Non Profit PPC Agency

What is Paid Ads Management for Non Profit Organizations?

The act of creating and optimizing paid advertising campaigns for non profit organizations is known as non profit PPC ads management. That is an incredibly simple explanation though, so let's dive a little deeper.

To provide premium paid ads management, a paid advertising firm for non profits should get to know you and your goals. You can use this information to determine the next steps, since PPC advertising for a local non profit organization differs from paid ads for an ecommerce-focused non profit organization.

Local non profit organizations, for example, are often only searching for contact form submissions or calls. This can be accomplished through PPC advertising that increases traffic to an optimized landing page or sales funnel. If those digital assets don't yet exist, or need substantial improvement, we recommend you start with Google Local Service Ads or Facebook Lead Forms.

Alternatively, ecommerce-focused non profit organizations are most often interested in online sales. This can be accomplished through paid ads that generates traffic to an optimized product page or category page. You might even want to include Google Shopping Campaigns in some cases. We've even utilized sales funnels to help sell products, subscriptions, and services.

The next step in non profit PPC management is understanding the metrics that will be used to optimize and scale. For some non profit organizations, that means looking to platforms like Google Analytics. However, there are other options out there too, like Wicked Reports, Triple Whale, or Northbeam.

To be successful with PPC advertising, your non profit organization needs to use multiple tactics and marketing tools. For example, the best non profit organization paid ads services will include tactics to:

• Drive traffic to your digital assets (websites, sales funnels, etc) from search engines, social media channels, and third-party websites.
• Increase conversions for your non profit organization through qualified leads or online sales.
• Better understand ad attribution through the integration of third-party attribution software.
• Present social proof through case studies, white papers, and video testimonials.
• Build and nurture relationships through user generated content, story creation, and email address collection.
• Test ad creatives across various ad placements and between different media formats.

Types of Paid Ads for Non Profit Organizations

There are numerous ways to run paid ads for your non profit organization. Let's discuss some of the most common paid advertising being run for non profit organizations.

1.) Local Business Ads

If you have a non profit organization, you can run local ads on almost any advertising platform. One platform may be more effective for your local non profit organization than another. It is important to try out every available option to see which works best for your needs. Let's talk about a few nearby advertising choices.

There are going to be two options from Google.

The first is to run traditional Google Ads, potentially using their newer campaign type of Performance Max. The Google algorithm finds the best combination of headlines, images, videos, and service locations to bring you local customers using this type of dynamic ad campaign. We often use Performance Max campaigns for professional services companies, such as accountants, lawyers, dentists, and physicians.

The second option from Google, if you are in a qualifying business industry, is to check out their Local Service Ads. Using Local Service Ads, you get charged a flat fee for each lead the platform generates. Home service contractors, such as plumbers, electricians, roofers, and heating installers, frequently use Google Local Service Ads.

You can also target people in your local area using Facebook Ads. This is a little more straightforward, since it just involves setting up a campaign that has ad sets with geographic restrictions. We often rely on nearby Facebook Ads for all types of non profit organizations.

2.) Social Media Advertising

Pretty much any online ad you see on a social network website is going to qualify as a social media ad.

Maintaining fresh ad creatives is key to social media ads. If you don't rotate out ad creatives every few weeks your campaign performance will slowly decrease. For higher spending ad campaigns, you might need to look at weekly ad creative changes.

One of the best things about social media marketing is that you can target audiences who aren't yet aware of your product or service. It's quite the opposite when you run search engine advertising since you only get to show them when someone searches for what your non profit organization offers.

However, this benefit can also be a curse, since conversion rates are typically lower when people aren't closer to making an immediate purchase.

3.) Search Ads

If you know people are looking online for the products or services you offer, you'll want to invest in search advertisements.

There are some people out there who refer to this as non profit Search Engine Marketing, or SEM for short. This is just a different way of explaining search ads, which are advertisements placed on the search results page of a search engine above the SEO placements.

If you have been running search advertising on Google for a while and have been successful, consider copying your campaigns over to Bing Ads. As of an October 2022 study from StatCounter, about 3.57% of online users rely on Bing for their primary search engine.

4.) Display Ads

Many different message boards, chat rooms, game lounges, news websites (even local area news stations), gossip sites, and more run display advertisements.

Bing Ads and Google Ads both offer these.

With display ads, all you need are a few different sizes of ad creatives. It also helps to have a general idea of your target audience, but both ad platforms have their own algorithms that help you produce results from your ad spend.

5.) Retargeting Ads

Not everyone is going to convert during their first experience with your non profit organization website, landing page, or sales funnel.

It is almost always recommended to set up retargeting ads to help bring people back to your website after they've had time to think through different options.

You can run retargeting ads on Google Ads, Bing Ads, Facebook Ads, and many other platforms.

6.) Shopping Ads

This type of search ad was popularized by Google Shopping Campaigns.

If you want to promote your non profit organization through Google Shopping, you'll need an ecommerce website, a product feed (CSV or TXT), and a Google Merchant Center account.

With these tools, you can provide Google Ads with an accurate list of all your product data, including title, SKU, image, price, and availability. Using that information, they can determine what types of search queries to display your products at the top of search results.

7.) Video Ads

You can run video ads on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and other social networking websites.

If you are interested in running YouTube Ads, you'll just need to set up a video ads campaign in Google Ads.

To run video ads in Facebook or Instagram, you'll need a working Facebook Ads account.

Video is an excellent ad creative in terms of conversion opportunities. We frequently use video ads to showcase product launches, custom services, personal introductions, and more!

If you have the budget to support ad creatives in video format, look to implement them into your paid ads campaigns.

Tips for Managing PPC for Non Profits

We are a team of PPC advertising consultants with extensive knowledge in the latest paid ads trends for non profit organizations and other industries.

Here are some of our best tips to follow for keyword research, audience research, landing page / sales funnel optimization, conversion rate optimization, and ad creation.

1.) Keyword Research Tips

Keyword research for non profits is mostly used for Google Ads and Bing Ads search network campaigns. After all, Bing and Google only show ads based on what people search for that your non profit organization is targeting.

For example, a person searching for a non profit organization nearby might search "local non profit" on a search engine. Knowing to target that exact phrase wouldn't require in-depth keyword research.

However, what if that exact match keyword wasn't producing enough search volume and the non profit organization needed to increase their advertising reach? The solution would require keyword research.

After discussing options, the next step might involve the paid advertising manager talking with the non profit organization about what products / services they want to target more often and where. It might also require some broadening of the keyword targeting.

For instance, the PPC manager might discover high search volume for "nearby non profit organizations" or even "non profit services." The first phrase is targeting a type of business or organization in the area. In the second phrase, a service is being targeted, which might result in a more lucrative conversion opportunity.

When building negative keyword lists, keyword research can also be beneficial. Negative keywords are used to stop your paid advertising from showing in search queries that you know won't bring in community members.

For example, someone searching for "free services from non profit organizations" or "how to advertise to non profits" isn't likely to convert with your non profit organization. However, they might see your paid advertising if you are using broad keyword targeting without any negative keywords like "free" or "advertise".

As you can see, no matter how obvious your keyword research needs might be at the start of building out your campaign, they become more complicated as you begin to scale your ads and reduce wasted ad spend.

2.) Audience Research Tips

When you hear audience research talked about for non profit organization PPC advertising campaigns, it is often within the scope of scaling social media ads on Facebook and Instagram. There are options within Google Ads and Bing Ads for audience targeting as well though.

We'll review some audience research and targeting history within Facebook Ads.

Non profit organization paid ads managers used Facebook's custom audiences extensively in the past. In fact, one of Facebook Ads' most attractive features was the ability to collect data on users, which advertisers for non profit organizations eagerly took advantage of.

As time went on, data privacy and machine learning both had an impact on custom audiences.

When Apple released its iOS 14.5 update, they included a pop up message that allowed users to easily opt out of personalized ad tracking. This had a negative impact on Facebook's ability to track user behavior on mobile devices. In fact, it even affected the accuracy of ad attribution reporting.

For most non profit-focused advertising firms, machine learning algorithms greatly reduced the need for custom audiences and lookalike audiences. Their algorithm has become so good at understanding your ideal audience that you typically do more harm than good by choosing your own interest-based targeting.

While there will still be plenty of non profit organization PPC advertising companies relying on custom audiences, the trend is moving toward broad targeting. Don't take our word for it though. If you've been involved in the creation of Facebook ads, you've probably noticed the removal of interest-based targeting options here and there. Maybe you've even seen changes to how "Advantage Detailed Targeting" is recommended during the setup process.

Interested in another take on audience targeting? Social Media Examiner's blog article does a good job of explaining recent changes.

It's not to say audience research and targeting are going away. There will always be targeting options that can be manipulated within non profit ad campaigns to squeeze a little extra performance.

3.) Landing Page Optimization Tips

The quality of your landing page will be a big factor in the success of your non profit organization paid ads campaigns.

When we take on the management of a paid advertising campaign for non profits, we start by looking over the landing pages to see if they follow best practices. Our review takes into account the following factors:

• Is there a benefit-focused headline?
• Are there any images above the fold?
• Does the content engage the reader?
• Do you have a lead form I can use right away?
• Can you easily identify the call to action?
• Does the page load quickly?
• Is there social proof?
• Am I able to load the page on a mobile device?

There are so many factors that come into the design and development of a quality landing page. Here is a great blog article about what makes a results-driven landing page.

Until you have a landing page that follows best practices, don't spend money on PPC advertising. Ideally, you should never consider your landing page to be finished. Try running A/B testing every few months to continue refining your sales pitch.

4.) Conversion Funnel Tips

As an alternative to a landing page, you might want to consider building out one or more sales funnels. We rely heavily on sales funnels for lead generation, email audience building, and even online purchases.

For example, we have a client that promotes an online fitness challenge that you could even join from your local area. While managing their internet advertising we built multiple sales funnels within Click Funnels. Here are some of the funnels we made:

• We used squeeze pages to help capture email addresses while building awareness for the program.
• We used lead magnets to provide people with healthy eating tips, fitness tips, webinars, and sneak peaks in exchange for an email address.
• We used application funnels to push people toward the idea of wanting to apply to participate in exclusive programs.
• We used sales letter funnels to serve as the registration system for the online program.

There are many different types of funnels, so your non profit organization isn't limited to only these options. Just keep in mind these can be incredibly helpful for gauging interest in a product or service, building out an email subscriber base, and selling a product or service online.

5.) Conversion Optimization Tips

Having a clear understanding of your conversion rate is critical to making informed advertising decisions. The average conversion rate is between 1-3%, but that varies greatly between industries, products, and services.

Let's run through a basic scenario to help illustrate the impact of conversion rates.

1. You sell a $100 product or service on your website.
2. You have a 1% conversion rate, meaning for every 100 people who visit your website you sell 1 product or service.
3. You have a $1.00 average cost per click (CPC), meaning for each person who visits your website you spend $1.00.
4. To sell 1 product or service, you need 100 clicks from paid ads, which would cost you $100. This is known as your cost per acquisition (CPA).
5. Your return on ad spend (ROAS) would be 1x, meaning for every dollar spent in paid advertising you get one dollar in return.

For most non profit organizations, this return on ad spend wouldn't be acceptable. Sadly, we often see this type of ROAS when jumping into new client accounts.

To improve the situation, you hire a PPC advertising firm to modify your campaign settings, ad creatives, and landing page experience.

Let's assume those improvements bring your conversion rate up from 1% to 2%. That means for every 100 visits to your website you now sell 2 products. This is twice the return on ad spend! You might be profitable now selling that product or service, if your margins are good.

Understanding your conversion rate, and knowing how to improve it, can be crucial to the management of your paid advertising.

6.) Ad Creation Tips

This is potentially one of the most important aspects of a Facebook Ads account, but it also applies to Google Display Ads.

When you run Facebook Ads or Instagram Ads for non profits, you are mostly targeting a cold audience that is more interested in quickly scrolling by advertisements in favor of seeing what their friends and family are up to online.

You should develop an understanding of how to capture someone's attention in a split second.

To do this, you need to build out attractive ad creatives that make someone stop for a second and say to themselves, "wait a second, what...?"

This doesn't happen by running the same ad creative over and over and over again. Even if it is a great ad, it will eventually become stale. You should change things up frequently, even if you are just targeting people nearby.

If you don't change out your ad creatives and test new ideas, you'll suffer from what is called "ad fatigue." This is the state in which your target audience has already seen your ad so many times that they instinctively scroll by it without ever interacting with your brand.

Don't be caught in this situation. You should understand when to pause an ad because it isn't performing as well as it once did. You should understand when to test new ideas, especially if you are emotionally attached to an ad that you spent a lot of time making.

Why Choose WebCitz to Manage Your Paid Ads Strategies

We want to be the paid advertising partner of your non profit organization! As a comprehensive PPC management agency helping non profits, we have multiple internal teams focused on search engine marketing, social ads, sales funnel development, and ad creative testing. Non profit-focused PPC management agencies don't all operate this way, since most only have one person in charge of everything. You might not be testing campaign optimizations and innovative ideas often enough with those non profit organization PPC agencies to get the results you desire.

Choosing a paid ad company for your non profit organization is not an easy task. With more than 20 years of experience, you know you can trust the PPC strategies and tactics we suggest for your non profit organization. These are often the same paid ads strategies we use for our own lead generation.

More importantly, you should choose our paid advertising firm because you feel confident we are the right team to help your non profit organization grow. Here are a few reasons we suggest considering our PPC professionals:

• It has been more than 20 years since we opened our doors, which makes us an industry leader.
• We rely heavily on sales funnels and paid advertising to shore up our organic search rankings.
• We do not outsource online marketing packages for our non profit organization clients, including PPC ads management, sales funnel development, or ad creative services since we have our own internal advertising team.
• During normal business hours, you will likely receive an answer within a few rings from one of our teammates.

Get in touch with our paid ads experts to discuss what we can do for your non profit organization! While we often provide complete paid advertising management plans for small non profit organizations, we are also able to augment the marketing departments of large non profit organizations.

When it comes time for your non profit organization to start the search for a PPC marketing agency, we hope you keep our team in mind for the task. If you have any follow-up questions, please feel free to send an email or give us a call to start a discussion with the helpful staff at our PPC firm.

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