The Google Ad Grants Complete Course 2026
In these lessons I share everything I know about Google Ad Grants, based on ten years' experience of managing and auditing accounts, and teaching nonprofits to improve their digital marketing.
Maximize your nonprofit's real-world results from advertising
Learn to get measurable results from your Ad Grant while maintaining compliance and increasing spend
Watch video tutorials that demonstrate how to follow best practice to set up your nonprofit's ad campaigns.
Written lessons and checklists provide all the directions you need to manage your own account and make data-driven decisions about your nonprofit's online advertising.
The course includes a detailed step-by-step walk-through of how to set up conversion tracking, the trickiest technical challenge in running a successful ad campaign. This is something that other Ad Grant courses don't teach you.
This course also includes advice for agencies that struggle to manage Ad Grants.
Your tutor: Jason King
I'm a Google Ad Grants Certified Professional, and a Google Partner. I've worked in the charity tech sector for over 30 years: as a project manager, web developer, digital marketer, and trainer.
I manage Ad Grant accounts for nonprofits of all types and sizes, audit accounts, and train staff and volunteers to manage their own accounts. The knowledge and skills I've learned along the way, I'm passing on to you.
I'm a Platinum level Google Product Expert, active on the official Google Ad Grant and Google Ads forums, helping solve people's problems and guide them to better results.
Course curriculum
Preview lessons below, read the tutorials, and watch the videos. This is an evolving course: lessons will be updated and expanded with new examples, and new lessons will be added throughout the year.
- Welcome to the Google Ad Grant Complete Course (4:11)
- What is Google Ads and the Google Ad Grant? (3:18)
- Eligibility for an Ad Grant, how to apply, and what to do if rejected
- How to login
- What types of ad campaign could you run in an Ad Grant?
- How to stay in compliance with Ad Grant rules
- Advice for PPC agencies and experienced advertisers struggling with Ad Grants
- Is your website ready to advertise? Presentation at the #24NTC Nonprofit Technology Conference 2024 in Portland
- Approved domain name, requesting additional domains, and exemptions for donate links
- Is your website secure?
- Test your website's page loading speed
- Do your landing pages have the right Calls To Action?
- Commercial activity on your nonprofit website
- Are you ready to take donations?
- Don't block any countries from visiting your website
- The Google Ads interface (40:37)
- Before you get started: Google Ads features to switch on, switch off or ignore
- How to structure your Search campaigns: ad groups, ads, keywords, and assets
- Walk-through: build a new Search campaign (47:25)
- How to choose keywords
- How to write a great Responsive Search Ad (RSA) (16:28)
- Add extensions / assets
- How to create Dynamic Search Ads
- What is conversion tracking and why is it essential to a successful Google Ad Grant?
- Step 2—Connect Google Analytics to your website
- Step 3—Configure events to track user actions
- Step 4—Mark events as Key Events (conversions)
- Step 5—Import conversions to Google Ads and create custom goals (1:51)
- Step 6—In Google Ads, choose a conversion-based bidding strategy (2:39)
- Step 7—Choose one or more conversion goals to optimize each campaign (1:01)
- How to track donation revenue in Google Analytics and Google Ads
- How to track Shopify revenue in Google Analytics and Google Ads (8:42)
- What maintenance tasks should you do regularly?
- Recommendations and Opti-score
- What do those columns of statistics mean? (3:56)
- How to analyze performance and make data-driven decisions (25:11)
- The Search Terms report and Negative Keywords
- Keyword Quality, Landing page experience, and Ad relevance
- Use the Google Ads Transparency Center to see examples of other nonprofits' ads
- Benchmark your Ad Grant's performance
- How to work with an agency to manage your account
- Where to get free help or ask questions about Ad Grants
- How to fix low impressions in an Ad Grant
- Low Click Through Rate (CTR)
- How to do advertiser verification
- How to appeal a Google Ad Grant policy suspension
- Policies that limit or disapprove ads, and the Policy manager (9:08)
- Google Ads policies that cause account suspension
- Website address is changing, how to update ads?
- Google Ads says my website has been compromised, what do I do?
"Our training session was enormously insightful and great value as well, considering that what I learnt from our initial training session can be applied to both our ad grants and paid ad accounts. I’ve already noticed a big improvement in the number of impressions and CTR which was one of the key objectives I wanted to cover."
—Maui Riri, joii.org
"Jason has a crazy base of knowledge and fantastic way of explaining. I wish I had found Jason two years ago and started working on the Ad Grant myself, was taken advantage of by companies that did a little work at the beginning and then nothing down the road. I took us from a 30% spend to 100% spend solely because of Jason. More appreciative than you can imagine."
—Edward Sturt Penrose, Green Street Books
From beginner to advanced: learn new techniques
Everything you need to get started with Google Ad Grants, and optimize your ad campaigns for real-world results.
Read lessons, watch the videos, ask questions
As you progress, you're bound to have questions and you can ask whatever you need to know, and share your experiences with other learners. I'll answer all questions and update lessons with new information.
I'm committed to keeping the course updated to reflect future changes in Ad Grants and Google Ads. In addition, new lessons will be added to this course.
Google Ad Grants training
Book your 1-to-1 session
Don't need a full course, just advice? Sign up for a training session and receive one-to-one support at your level, for your needs, based on your nonprofit’s own campaign setup and data.
You can share your screen and we'll audit your ad campaigns together, and figure out an advertising strategy for your nonprofit.
In a consultancy sessions we can also look at your paid ads campaigns, Google Analytics, ChatGPT ads, and discuss fundraising platforms.
1¼ hour session: £70 ($90)
Book your training session
Fundraise Up
I’m a Fundraise Up partner and recommend their donation platform for its smart features, focus on monthly giving, and straightforward integration with Google Analytics. It’s what many of my clients use.
Schedule a meeting to discuss about how Fundraise Up could help your nonprofit raise revenue. I'll give you a demo and explain how it could fit into your fundraising strategy.