might want to get connected, but that’s something you’d want to test.

Landing Page 3 – End Slavery Now

Description

This landing page did what the ad promised. It gave a list of organizations fighting human trafficking. So in that sense, it served the needs of the visitor.

However, it fails on the second goal of a nonprofit landing page. It featured no call to action, no incentive or motivation to do anything.

Analysis

This begs the question – what is the point of this ad? Why create an ad in Ad Grants that results in no engagement with your organization?

Even if you’re going to have a page listing other organizations, what is the purpose of creating an ad to point to it? At the very least, this page should have featured a prominent call to sign up for their email newsletter or follow them on Facebook, or both.

Better than that, it would feature a quiz or a survey, which would be followed by a way to get involved with End Slavery Now and deepen the relationship.

Landing Page 4 – Polaris Project

Description

One of the most well-known anti-human trafficking organizations, I expected them to have a higher quality landing page. The ad promises me a way to help thousands of people trapped in human trafficking, just in the U.S.

On the landing page I was greeted with another popup with a single line of copy saying “Your gift makes freedom happen now,” followed by suggested giving amounts. That’s it.

Note: Those who say people won’t read longer copy are wrong. Do you know anyone who gives money away after reading one sentence? There probably are a few of them out there, but you’d have more luck finding a Trump voter in Berkeley.

If I close the popup, the page was about as muddled as the UNICEF one. Lots of calls to action for all sorts of things, news articles, blogs, reasons to support Polaris, and a newsletter signup.

Analysis

According to Digital Marketer’s 16-point landing page guide, which you can explore in more detail here, a landing page should ideally feature a single call to action.

This page never fulfills the promise of the ad, which talked about helping thousands of people trapped in trafficking. With that kind of language, I want to see content about people trapped in trafficking. I want to read a story, or watch a video, or see some quotes from news articles or studies showing me the problem.

Ideally, I’d see just one single high-impact story that encapsulates the problem, followed by a clear call to action giving me a way to help.

Hiding your entire call to action in a popup – even a well-written one, which this was not – isn’t a good approach to meeting your goals. Popups are ubiquitous, and far too easy to close. Your key landing page message cannot appear only there.

Landing Page 5 – End Crowd

Description

The ad promised a chance to donate to a crowdfunding campaign to help end trafficking. I barely included this one on this list, because if you’ve read much else about my fundraising consulting and copywriting, you know I’m not a fan of crowdfunding. But, some people are, so I’m including it.

What do I expect to see when I click on an ad with a crystal clear, nothing-hidden message to donate to ENDcrowd?

I expect a way to donate. I want to hear a bit about what the crowdfunding campaign is for and where the money will go. If your copy and messaging and mission align with my personal giving goals, I’ll contribute. Pretty simple.

What did I actually see? A popup offering stickers about ending slavery. Nothing about crowdfunding, or a campaign, or a goal, or anything. (Pretty bad considering their name is End Crowd)

If I close the popup, then I’m just on their home page. See Support the Trade above for why that’s not an effective approach.

Image by Andrew Martin from Pixabay

Analysis

Hard to get much worse than this. Stickers? I didn’t click for stickers. I clicked for a crowdfunding campaign to stop human trafficking.

Follow-up note: It’s been a couple of years since I clicked on these five ads. Today, End Crowd’s site doesn’t exist. They’re gone. See 5 keys to building a nonprofit that won’t fail.

A Better Way to Get Results from Ad Grants – Shared Hope Landing Page

With all these failing landing page, your nonprofit should be encouraged.

Why? Because this is clearly a struggle across the industry – these five pages spanned organizations large and small, well-known and little-known – all just within one tiny slice of nonprofits.

Observing such a widespread struggle to create quality landing pages that will get results from Google Ad Grants means you have lots of room to take the lead. You can do much better.

Here’s a screenshot from another human trafficking organization, one I have personally supported, featuring a far better landing page than any of the five above.

I don’t know for sure if this page ever got linked to an Ad Grants ad. In fact, I don’t even know if Shared Hope uses Ad Grants. Doesn’t matter. This landing page does what a nonprofit landing page should do.

Let’s note a few highlights:

• Clear, compelling, action-oriented headline
• An enemy to fight against – in this case Backpage.com
• An explanation of where they are in the fight
• A clear call to action
• The donation form, in full, right there – the entire transaction can happen on a single page with no clicks

Writing an Ad Grants ad for this page would be easy. The keyword is ‘stop online sex trafficking.’ It’s already in the headline. Mention the enemy – this is step 2 in the Anatomy of Fundraising Story. Leverage the momentum from the court victory already won.

Need Help with Your Landing Pages or Ad Grants Account?

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If you want to take advantage of the $10,000 per month in free Google Ads, but have any questions about the process (again – it is NOT easy to set up. See my Ad Grants setup guide here) or want help setting up, structuring, or managing your account, leave a note here and we will follow up with you.

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