News ArchiveGoogle gives charity opportunity to market online
When Affinity i-Marketing met the East Anglian Air Ambulance (EAAA) for the first time the charity did not believe they would have sufficient budgets or resources to compete in an aggressive and expensive market place such as search marketing.
However, when Affinity i-Marketing explained the Google Grants programme, that offers in-kind advertising to charitable organisations, it very quickly became clear to them that this was an achievable and targeted way to increase donations and contributions through their website http://www.eastanglianairambulance.org.uk
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About the EAAA
The EAAA operates a life saving service across Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, Peterborough and Bedfordshire. The Air Ambulance can attend inaccessible places for a land ambulance and answers, on average, 4 life threatening incidents daily including road accidents, horse riding accidents and cardiac arrests. Due to the increasing congestion on the roads in East Anglia over 50% of the incidents attended are road accidents.
The life saving service operates 365 days a year and is entirely dependent on fund raising and contributions and is independent of any government or lottery funding. To provide the necessary advanced medical equipment that makes a difference when saving lives and keep the 2 ambulances in the air the East Anglian Air Ambulance must raise more than £3 million per year.
About Google Grants
Google offer the opportunity for in-kind advertising which is available, on application, to charitable organisations. If an application is successful Google offer a budget for free advertising across Google Adwords. Adwords is a platform to place adverts on the Google network for donations, fundraising or volunteers, when a users clicks one of the adverts they are brought to the website being advertised without incurring any cost for clicks on the adverts.
Affinity i-Marketing’s role in helping EAAA
Affinity i-Marketing are a Google accredited company and have achieved Adwords Qualified Company status with our team of in-house qualified Adwords Google Professionals.
Whilst Google offers this excellent opportunity for free advertising to charities the creation of the advertising campaign, setup of adverts and the ongoing management of the Adwords campaign is the responsibility of the charity themselves.
The process of application for a grant can be daunting in itself even before any consideration is given to creating a successful Adwords campaign. And in fact, if campaigns are not managed well, grants can be withdrawn.
On introduction to the EAAA, Affinity i-Marketing explained the opportunity to potentially obtain free advertising from Google and we began the application process on their behalf.
Now we have received the fantastic news that the EAAA application was successful we will be working very closely with the charity to create and manage a successful Adwords campaign to achieve the objectives of the charity.
Can my charity get a Google Grant?
To be considered for a Google Grant organisations must be based in the United Kingdom and registered with the Charity Commission of England and Wales, the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator or by the Inland Revenue.
Other high level requirements are:
- Must have a website
- The website must not generate revenue through advertising or affiliate links
- Keywords used in your campaign must be relevant to your service
- Your Adwords account must be actively managed once your campaign is launched
If you are a charity and think you may be eligible for Google Grants or you are a commercial company looking for guidance on pay per click advertising please contact us for more information.
