5. Ads

Your ads must capture the user’s attention and convince them to click on your ad, instead of clicking on the many other results that Google shows.

If your ads are not very attractive or persuasive, they will have few clicks (low CTR). This will lower your Quality Score and worsen your results (fewer impressions and conversions, probably higher costs…)

The ad must act as the connection between what the user searches on Google and the specific page that you want to promote.

Therefore, your ads must meet 3 requirements to achieve good results:

1. It must be a good match for the user’s search. The ad must be directly related to the keyword that activates that ad. For example, if the user searches for “sea turtles,” you should show them an ad about sea turtles (or at least turtles in general). Not about birds, animals in general, or other topics.
2. It must be a good match for the landing page. The ad should not promise something that is not on the landing page or talk about other topics. Otherwise, they may click on your ad, but they will leave your website quickly (which is negative for your ad campaigns) and also feeling “cheated” (which is negative for the reputation of your organization). For example, you shouldn’t say “find out all about sea turtles” in the ad and then lead to a generic page that gives no information about that.
3. It must be attractive. If the topics are matches correctly but the texts are boring and without any hook that is attractive to users, the results will not be good. You are competing for the user’s attention with dozens of organic results and probably several ads that Google displays for that search. If your ad is less attractive than the other options, your campaign results will probably be mediocre.

5.1. Collect ideas for ads

You don’t have to be a brilliant creative or have been doing this for decades to create good ads. You just have to understand your target audience and spend some time checking other ads, thinking about different alternatives and hooks, etc.

5.1.1. Get inspired by good examples

To make your life a little easier, we have compiled some good examples of ads from non-profit organizations and some useful concepts that may help you when thinking about your own ads:

44 ideas to create good Google Ad Grants ads (with 72 real examples)

5.1.2. Check your competition

The main reason why users don’t click on your ad is because they see another result that catches their attention more (an ad or an organic result).

So you should analyze what results you are competing against, to evaluate whether you should “copy” some concepts from them (adapting them to your organization) or perhaps the opposite and differentiate from them using very different concepts.

You don’t always have to be very innovative, just making your ad a little more eye-catching or convincing than the rest may be enough to have great results. It is not always necessary to “reinvent the wheel.”

To analyze your competition, you have 3 main options:

a) Use the “Ad Preview” tool included in Google Ads. It lets you see which ads are showing for different locations, languages, and devices (not just your region and language).

The main drawback is that you cannot open the ad links from here. So it works for reviewing ads, but not landing pages.

b) Search directly on Google, which allows you to review ads and landing pages more quickly.

But Google results are personalized for you (based on where you are, your browsing history, and other variables), so the ads you see here may not be the same ones that most people in your target audience see.

c) “Spy” on all the ads used by certain competitors

The best option is to use the tool that Google offers: The Ad Transparency Center. It’s 100% free and allows you to see the ads that a specific competitor has published in Google Ads. You can search for their name or website. You can even click on each ad to see more details.

There are also specific “spy tools” like Spyfu or iSpionage, although the results are not very reliable (some ads are usually missing, even more so if you want to see ads that are not in English).

There are also generic SEO/SEM tools such as Semrush and Serpstat that offer features to view competitors’ ads.

5.2. Write your ads

Most ads are boring and impersonal. You have to make your ads stand out from the rest and connect with the user.

Many variables influence an ad’s effectiveness (keywords that activate it, target audience, goals, landing page, other results that are shown in the same search, etc.).

So you should consider all this when writing your ads. And maybe try different alternatives.

5.2.1. Consider trying different approaches

Google Ad Grants theoretically requires that there be at least 2 ads per ad group, although that apparently no longer applies after the arrival of responsive ads (RSA) and we are not aware of any recent penalties for having only 1 ad per group. 

The traditional recommendation was to create several different ads and stick with the ones that gave the best results. With responsive ads, this is no longer essential, since you can test many different phrases within the same ad and Google automatically shows more frequently the phrases that give the best results.

Therefore, the general recommendation now is to create only 1 responsive ad per group, with many different titles and descriptions. It’s faster than creating several ads and it’s enough in many cases to achieve good results. Also, by concentrating all impressions in a single ad, Google’s AI will have more data to learn (more opportunities to test different combinations of titles + descriptions and show more of the ones that provide the best results).

You can then check the impressions that each specific text has received by clicking on the “View asset details” link below the ad (on the “Ads” report).

In the other tab of this report you can also see which “Combinations” have been shown most frequently:

These 2 reports don’t show the most important data (clicks and conversions), but Google’s AI ​​usually shows the ads that give the best results more frequently (more impressions), so impressions can serve as a proxy of which ads are delivering better results.

Creating only 1 ad per group is OK in general, but if you want to try very different approaches, it makes sense to create 2 or 3 responsive ads in the same ad group. For example, you could try an donation ad focused on data about your organization (numbers, history, certifications, etc.) and another focused on “emotions” (showing who you can help with your donation, real testimonials, etc.). Or maybe try ads that link to different landing pages (for example, taking you directly to the online donation form VS. the “support us” page explaining many different options for helping your organization).

After a few weeks or months (depending on the volume of clicks and conversions that those ads have), you will be able to review the results of each ad and see which approach gives the best results.

You can even consider applying what you learned with these ads to other initiatives in your organization (apply the winning approach in advertising campaigns on other platforms, content on your website, email marketing, social media, etc.).

Some ideas you can try in your ads:

• Reuse phrases from the landing page (it’s the fastest option and it makes sense to match what the ad “promises” and what the landing page actually “offers”). If the landing page has almost no phrases that are a good match for the ad (because the page talks about other topics or doesn’t have attractive/persuasive phrases), this is usually a bad sign. Perhaps you should improve the texts on that page or create another page dedicated to that specific topic.
• Mention in the ad the keywords that the user has searched for (which is generally recommended) or try something more creative/original.
• Test different calls to action (mention the actions you want users to take, such as: “help us at X”, “sign the petition”, “join the community”…)
• Show data (statistics, results, organization data…)
• Highlight benefits for the user (explain the solution that your organization provides, how it is different from what other organizations or websites offer…)
• Base the ad on emotions (maybe even tell a short story)
• Introduce elements of urgency (for example, that there is an event very soon or there are limited places available)
• Introduce local elements (mention the area or country you are targeting)
• Introduce elements of trust (testimonials, awards, accreditations…)
• Try different formats (each word starting in capital letters, questions, exclamations…).
• Try mentioning a price or recommended donation amount.
• Mention the target group of the ad (for example, if it’s an initiative for teachers, schools, children, families…)
• Mention the name of your organization (interesting if your organization is well-known or if you want to boost your branding a little)
• Use DKI (Dynamic Keyword Insertion) in one of the titles. This usually helps get more clicks (higher CTR), but can give unexpected results (especially if you use broad match words). Your ad will show exactly what the user searched for, which may not match the contents of the page you’re promoting (so it could be frustrating or confusing for the user).

5.2.2. Take advantage of AI and other tools

To get more ideas for ads or just write a lot of ads quickly, you can use Artificial Intelligence tools like ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Copy.ai, Writesonic … (there are many other similar tools).

Specific tools for content creation (e.g. Writesonic) already guide you to create the ads or content you need, you just have to fill in the fields that they show you.

If you use generic AI systems like ChatGPT or Google Gemini, it’s important to use a good prompt (one or several messages that explain what you need from the AI).

For example, we could use the following prompt:

Or a more detailed version like:

You can even include one or more examples of what you consider good ads in the prompt. Sometimes it works great, but other times it creates texts that are too similar to the example and are not “creative” enough.

Also, most generic AI systems are unable to count characters, so some results might be too long (longer than allowed in Google Ads). But even if they don’t really count, it’s useful to give some reference in the prompts (number of characters or words).

These tools will probably give you some suggestions that are not a good match for your campaign. But it will almost always give us a few interesting phrases or concepts. And it takes just a couple of minutes to receive dozens of suggestions (much faster than any human thinks), so it’s worth a try.

On the other hand, to avoid mistakes in ads, you may want to use grammar checking tools such as Grammarly, Hemingway or those included in some text editors such as Microsoft Word (although they are better for reviewing long texts, not short ads).

5.2.3. Don’t pay too much attention to “Ad strength”

On the page for ad creation/editing, Google displays a message with a metric called “Ad strength”:

It can serve as a guide (for example, it tells you if you have created too few variants or you are not mentioning keywords), but the score you are given does not directly affect the results. You can have great results with an ad marked “Poor” and poor results with an ad marked “Excellent.”

Focus on creating attractive phrases, that fit well with the keywords included in that group and that’s it. Don’t obsess over reaching Excellent strength or always filling all the titles and descriptions that are allowed. If you have to choose, it’s better to have a few good phrases than many mediocre ones.

5.3. Configure assets

Assets (previously called “extensions”) are additional resources that Google Ads allows you to add to your ads.

These additional resources are not always shown, but only in certain cases (depending on different variables: Search term, device, location, competitor ads, etc.)

Assets usually help improve CTR and ad results (and if they don’t, Google’s algorithm should automatically show less or not at all the assets that aren’t performing well).

So you should use assets in all your campaigns (but only the assets that make sense for your goals, not create all kinds of assets without a good reason).

5.3.1. Sitelinks

They are the most useful assets in general for Ad Grants campaigns.

Sitelinks allow you to promote several pages that are complementary to the page that you promote on the main ad. For example, they can be used to promote different options to help your organization (donation pages, volunteering, online store…), to provide more information about the organization (project pages, history, certain key articles, etc.) or other goals.

Sitelinks can be applied to your entire account (they will appear in all active campaigns). It’s the easiest setup and it’s a good option for many accounts. But if you have time, consider whether it makes sense to add some specific sitelinks for certain campaigns (for example, specific sitelinks for your “donation” campaign and different ones for the “volunteering” campaign).

Google Ad Grants requires having at least 2 sitelinks, but you should go beyond that minimum. We recommend creating around 6 sitelinks.

5.3.2. Another resources

For certain campaigns, it may be interesting to also use other types of assets, such as:

• Call (interesting if you want to boost calls in a specific campaign or all of them)
• Location (interesting if you want more in-person visits to your premises or offices)
• Prices or Promotions (interesting to promote elements with a certain price, such as products from your online store, paid events, sponsorship packs…)
• Titles and/or Descriptions (interesting if you want to add some text to all your ads, perhaps to promote an event or temporary promotion and easily pause it after a certain date)
• Featured text  (interesting if everything you want to explain something that does not fit in the ad description)

For example, at Operation Smile they make use of sitelinks so that their ad stands out more and show alternative pages. And they also show their phone using a call asset:

To learn more about the different types of assets, check this link.

You can have several different types of assets activated in the same campaign without any problem. In fact, Google often shows several types of assets in the same ad at the same time.

You should review the results of the different assets every 2 or 3 months. If you see that an asset is not giving good results, you can pause it and perhaps create a new version to see if it gives better results.

To perform this analysis, you must visit the “Assets” report. And especially for sitelinks, it’s interesting to use the “Click type” segment to see the results generated by clicks on each asset VS. the main ad (headline):

5.3.3. Extension automation

Google offers the possibility of automatically creating extensions. It’s activated by default and they insist quite a bit on recommending this option.

This automation can help you save time and work. But like any automatic system, it involves a certain loss of control. And sometimes Google’s AI “invents” things that are not relevant to your organization or can even be detrimental to your results.

For this reason, my general recommendation is the following:

• Turn off automation for sitelinks (they are too important to let Google’s system decide them for us).
• Leave automation enabled for images (it takes a lot of work to upload specific images for each ad, image automation usually works relatively well and these image assets don’t have a huge impact on results anyway)
• The rest of the options are less important and the best decision is not so clear in general. I usually disable all (except images), to have more control and to make the extension reports easier to review/optimize (otherwise they get filled with dozens or even hundreds of automatically created elements). But if you want to spend little time managing Ad Grants, it is possible that keeping these automations active will help you improve results a little bit.

To review and change the settings of these automations, go to the “More” tab within the “Assets” report:

And then to the Settings tab: