By understanding and correctly implementing budget and bid strategies, you can significantly enhance the impact of your Google Ad Grants account.
Google Ad Grants provides a monthly advertising budget of $10,000 USD. The guidelines around budgets and bids are in place to:
- Ensure fair access and usage for all participating nonprofits.
- Encourage high-quality, mission-focused advertising.
- Promote the use of effective bidding strategies that drive meaningful results.
What is the budget limit?
All Google Ad Grants accounts are limited to a monthly budget of $10,000 USD, which equates to a daily budget of $329 USD. If your account's currency is not USD, this amount will be converted to an approximate equivalent in your local currency. This conversion rate can fluctuate.
Note: This is a limit, not a guarantee of spend. Your actual daily spend will depend on factors like your bids, keyword competitiveness, ad quality, targeting, and the number of people searching for your keywords.
How does the budget get split between campaigns?
Even if you have multiple campaigns, the budget for the account is still $329 USD per day, and you should split this budget between the campaigns. You can split the budget equally or give a larger budget to campaigns that are more important for your goals.
Note: While you can technically set campaign budgets that, in sum, exceed the $329 daily equivalent, your Ad Grants account will never be charged for any overspend related to the grant itself, nor will it spend more than the grant's daily cap from the Ad Grants funding.
How can I make sure that my budget is spent effectively?
Ad Grants accounts may not spend their full daily budget, especially when starting out or if:
- Keywords are too specific or have low search volume.
- Bids (even with Smart Bidding) aren't competitive enough for the auctions you're in.
- Ad quality or landing page experience is low.
- Campaign targeting is too narrow.
Here are a couple of tips for making sure that your budget is used effectively:
- Give a larger share of the budget for campaigns that are more important to your advertising goals.
- Use keywords and ads that are specific to your organization's goals. Keeping your ads and keywords relevant can improve your Quality Score, keeping costs down. Learn more about Ad Quality.
Is there a bid limit?
There isn't a "minimum bid" you need to set with Smart Bidding. The system optimizes based on your goals and the competitive landscape.
The recommended bidding approach is using Maximize conversion values if you're tracking a donation, purchase or membership fee on your site or Maximize conversions for all other goals. Target CPA and Target ROAS are also useful for more advanced strategies.
When using conversion-based Smart Bidding, Google's AI can set bids in real-time for each auction.
Smart Bidding relies heavily on accurate conversion tracking data. You must have valid conversion tracking set up for these strategies to work effectively. Learn more about conversion tracking with Ad Grants.
Frequently asked questions
Why isn't my full Ad Grants daily budget being spent?
What bid strategy should I start with if I have no conversion data?
My account was suspended for policy violations related to bidding or performance. What now?
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