The situation
The charity held a Google Ad Grant — $10,000 a month of free search advertising — but it was working far below its potential. The account had been set up once and rarely touched since: broad keywords, a single campaign, and no connection between what people searched for and what the charity was raising money for. The grant was spending a fraction of what was available, and almost none of it could be tied to a donation.
The deeper problem was timing. Like most charities, the organisation raises a disproportionate share of its annual income in a handful of peak appeal periods. Yet planning each year started late, and the account was never ready for the surge when it came.
What we did
We treated the grant and paid search as one programme, rebuilt around the charity’s real calendar.
- Account rebuild. We restructured the Ad Grant from the keyword up — tightly themed campaigns, compliant bidding, and conversion tracking that finally tied clicks to donations rather than just traffic.
- Paid search alongside the grant. We added a small paid Google Ads budget to defend the brand and capture the high-intent queries the grant cannot reach under its bidding cap.
- Seasonal staging. We mapped budgets, bids and creative to the shape of the charity’s year — building ahead of each peak appeal and concentrating spend when intent to give was highest.
- Honest measurement. Reporting moved from clicks and impressions to cost per donation and return on ad spend, reviewed weekly through each campaign.
The outcome
The rebuilt programme turned a dormant grant into a measurable source of donations, and gave the team a plan they could run calmly rather than scramble through. Specific figures will be published here once they are confirmed and signed off.
