Get More Camper Leads by Finally Optimizing Your Google Ad Grant Account

Just because you’ve been approved for the Google Ad Grant doesn’t mean your ads are performing. In fact, it’s incredibly difficult to optimize grant ads and start earning impressions.

Impressions here aren’t a vanity metric. They’re the first domino to fall in order to entice clicks, conversions, and ultimately camper leads.

Here’s how to get your account humming and generating qualified leads.

The rules and how to avoid suspension

Google states accounts that violate its policies are, “subject to automatic suspension without notification,” so it’s important to get familiar with this information.

Here are the Ad Grant policies you need to know:

• Click-through rate (CTR): You must maintain a 5% CTR at the account level each month. That means your ads (copy, images, sitelinks, etc.) have to be good enough that 1 in 20 impressions feel compelled to click.
  • Missing the 5% CTR mark for two consecutive months can result in, “temporary account deactivation.”
• Conversions
  • Your account needs at least 1 legitimate conversion each month.
  • What does legitimate mean? Time-on-site and homepage visits don’t count. Google can suspend your account for low-quality conversion actions. Google’s goal is to ensure these essentially donated ads actually provide value for their users.
• Bidding: Accounts created on or after April 22, 2019 must use conversion-based Smart Bidding on every campaign.
  • That means utilizing maximize conversions, maximize conversion value, Target CPA, or Target ROAS.
• Keywords
  • Pause or remove any keywords with a Quality Score of 1 or 2.
  • Single-word keywords aren’t allowed.
  • Overly generic keywords aren't allowed.
• Account structure
  • Ensure you have 2 ad groups per campaign, with 2 ads in each search ad group.
  • You need at least 2 sitelinks.
  • To ensure you’re using proper location targeting, we recommend (1) selecting “Presence” not “Presence or interest” and (2) limiting targeting to at least within your country (not the entire planet).
• Surveys: Respond to any of Google’s program surveys.

Count the right conversions

Google wants your account focusing on legitimate conversion actions ‘cause that’s what’s best for its users.

That includes actions such as email sign-ups, registrations, button clicks, and form fills.

Our suggestions? Don’t make homepage visits, scrolls, or time-on-page a primary conversion.

A common issue we’ve seen: Many accounts optimize for registration button clicks, but those often lead to both registration forms and current-customer logins. See the problem here?

You’re prioritizing an action that your existing camp families are frequently engaging with. You’re not differentiating between new and existing customers.

Critical suggestion: Count completed registrations and inquiries (along with the other viable conversion actions mentioned earlier).

This is one of the single-biggest wins for camps. But it’s difficult to implement, so very few do it. To execute, we recommend consulting your registration platform and website developer. But here are some options for deeper conversion tracking:

1. An option with limits: Utilize Google Click ID (gclid) to track users throughout the process. Your registration platform can store the gclid then provide a report on those users and what actions they took. You can then deliver that report to Google Ads, which will utilize optimize bidding toward people who actually register. Limitations:
   1. This only works when your camp leaders, registration platform, website developer, and whoever manages your Google Ads work in concert.
   2. Users have to use the same browser for the ad click and the registration.
   3. The entire process has to take place within a limited timeframe (up to 90 days, depending on how data is uploaded).
      
2. Most elegant: Embed your registration form on your own site. If your registration platform’s embedded form fires a completion event on your page, your Tag Manager counts the finished registration as a Google Ads conversion directly. The click ID is already stored on your site, so nothing needs uploading.
   
3. Most integrated: Enhanced conversions for leads. Google matches the registrant’s hashed email back to the ad click. Google now recommends this over click ID imports, and it’s a good fallback when your platform can’t store the gclid. Limitation:
   1. To turn on enhanced conversions, your site has to capture the family’s email in a form first.
      
4. Easiest to set up: A thank-you page back on your site. If your registration platform can send families to a confirmation page on your domain once they complete registration, that specific page view counts as a meaningful conversion.

Bidding strategies

When bidding in an Ad Grant account, you must use Smart Bidding strategies (at least for accounts created on or after Apr 22, 2019). Smart Bidding includes strategies such as maximize conversions, maximize conversion value, target CPA, and target ROAS.

What we’ve seen: A max-clicks strategy doesn’t work well. Conversion-based bidding is the key to success here.

Understand impression share early and often

Impression share tells you how frequently you win auctions and show up in ad placements. Without being seen (impressions), you can’t get clicks. Without clicks, you can’t convert quality leads.

To view impression share in your campaign report, add these two columns:

1. Search impr. share
2. Search lost IS (rank)

• How to: Log in to Google Ads > click Campaigns in the left-side menu > click Campaigns > click Columns > search for the two options above > click Save & apply

If you’re losing on ad rank, that means your ads and landing pages are either (1) low-quality or (2) not relevant to searchers or (3) not relevant to one another. Solutions?

Spend time rewriting your ad copy to provide real value to the family searching, and redesign or rewrite your landing page to not only match the ad but to build upon it. A good landing page concisely tells your story and makes it easy for people to convert.

Oftentimes we see camps that have high CTRs and may even convert well, but they’re not utilizing much of the up-to-$10,000 Ad Grant. They’re not getting seen. Solutions? A couple tests that may help:

1. Consolidate your ad or asset groups into one or two campaigns to gain traction. When fewer campaigns capture more clicks and conversions, Smart Bidding has more data to learn from.
2. Broaden your targeting. We’re not saying to target the entire planet, but you may be losing out on visibility if you restrict your targeting too much.

Target where your campers actually come from

If you have location data from your registration platform, use it. Create or request a report that gives you a few years’ worth of campers’ home cities. If you’re already garnering impressions and spending your Ad Grant budget well, this can be a great way to boost conversions.

Utilize “Presence” targeting, not “Presence or interest.” How? Click the settings gear icon to the right of your campaign name. Then scroll to Locations > open Location options > select “Presence: People in or regularly in your included locations.”

Brief case study: One account we worked with had 55% of its spend in campaigns with no location targeting, and 17% of its total spend reached people abroad or outside its market.

Keywords and search terms

A few useful tips here:

• When structuring campaigns, it’s typically best to split them into branded and non-branded. The same goes for keywords.
• Add negative keywords by theme: staff jobs, other camps, adult programs, and other themes you’re not trying to capture traffic for.
• Being specific beats being general, especially in a Grant account: "overnight summer camp in northern Michigan” > “summer camp.”

And don’t forget Google’s Ad Grant keyword policies:

• Pause or remove any keywords with a Quality Score of 1 or 2.
• Single-word keywords aren’t allowed.
• Overly generic keywords aren't allowed.

Structure: Fewer, stronger campaigns

We’ve already covered this, but it’s good to reiterate. Splitting conversions across too many campaigns can starve Smart Bidding of data.

Consider consolidating to a branded and non-branded campaign, with multiple ad groups and ads within each.

Seasonality

Google Trends shows “summer camp” interest climbs in December, peaks in spring, and drops through late summer and fall.

Use the fall to rebuild and optimize so you’re prepared before inquiry season.

Google Trends, United States, past five years.

The monthly check

Each month, we recommend:

• Review change history (who made what changes in the account).
  • Google Ads > Campaigns > Change history
• Keep auto-apply recommendations turned off.
• Check conversion health.
• Check the impression share columns.
• Make one change at a time and wait 14 days before judging it.

Want to drive more leads without worrying about everything in this article?

Then it’s time to work with CampAds. We’re a small, independent team of Google Ads experts. And we know how to help camps drive more leads through Google Ads and the Ad Grant.

Ready to learn more? Book an intro call here.

— Cullan