This post is primarily addressed to people working for EA chapters in the UK and internationally. Please read on if you are interested in either setting up a Google Grants AdWords Account, or if you want support with one you have already set up.

Pro Bono Work

I work for Brainlabs, a digital media agency. Account managers (AMs) are allowed to spend 10% of their working hours on pro bono accounts. Over the last few months, myself and another AM have been working on the Effective Altruism London AdWords account, and have recently achieved some really positive results.

Based on this success, I would like to propose managing further EA chapter accounts. As an effective strategy and account structure has already been developed for EA London, it would be easy to centrally manage additional EA chapter accounts, and would almost certainly improve the effectiveness of their marketing in this channel.

About Google Grants Accounts

• Google offer registered charities $10,000/month worth of advertising spend, via their search advertising platform, AdWords. This is free advertising credit, the only cost is time spent managing the account.

• It is not easy to spend most of this monthly budget, however, because the charity market is competitive and the maximum bid on a grants account is $2. As such, large well known charities tend to dominate.

• We have gradually developed ways of overcoming this problem, recently spending the maximum amount possible within a grants account.

Impact of AdWords

• We are yet to have significant data based on conversion tracking, however we can attribute a 407% increase in website traffic based on Google ads.

• The account is currently earning 450 clicks/week, and 15,000 impressions/week.

• These figures will likely increase very rapidly, as we’ve recently made major breakthroughs in the performance of the account.

Competing with other EA charities

• EA London adverts are targeted to London, to avoid clashing with other UK/international chapters.

• We do bid on EA partner sites brand keywords, but only if that site is not currently paying for ads on Google.

Eligibility

If you already have a grants account and are interested in passing on the management of the account, please contact us (effective-altruism@brainlabsdigital.com) to discuss further.

If you don’t have an account but would like to set one up, your charity needs to be registered and based in one of the eligible countries for a grants account.

For further info, Google have detailed instructions here. Also feel free to contact me if you need further help.