AdWords Archives | Bee Measure

July 27, 2018 By Emily Patterson

Facebook Fundraising Changes, Automating Your Ad Grant & Analyzing Mario Kart

Advertisers and Audiences: Destined to be Frenemies?
I hate to even bring up the E.U.’s General Data Protection Regulation, after I spent late May drowning in emails. (I’m still cleaning out my inbox!) However, I wanted to highlight this New Yorker article by Ken Auletta, which puts the issue into a broader context. He examines how the use of Big Data to improve targeting brings to light the tensions between the desire for personalized content and concerns about consumer privacy. The article asserts that: “The advertising and marketing world scrambles for new ways to reach consumers. Big Data, they believe, promises ways they might better communicate with annoyed consumers—maybe unlock ways that ads can be embraced as a useful individual service rather than as an interruption.” What do you think? Is it possible to meet the needs of both audiences and advertisers?

Get Verified! Facebook Political and Issue Ads
Facebook has started enforcing their new ad verification rules. As this article explains, all advertisers wanting to run political content need to verify their identity and location (aka Facebook sends you a postcard in the mail). This is meant to allow users to clearly identify the organization that has paid for an ad. Facebook is also creating a searchable archive of political and issue ads. If your nonprofit runs ads on Facebook, I recommend getting verified. Even if you think your ads aren’t political, Facebook might think they are.

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February 5, 2018 By Emily Patterson

Tips to Fix Your AdWords Grant for Google’s New Rules

So you’ve heard the news! Nonprofit Google Ad Grants new rules rolled out in December, and organizations have two months to get into compliance. The February deadline is looming, and a lot of organizations are scrambling to rethink how they run their accounts.

No one’s quite sure what’s Google’s purpose with restructuring the program. Some say this is beginning of the end for the program (and the free $10K/month in ad dollars). Others claim that Google is simply cracking down on nonprofits who don’t properly manage their accounts and reflect badly on the advertiser.

But let’s not ponder what logic drives the Silicon Valley giant. All we know is we want to get the most out of our free ads. And no one wants to get their account shutdown! Here’s a quick rundown of the rules and my suggestions for how to fix your account.

Nonprofit Google Ad Grants New Rules:

The good! No more $2 bid cap (but you will need to set up goals in Google Analytics and use them to run maximize conversions bidding.)
The bad! Your account must have a 5% average click through rate (and if it fails to meet this two months in a row, it will be shut down. Yikes!)
And the easy:
- You must make use of geo-targeting (I once talked to a nonproft that only operated in one state. However, it accidentally ran its free AdWords nationwide. Preventing that sort of bad user experience is probably exactly what Google had in mind).
- You must have at least two active ad groups. These must contain related keywords and two active text ads.
- You must have two sitelink extensions
- You cannot advertise against other brand names

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August 2, 2017 By Emily Patterson

Tracking Donation Funnels, Bad News for Twitter & The Most $$$ Keywords

Measure Your Differences
I enjoyed this advice from Hootsuite on how to pick social media metrics. Their number one tip: figure out your organizational goals and base your metrics on that. (And don’t worry about what everyone else is measuring.)

Google’s Most Expensive Keywords
If you administer a Google for Nonprofits AdWords grant, finding keywords that cost less than $2 can be a big pain. Having struggled with this issue myself, I got a kick out of seeing how much some keywords cost. $58 for “bail bonds,” anyone?

Yet Another Nail, Twitter
I’m not a big Twitter user, but even I feel bad for Trump’s favorite social media site. Here’s the latest report about Twitter’s decline. Monthly active users in the United States fell last quarter.

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April 4, 2017 By Emily Patterson

Tips for Too Much Data, Facebook’s A/B Testing and Breitbart Ad Update

What’s New This Week?

My Ads are Appearing on Breitbart, the Sequel
A few weeks ago I covered advertisers’ frustration (anger? annoyance?) with Google after noticing that their ads ran on Breitbart. Fortunately, there’s a follow up. Google is giving advertisers more control over where their ads appear. Details here in TechCrunch.

Water, Water Everywhere… But Not if Data Can Help It
Apparently, the world loses 30-ish% of its water due to leaks and bursts. With water use rising, water providers are trying to find new ways to reduce waste. One solution is using data to predict leaks, but that goes against the interest of water authorities. They love to look like heroes by fixing bursts. Interesting conundrum! Here’s Harvard Business Review on it.

A/B Testing Facebook-style
Facebook Ads have a new feature. (Yeah, I know I say that every week.) This time it’s pretty cool. With the new feature called “Split Testing,” you can run controlled tests without audience overlap. It works when you run ads with a website conversion, lead generation or mobile app install objective. Learn more here.

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